By MICK ROBERTS ©
FATE dealt an elderly pensioner a cruel and fatal blow outside a Sydney pub just three days before Christmas, 1948.
Like today, Surry Hills at the corner of Crown and Cleveland Streets, outside the Crown Hotel, was a busy thoroughfare for pedestrians at the time, and the perfect place to sell newspapers.
While doing a friend a favour, minding his Surry Hills newspaper stall, a freak explosion would suddenly end the life of 67-year-old Caroline ‘Carrie’ Harler.
Miss Harler lived in the same Clevelend Street residential flats as the newspaper stand’s owner, 64-year-old Alexander Richman. She was looking after Richman’s stand while he made a newspaper delivery.
The stand was almost a fixture under the awning of the Crown Hotel during the 1940s.
The time was approaching 10am on Wednesday, December 23, 1948, and staff inside the Crown were preparing for opening when the massive explosion shook the building to its foundations.
Richman, who was returning to his stall, narrowly escaped being buried under an avalanche of bricks. His friend, however, wasn’t as lucky, and she was pinned under tonnes of debris. Miss Harler died almost instantly.
Inside the pub, barmaid, Dorothy Floyd was hurled across the bar, the floor of which was strewn with broken bricks. One of the barmen, Bruce Lodesman, told newspaper reporters that he was hurled more than 10 feet across the bar by the blast, and struck another barman in flight.
The other barman, John Bassington, said: “I had just moved from one end of the bar when the blast hurled me along the side wall. I was dazed, but I looked about me and noticed Bruce and Dot were also dazed. We all thought the building had been blown up.”
Lodesman and Bassington rushed outside the pub and helped to move the debris from the body of Miss Harler. Later, Lodesman, Bassington, Richman, and Mrs Floyd would receive treatment at St. Vincent’s Hospital for bruises and shock.
Huge slabs of bricks and tiles had crashed onto Miss Harler, crushing her and blocking the footpath. The inside of the hotel was littered with large pieces of stone and bricks.
Police said they were satisfied the explosion was accidental. Darlinghurst police found that gas from an unlit pilot light had filled the cavity between the inner and outer brick walls of the hotel causing the explosion.
A coroner later found Miss Harler had died as the result of an accidental gas explosion at the Crown Hotel.
© Copyright Mick Roberts 2026
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