The New Cross house fire was a

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

that occurred during a party at a house in

New Cross New Cross is an area in south east London, England, south-east of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Lewisham and the SE14 postcode district. New Cross is near St Johns, Telegraph Hill, Nunhead, Peckham, Brockley, Deptford and Greenwich, ...

, south-east

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, in the early hours of Sunday, 18 January 1981. The blaze killed 13 young black people aged between 14 and 22, and one survivor took his own life two years later. No one has ever been charged in connection with the fire, which forensic science subsequently established started inside the house. Inquests into the deaths were held in 1981 and 2004. Both inquests recorded

open verdict The open verdict is an option open to a coroner's jury at an inquest in the legal system of England and Wales. The verdict means the jury confirms the death is suspicious, but is unable to reach any other verdicts open to them. Mortality studies c ...

s. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, a New Cross Massacre Action Committee (NCMAC) was set up, chaired by

John La Rose John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

, which organised a "Black People's Day of Action" on 2 March 1981, when some 20,000 people marched over a period of eight hours through London, carrying placards that bore statements including: "13 Dead, Nothing Said".

Fire

A forensic science report produced for the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

in 2011 ruled out a firebomb attack, finding instead that the fire had started when somebody in the house set fire to a foam-filled armchair in the front room of the property at 5:40 am on Sunday morning. There had been some early complaints from neighbours about excessive noise from the party. A white

Austin Princess The Austin Princess is a series of large luxury cars that were made by Austin and its subsidiary Vanden Plas from 1947 to 1968. The cars were also marketed under the Princess and Vanden Plas marque names. The Princess name was also used as fo ...

car was seen driving away from the fire. The party was a joint birthday celebration for Yvonne Ruddock (one of the victims of the fire) and Angela Jackson (who survived) and was held at No. 439, New Cross Road. It began on the evening of Saturday, 17 January 1981, and continued throughout the night and into the early hours of Sunday, 18 January.

Victims

The victims of the fire were all young Black, Mixed Race, British people between the ages of 14 and 22. They were: A survivor of the fire, Anthony Berbeck, apparently died by suicide on 9 July 1983 by jumping from the balcony of a block of council flats in south London. He had been traumatised by the death of his friends in the blaze.

Inquests

Police also ruled out the theory that a fight had taken place. The

inquest An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a coro ...

into the deaths of the 13 teenagers, began on 21 April 1981. The initial police suspicion was that the party had been

firebombed Firebombing is a bombing technique designed to damage a target, generally an urban area, through the use of fire, caused by incendiary devices, rather than from the blast effect of large bombs. In popular usage, any act in which an incendiary ...

, either as a revenge attack or in an attempt to stop the noise; there was also an alternative theory that a fight had broken out, from which the blaze emanated. The jury returned an

. In 2002, a new action in the High Court led to an order for a second inquest, which was held in 2004. This second inquest also resulted in an open verdict. The coroner said that the fire was probably started deliberately by one of the guests, but as he could not be sure of this, he returned an open verdict.

Aftermath

One week after the fire, on 25 January, a meeting was held at the Moonshot Club in New Cross, attended by more than one thousand people. The meeting concluded with a march to the scene of the fire and a demonstration there, which blocked New Cross Road for several hours. The New Cross Massacre Action Committee (NCMAC) was set up, chaired by

,"New Cross Massacre Campaign"

George Padmore Institute The George Padmore Institute (GPI), founded in 1991 in Stroud Green Road, North London, by John La Rose (1927–2006) and a group of political and cultural activists connected to New Beacon Books,George Padmore Institute The George Padmore Institute (GPI), founded in 1991 in Stroud Green Road, North London, by John La Rose (1927–2006) and a group of political and cultural activists connected to New Beacon Books, The Black Power group Black Unity and Freedom Party (BUFP) published an account of what happened on the night of the fire in their journal, ''Black Voice''. The New Cross fire, described by

Darcus Howe Leighton Rhett Radford "Darcus" Howe (26 February 1943 – 1 April 2017)"Civil ...

in 2011 as "the blaze we cannot forget", is significant as a turning point in the relationship between Black Britons, the police and the media, and marks an "intergenerational alliance to expose racism, injustices and the plight of black Britons".

Black People's Day of Action

The Action Committee organised a "Black People's Day of Action" on 2 March, when 20,000 people marched over a period of eight hours from

Fordham Park Fordham Park is a public park in New Cross, London, England, owned and managed by the London Borough of Lewisham. It lies in between New Cross and New Cross Gate railway stations, and just north of the A2 road between London and Dover. It is imme ...

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

carrying placards that bore statements including: "Thirteen Dead, Nothing Said", "No Police Cover-Up" and "Blood Aga Run If Justice Na Come". One slogan read: "Dame Jill Knight Set The Fire Alight!"; an apparent reference to a controversial speech by Dame Jill Knight, a right-wing member of the ruling

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

, which was widely interpreted as condoning or even encouraging "direct action" against noisy parties. ''

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

'' described the march as "the largest mass movement for racial justice on British soil at the time", but also noted that "journalists stationed in the offices of

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...

chanted monkey noises at the protestors down below."

Memorials

On 14 January 2011, an event called "Remembering the New Cross Fire 30 Years On" was held at the

Albany Theatre The Albany is a multi-purpose arts centre in Deptford, south-east London. Facilities include a flexible performance space holding up to 300 seated or 500 standing and a bar, two studio theatres, a performance cafe and rehearsal / meeting rooms. T ...

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home to Deptford Dock ...

. The event was hosted by

Kwame Kwei-Armah Kwame Kwei-Armah (born Ian Roberts; 24 March 1967 in Hillingdon, London) is a British actor, playwright, director, singer and broadcaster. He is best known for playing paramedic Finlay Newton in the BBC medical drama ''Casualty'' from 1999 unti ...

and was an evening of spoken word, film, discussion and

Lovers rock Lovers' rock is a style of reggae music noted for its romantic sound and content. While love songs had been an important part of reggae since the late 1960s, the style was given a greater focus and a name in London in the mid-1970s.Larkin, Col ...

music. It featured contributions from

Alex Pascall Alex Pascall, OBE (born November 1936), is a British broadcaster, journalist, musician, composer, oral historian and educator. Based in Britain for more than 50 years, he was one of the developers of the Notting Hill Carnival, is a political cam ...

Gus John Augustine John (born 11 March 1945)Biography
, Gus John website. is a Grenada, Grenadian-born writer, e ...

, filmmaker

Menelik Shabazz Menelik Shabazz (30 May 1954 – 28 June 2021) was a Barbados-born British film director, producer, educator, and writer, acknowledged as a pioneer in the development of independent Black British cinema, having been at the forefront of contempor ...

, novelist

Courttia Newland Courttia Newland (born 25 August 1973) is a British writer of Jamaican and Barbadian heritage. Background Born in 1973 in west London, to parents of Caribbean heritage, Newland grew up in Shepherd's Bush, where he became a rapper and music ...

and musicians

Janet Kay Janet Kay Bogle (born 17 January 1958) is an English actor and vocalist, best known for her 1979 lovers rock hit "Silly Games". Biography Janet Kay Bogle was born in Willesden, North West London. She was discovered singing impromptu at a rehea ...

and

Carroll Thompson Carroll Thompson is a British lovers rock singer, best known as the "Queen of Lovers Rock" Biography Thompson was born in England and is of Jamaican descent. Thompson undertook classical piano training on the piano and sang in school and chur ...

. Many of the victims' families and the survivors attended the event. St. Andrew's Church in

Brockley Brockley is a district and an wards of the United Kingdom, electoral ward of south London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham south-east of Charing Cross. History The name Brockley is derived from "Broca's woodland clearing", a wood ...

has a strong connection with the victims, as many of them attended the youth club there. In October 2002, Lewisham council installed a special stained-glass window at the church in their memory. On 16 January 2011, a memorial service was held there, with speakers including George Francis, chair of the New Cross Fire Parents' Committee,

Lewisham Council Lewisham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Lewisham in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council is unusual in that its executi ...

leader

Steve Bullock Steve, Steven, or Stephen Bullock may refer to: *Steve Bullock (British politician) (born 1953), first directly elected mayor of the London Borough of Lewisham *Steve Bullock (American politician) (born 1966), 24th Governor of Montana (2013–2021) ...

and

Joan Ruddock Dame Joan Mary Ruddock, (née Anthony; born 28 December 1943) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lewisham Deptford from 1987 to 2015. Ruddock was Minister of State for Energy at the Departmen ...

, MP for Lewisham Deptford. The victims were also commemorated in January 2011 with a blue plaque from

Nubian Jak Community Trust Nubian Jak Community Trust (NJCT) is a commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme founded by Jak Beula that highlights the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The first NJCT heritage plaque, honouring Bob Marley, ...

. There is a stone memorial in

, Deptford, listing those who died; facing the stone memorial is a bench with a memorial inscription. Both were installed in 2012. There is also a memorial to the victims consisting of a park bench, plus 13 trees with a plaque at either end, on

Hackney Downs Hackney Downs is a park and an area of historically common land in the Lower Clapton area of the London Borough of Hackney. The name is sometimes also used to apply to the neighbourhood around the park. Hackney Downs Park The Downs open space ...

in east London, and a memorial plaque on the wall of Catford Civic Hall listing the names of the "fourteen young people who died in the New Cross Fire of 18th January 1981". In 2017, the "13 Dead, Nothing Said" exhibition was hosted at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wor ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. The exhibition shows photographs documenting the Black People's Day of Action, taken by

Vron Ware Vron Ware is a British academic and visiting professor at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was previously a Professor at Kingston University editor of ''Searchlight'' magazine from 1981 to 1983, a ...

, who had attended the march on 2 March 1981.

Depiction in media

In 2020, a

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

documentary entitled "From the Ashes of New Cross", an episode in the series ''Lights Out'', was broadcast to mark the 40th anniversary of the fire. The New Cross fire and the protests that followed were part of the Steve McQueen co-directed television documentary series ''

Uprising Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority. A rebellion originates from a sentiment of indignation and disapproval of a situation and ...

'' shown on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

in July 2021. The New Cross fire and the protests that followed are pivotal to the 2020

Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of the counterculture of the 1960s, made him a top box-office draw for his films of the late 1950s, 1960s, and 1 ...

drama ''

Alex Wheatle Alex Alphonso Wheatle MBE (Order of the British Empire), MBE (born 3 January 1963) is a British novelist, who was sentence (law), sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the 1981 Brixton riot in London. Biography Born in 1963 in London to J ...

'', part of the filmmaker's '' Small Axe'' series for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

. In March 2018, poet

Jay Bernard Jay Bernard may refer to: *Jay Bernard (writer) Jay Bernard (born 1988), FRSL, is a British writer, artist, film programmer, and activist from London, UK. Bernard has been a programmer at BFI Flare since 2014, co-editor of ''Oxford Poetry'', an ...

's performance work investigating the fire, ''Surge: Side A'', won the 2017

Ted Hughes Award The Ted Hughes Award is an annual prize given to a living UK poet for new work in poetry. It is awarded each spring in recognition of a work from the previous year. Background The award was established in 2009 with the permission of Carol Hughes i ...

for new poetry. '' Blood Ah Go Run'', a 1981 film by

, documents the response of the Black community to the fire. The deaths in the fire were commemorated or mentioned in a number of reggae songs and poems at the time, including

Johnny Osbourne Johnny Osbourne (born Errol Osbourne, 1948) is one of the most popular Jamaican reggae and dancehall singers of all time, who rose to success in the late 1970s and mid-1980s. His album '' Truths and Rights'' was a roots reggae success, and featu ...

's "13 Dead and Nothing Said",

Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958)Gregory, Andy (2002), ''International Who's Who in Popular Music 2002'', Europa, p. 562. . is a British writer and dub poet. He was included in ''The Times'' list of Britain's top 50 post-wa ...

's "13 Dead",

Linton Kwesi Johnson Linton Kwesi Johnson (born 24 August 1952), also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His ...

's "New Crass Massakah" and

UB40 UB40 are an English reggae and pop band, formed in December 1978 in Birmingham, England. The band has had more than 50 singles in the UK Singles Chart, and has also achieved considerable international success. They have been nominated for the ...

's "Don't Let It Pass You By". The events are referenced in

The Young'uns The Young'uns are an English folk group from Stockton-on-Tees, Stockton, County Durham, England, who won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards "Best Group" award in 2015 and 2016 and “Best Album” for ''Strangers'' in 2018. They specialise in singing u ...

song "These Hands" on the album ''Strangers'', which won

BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards The BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards celebrate outstanding achievement during the previous year within the field of folk music, with the aim of raising the profile of folk and acoustic music. The awards have been given annually since 2000 by British ra ...

"Best Album" 2018. Rex Obano's radio play ''Lover's Rock'' (

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

, broadcast on November 2012) is a fictional account of the events leading up to the New Cross Fire.

References

External links

"1981: Nine die in New Cross house fire"
– BBC News "On this Day".
Picture taken at New Cross March

Remembering the New Cross Fire 30 Years On - promotional video
* Professor Les Back
"New Crass Massahkah: Remembering the fire at 439 New Cross Road"
Published on 14 January 2016. {{coord, 51.4757, -0.0304, type:event_region:GB-LEW, display=title 1981 fires in the United Kingdom 1981 in London Black British history Building and structure fires in London History of the London Borough of Lewisham January 1981 events in Europe

House fire A structure fire is a fire involving the structural components of various types of residential, commercial or industrial buildings, such as barn fires. Residential buildings range from single-family detached homes and townhouses to apartments ...

Residential building fires