Cornhill Collapse
At 3 minutes to midnight on 6th August 1927 part of the 6 storey Commercial Union building in Cornhill London fell, floor by floor, into a 55 ft deep pit. The pit had been dug alongside the building as part of excavations for the new Lloyds Bank head office which was being built next door. Eye-witnesses described the ground shaking — and the noise, which was like a series of bombs falling, was heard nearly a mile away.
Fortunately, the building did not fall without warning. Workmen digging in the pit had heard ominous sounds of cracking earlier in the day. Between 50 and 100 men had worked for ten hours in a losing battle to underpin the building with concrete.
At around 11 the caretaker, Mr Bounds, was warned of the danger and was moved out of the building to safety along with his wife and young daughter and two maids.
At 11.30 a crack appeared which gradually spread down the side of the structure until the west wall of the building just peeled off. The spectators — a crowd of about 1000 people many of whom were on their way home from the theatre — heard the cracking of window glass and crashes as heavy coping stones fell. As the top floor wall broke open they could see the light left on by the caretaker followed by a flash as the electricity fused. Then there were noises of burst gas and water mains followed by huge clouds of dust.
When the dust cleared the searchlights of the fire brigade picked out what was left of the building. It was, as one contemporary newspaper put it, as though ‘some giant wielded a knife in the manner of cutting a mammoth birthday cake.’
The following morning the extent of the damage could be seen in the light of day. Twisted and bent iron girders hung from the inside wall showing where the floor had been. High on the top storey a bathroom boiler clung to the wall. Lower down, on the wall of what had been the directors’ dining room, a picture swung in the breeze — ironically depicting ancient classical ruins.
Newspaper accounts described seeing through the missing walls to the neat pans and meat covers in the kitchens on the top floor and the exposed desks, chairs and books resting on the edges of fragments of rooms.
In the pit below the pavement level, the fallen debris was a mass of bricks, mortar and window frames. Amongst this could be seen books, desks, chairs, and an occasional safe. Nothing was holding up the busy roadway of Cornhill in front of the pit. Pipes and cables hung from under the road looking like necklaces.
Members of Commercial Union staff were at the scene early that Sunday morning. Several directors and the company secretary, Mr Dewhirst, took off their coats and joined in the salvage efforts to rescue furniture and papers from the dust and debris. The accounts department formed a human chain to move their books to safety and pile them up in the entrance hall.
There were large crowds of spectators eager to see what had happened to one of the landmarks of the square mile and to view the large crack that had appeared in what was one of the main routes between the East End and the docks and Covent Garden. They were no doubt attracted by newspaper headlines proclaiming, ‘Cornhill Collapse’, ‘Cornhill Chasm’ and — my personal favourite — ‘Cornhill’s pit of peril’.
According to the newspaper reports, thousands came to view the building and barriers had to be put up at either end of Cornhill to keep the sightseers safe. They came on foot or by bicycle from the East End and from further afield in charabancs, motor buses and cars. One paper reported that the spectators cheered as staff worked to rescue the company’s records: ‘The strangest sight of all however was the clerical staff of the assurance company working strenuously removing from exposed rooms high up books and papers. These salvage operations appealed to the sporting instincts of the crowd and they cheered again and again’.
In all, several hundred members of staff arrived on that Sunday to help rescue the ledgers and other papers. They were moved to safety in the basement of the Royal Exchange building opposite which had kindly been made available to the company. The photograph below shows Reg Webster and John Allen moving records of the consequential loss department.
One member of staff, John Ray, was even presented with an engraved gold watch in recognition of his work salvaging records after the collapse.
The watch is now in the archive collection along with a door handle which was presumably rescued from the debris and later suitably engraved.
Mr Lovegrove, the dangerous structures inspector for the City of London, cut short his holiday to inspect the damage. Although only a small part of the building had fallen, he considered the entire Commercial Union head office was too dangerous for them to use.
The directors, general manager, and company secretary met on Monday 8th August to decide on a course of action. Firstly they agreed to appoint the architect firm of Sir Aston Webb (who had had designed the Victoria and Albert Museum and the new façade of Buckingham Palace) to look at what could be done with their building. Then they instructed solicitors to inform Lloyds Bank that they held them responsible for the collapse. Finally, they agreed to move to the ground and first floors of Adelaide House for ‘annual rent of not exceeding £29,700 for 2 years’.
By Wednesday the 10th August the company’s staff of over 400 had begun the move to their temporary offices. Commercial Union was proud of its ‘business as usual’ attitude and reported that there had been ‘no delay at all in dealing with home fire insurance claims’. Both the staff magazine and a booklet on the collapse produced for staff and customers, described how the heavy mahogany counters — topped with racks of proposals — had been moved to their new home so that fire and accident insurance business could carry on. By the 15th August the life department had moved in and ‘already has 130,000 of its records close at hand and expects shortly to have another 100,000’. The modern office space at Adelaide House brought advantages such as an open plan layout which allowed the home and foreign fire departments to operate from the same space for the first time. The building also boasted a roof garden with flowers, fruit trees, and an 18-hole putting green.
The company’s positive response to the collapse enhanced its reputation. It was described in the insurance press as ‘the largest and most vigorously and relentlessly progressive of British insurance offices’. The Investor’s Review saw the speed with which the company had moved to its temporary accommodation and the way it had carried on serving its customers as ‘fresh evidence of its vitality and sound organisation’. It reported that confidence in the company was clear from the fact that its £2 10s fully paid up shares were trading at £25 11/16.
The collapse also gave Commercial Union the opportunity to improve its outdated office accommodation. The board took the decision not to repair the damaged building but rather to pull it down and start again. They negotiated with their neighbours to alter the position of Change Alley and made use of ‘modern engineering resources’ to make the site more useable.
The architect, Maurice Webb, reported that in the old building a fifth of the site at ground floor level was taken up by the brickwork required for walls and piers. The modern steel frame of the new building freed up this valuable lost space and allowed the construction of large more open plan offices with room for nearly 150 additional desks.
When the Second World War began, 10 years after the new building opened, the steel frame and modern construction meant that a strong shelter could be built in the basement and the company had no need to evacuate staff away from London.
Various theories were proposed for the cause of the collapse. Some blamed vibrations from the heavy traffic while others put it down to the problems of the clay soil or underground rivers like the Walbrook which ran nearby. Commercial Union and Lloyds Bank came to a private agreement for compensation. The bank made a payment of £80,000 and indemnified Commercial Union against any future claims by third parties such as its tenants Canton Insurance, Triton Insurance, and Law Accident whose offices had been in the collapsed part of the building. This appears to have been a fair compromise especially considering the Commercial Union’s board had initially asked for £103,200 — to include £51,000 for the rent of temporary offices, £40,000 for the restoration of the building, and £2,000 for the loss of furniture, safes and fittings.
