“Trow at Once ran to the Canal and Jumped in to the Rescue…” Or: The Heroics of a Victorian Tram Conductor:

In the 1700’s, at the height of the industrial revolution, canals cut across the green and pleasant land of Britain. They were to the 1760’s what railways were to the 1860’s; the veins of commerce pumping life from city to city, keeping the heart of industry pumping. Canals were densely packed virtually all the way from Liverpool to London via all the big manufacturing centres such as Birmingham and Sheffield in order to transport large materials or items in a mass and speed that was unachievable on roads at the time, especially for large freight such as coal (the price of which dropped dramatically once it could be transported in bulk by canal, as opposed to the more costly, time consuming and inefficient transport by road) When the railways came, however, the efficacy of the canal was trumped. Trains were much faster and could carry even more freight. In time, transport of goods via train became cheaper, too, and use of the canals declined.

Throughout England’s history, 56 canals have been abandoned, either reclaimed by nature, left as water-less ditches or filled in and urbanized. One such abandoned canal was the Newcastle-under-Lyme canal in Staffordshire. But why have I decided to write about a canal that was opened in 1800 and officially closed in 1935? What on earth is Victorian about that? Well, sometimes I find it can be more fun researching 19^th century events that are a little lesser known to the greater world. I find it can add fine detail and almost ‘humanize’ the behemoth that is the Victorian period if a little story like this is examined rather than a big story, such as, say, a war.

So, why am I writing about a now-disused canal in Staffordshire?

Well, in April 1894 the canal witnessed an act of Victorian heroism that is still commemorated in the area to this day.

The Newcastle-under-Lyme canal ran alongside London Road in Hanley, Staffordshire (although now there is no trace of it) and this road was served by a tram. On 13^th April 1894, the conductor of the tram was twenty-two year old local man Timothy Trow, and as his tram approached London road, four-year-old Jane Ridgeway was playing on the towpath…

Richard H. Weir, in his 1980’s Staffordshire-themed book ‘Six of the Best: A Potteries Companion’ describes the events that took place next:

‘Imagine the scene in 1894. In those days London Road was a cobbled highway, resounding to the screech of steam-trams as they slowed to a halt near this spot. Between pavement and water's edge were iron railings and a row of tall trees. As a tram drew close at 4 o'clock, one April afternoon, its young conductor heard screams coming from the canal. He looked up and, seeing a little girl, terrified and flailing desperately to stay afloat, wasted no time in vaulting the railings and plunging into the chill water to her rescue. By fate's intervention, he was tragically seized by a violent cramp and sank like a stone to the bottom. The child was later pulled out alive.’

A more detailed – if less pleasing to the imagination – version of the incident was reported in a midlands newspaper three days later following the coroner’s inquest:

STOKE-ON-TRENT

The Sad Death of a Tramway Conductor.

On Saturday Mr. J. Booth (coroner) held an inquest on the body of Timothy Trow (22), a conductor in the employ of the North Staffordshire Tramways Company, who met with his death while attempting to save a child from drowning. The previous afternoon deceased was in charge of the car working on the London Road section of the tramways. About a Quarter past four o'clock, just as the car was about to start from the West End terminus, attention was attracted by the sound of a splash in the adjoining canal, and on observing that a little girl had fallen into the water, Trow at once ran to the canal and jumped in to the rescue. He walked part of the way across, until be was up to the waist, when he suddenly sank very much deeper, and called out to his fellow workman, the engine driver, that he had the cramp. He appeared to become helpless, and a Mr. Henry Lloyd, of Berresford Street, Shelton, entered the canal to his assistance.

Deceased got hold of and struggled with to Lloyd, who was ultimately obliged to leave him to ensure his own safety, and Lloyd, being also seized with cramp, had to he assisted on to the towing-path. In the meantime the child had been rescued by John Forrester, of Wellesley Street, Shelton, who also made an attempt to reach the deceased, but without avail. Everything, in fact, was done to rescue Trow, but the efforts proved futile, and the body of the deceased was not recovered until about half an hour later.

The Coroner said that there could be no doubt that Trow lost his life in an heroic attempt to save that of the child, and appeared equally clear that the conduct of the other persons present when this distressing fatality occurred was very laudable.

The Jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death.”

            - Birmingham Daily Post, April 16^th 1894

Such was the empathy of local people for Trow’s actions they collected money for a memorial to be erected to remember him. The obelisk is still standing today, as can be seen below, sitting next to where the towpath of the canal would have been until 1935.

The Obelisk on London Road Today

 So there we have a tiny piece of the nineteenth century jigsaw to add to the whole wonderful patchwork puzzle. Old newspapers can be an excellent source to find stories such as these, and even lesser stories, long forgotten by everyone, but which deeply affected people at the time they happened. I know its something I keep saying, but if you like history and enjoy researching, then I do recommend you try and get hold of an old newspaper and scan through the pages, it’s a great way to pass an hour or two!

"And Finally..." Or: The Joy of Old Newspapers:

One of my hobbies – much to the chagrin of Miss Amateur Casual – is collecting Victorian newspapers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a crazed hoarder; I don’t have piles and piles of mouldy old papers lying around, I have twenty or thirty Victorian papers (and I do keep them filed in nice folders!) and enjoy taking them out every so often to thumb through the pages and see what was happening in the news at the time of publication.

This, I find, is an excellent way of picking up the minutiae of an era. Little stories that faded away with the passing of not-very-much time at all can sometimes say more about the feelings of an age than the big events that still echo down through history today; and even if they don’t – it can still be very interesting to read stories and snippets that have been long forgotten.

(Incidentally, there is an excellent – but I fear now derelict – blog that scoured old newspapers for just these types of story, ‘An Extraordinary Incident’ found here is well-worth thirty minutes of anybody’s internet browsing time.)

But clearly I have mentioned my interest in such things out-loud, as it was detected by Thomas Walker over at the excelent historic-newspapers.co.uk who furnished me with three wonderfully presented copies of Victorian newspapers from which I have gleaned the following stories. The first concerns an Elephant. (Not for the first time in these parts; this post from almost two years ago about a runaway elephant in 1860’s Swindon was, I recall, quite popular when I originally published it, and is exactly the kind of wonderful story that I was talking about in my opening paragraphs. You can read it here: here )

And now onto our second elephant story:

Jumbo and his Friends
The large male African elephant at the zoological society's Gardens in Regent's Park has gained weekly and daily in popularity, since his refusal to go to the docks and embark for America, in accordance with the bargain for his sale to Mr. P. T Barnum and others at New York. Never were such crowds of visitors to the Gardens at this early period of the season, all thronging to the elephant house, or watching the huge animal in his customary promenade, in another part of the grounds, and offering him an unusual quantity and variety of eatables, while the eagerness of children and young girls to ride on his back is beyond all precedent. The number of people at the Gardens last Monday was twenty-four thousand; on Saturday, nearly seven thousand. There were 43,653 admissions last week

Engraving from the ILN taken from a photo by messrs. Briggs and son.

The newly constructed box, or van, in which it is hoped Jumbo will soon be removed to the docks at Millwall, if he can once be confined in it, is a massive vehicle, of the dimensions necessary for an elephant that stands eleven feet high, and that weighs between five and six tons. The frame of the van is composed of solid balks, morticed, bolted, and over all heavily clamped with iron. The flooring is of three-inch planks, and the sides and roof are lined with inch-and-a-half deal. The van is of such strength as is calculated to resist twice or thrice the force that even this powerful brute could possibly bring to bear against it. Important changes have been made in its formation, and still more in the trolley upon which it is fixed; so that, instead of being four feet above the ground, the floor of the van will only be raised about eight inches. It is, for the present, sunk to the level of the ground, which has been dug out for the purpose, and the floor covered with gravel. Axles of enormous strength have been fitted with special boxes and wheels, the width of the lower structure being governed by that of the gateway through which the van is to leave the Gardens. In the mean time, it is arranged as a kind of trap, with both ends left open, and being placed opposite the door of Jumbo's house, on the way to his exercise-ground and bathing-pool, he is becoming accustomed to walk through it, which he did for the first time on Saturday. The doors of the van will be suddenly closed upon him, at some convenient opportunity, when he is in chains, and the chains will be attached to the strong rings fixed inside the van, after which, it is thought, he cannot make any further resistance. The weight of elephant and van together will be about ten tons, which must be drawn by horses six miles through the streets from Camden Town to Millwall. Having reached the docks, a steam-crane will be employed to hoist up Jumbo in his box, and to put him into the ship which is to carry him to New York.

In the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice last week Mr. Justice Chitty refused to grant an injunction restraining the Council of the Zoological Society from selling this elephant and Mr. Barnum's agent from removing him to America. The injunction was applied for by Mr. Berkeley Hill, one of the Fellows of the society, whose counsel argued that it was not legally in the power of the Council so to dispose of animals valuable for the study of natural history. Dr. P.L Sclater, the secretary of the Gardens, and Mr. A.B Bartlett, superintendent of the Gardens, were called as witnesses to state that it would be inconvenient, and perhaps dangerous, to keep Jumbo there till the age when he would become liable to certain fits of rage. The application was, therefore, dismissed by the court. 

 - Illustrated London News March 18 1882

The story of Jumbo was very popular with the press and the public. The elephant had resided at London Zoo for seventeen years, until, in 1882, an offer wad received for him from the American circus, Barnum’s. The press was awash with stories of the cruelty of the zoo, who were tearing Jumbo away from his home and lifelong mate for the sake of money.

The truth of the matter was that Jumbo, in his old age, had become quite temperamental, and was prone to fits of violence. The zoo was faced with two choices; sell him, or put him down. Eventually he was sold to Barnum’s, and saw out his days in the circus.

From a light-hearted story to one that is anything but; I have had this article written for a couple of months now, but haven’t got around to posting it, and so I thought I would use it now as an example of an event or piece of news from the Victorian era that some people may not have heard of, and could have easily been forgotten. For a number of reasons this event was significant, not least for the tragedy of it, but also for the advances in the fields of forensic science and health and safety that came out of it.

Over the last few months, to coincide with the Diamond Jubilee I’ve written a lot of posts about various aspects of the first ever Diamond Jubilee – that of Queen Victoria in 1897. This article, however, concerns another event that occurred in the Diamond Jubilee year, but one that could not be further from the celebrations seen on the shores of Great Britain.

This event took place, not in England, but France, specifically Paris, and was a disaster that evoked sympathy from all over the globe.

The Bazar de la Charite was a fundraising event held annually at various locations from 1885. The event was organized by the aristocracy, and was attended by the upper classes of France. The 1897 event was held within a stones-throw of the Champs Elysees and Le Grand Palais at Rue Jean Goujon in Paris. The venue was a large shed made of wood – extremely large, at over eighty metres long and thirteen wide – within which was a faux medieval street as part of the entertainment. A piece of more modern entertainment was situated close by; in a room was a Lumiere Brothers’ cinematograph.

The cinematograph had been invented in the early 1890’s, and the inventor is unclear. The device was developed and improved throughout the decade until finally the Lumiere brothers, Auguste and louis patented it. They made their first film, Sortie de L’usine Lumiere de Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumiere factory in Lyon) in 1894, and this was played to the French public at L’Eden Cinema. The following year, in 1895, the brothers organized the first public screenings of cinematograph films in Paris, and two years later their films were the star attraction at the Bazar de la Charite.

On the 4th of May – the second day of the Bazar – the equipment used by the projectionist of these films caught fire (rather than electricity, it had been powered by oxygen and ether) and, with the scenery being made from materials such as cloth, papier mache and wood, it did not take long for the fire to spread. 126 mostly upper class or aristocratic people died in the blaze, and around two hundred more were injured. In the following days, newspapers began to report the grim outcome, detailing how the disaster affected not only the lives of the dead and injured, but also the lives of local people and those connected with the charitable event:

Le Petit Journal depicts the fire

THE PARIS DISASTER. FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.
PARIS, May 7.
The all-absorbing topic here is the catastrophe at the Bazar de la Charite. Many funerals took place today, and nearly all the remainder will take place tomorrow, most of the victims being interred in the country. Tomorrow's ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame will be most imposing. Cardinal Richard, Archbishop of Paris, will preside, and the church will be decorated in the same way as it was for the obsequies of the late President Carnot. President Faure, attended by his military household, will be present, as well as several members of the Cabinet and the Diplomatic Corps. The soli will be sung by MM. Dilmas and Alvarez, of the Opera.

The consequences of the disaster to the poor are far-reaching, as many charities depended absolutely on the Bazaar for existence. The Gaulois suggests a national lottery as the best means of raising funds for the institutions in question; while the Figaro, at the suggestion of Princesse de Wagram, has already opened a public subscription.

The charitable institutions are not the only losers. The Paris season is practically over. Dinner parties and so forth are being cancelled and marriages postponed, and many people will shortly leave for the country, the exodus probably commencing in about a fortnight. The great millinery and dress-making establishments are preparing to dismiss workpeople. A leading dressmaker told me that at least 2,000 families must be in mourning, and that since the catastrophe business has come to a standstill in the middle of the season. Over 100 orders for new dresses had been cancelled.

The impression is the same throughout the Rue de la Paix. Apart from the people who will be thrown out of work and the charitable institutions, there are many other sufferers. Thus, for instance, Madame Hoskier, the wife of the banker, and her daughter, Madame Roland Gosselin, each supported 15 poor families, paying their rents and educating their children. Since the fire there has been a perfect procession of poor to 18, Avenue Friedland, to inquire if their benefactresses were really dead, and there has been but one cry, "What a misfortune; We are lost." I related at the time that the Duchesse d'Uzes had saved the life of one of the female attendants by dragging her along in her flight. The woman did not know who the Duchesse was until she read the incident in the papers, when she called yesterday to thank her rescuer.

In spite of all efforts it has been impossible to discover any traces of the body of the Comte de Luppe, whose husband's despair is painful to see. For two days the Comte de Luppe has scarcely left the Palais de l'lndustrie, where he kept bending over the bodies one after another, only to rise again and say in despairing tones, "No, no, it is not her." Some 24 persons who were supposed to have gone to the Bazaar are missing, and it is considered probable that the bodies of these persons have been completely consumed. An arresting scene took place yesterday on the ground where the Bazaar stood. A closed carriage driven by a coachman with crape-bound hat stopped at the line of policemen who are still keeping back the crowd. The police were ordering the driver to go back, but one of the doors of the carriage opened and a white-haired lady in deep mourning stepped out and approached the officer on duty. "Sir, I have a request to make to you," she said. “My daughter died in this charnel-house. Allow me to enter and pray only for an instant." The officer bowed and ordered the municipal guardsmen to let her pass. When the lady reached the centre of the space she knelt down, the soldiers instinctively presenting arms until she rose a few moments later. After making the sign of the Cross, the bereaved mother then returned to her carriage, the spectators respectfully removing their hats and making way for her.

It appears now to be thoroughly recognised that M. Lupine, the Prefect of Police, had no right to interfere in the affairs of the Bazar de la Charite, but there is a feeling that it is time the police had power to see to the protection of public safety in such cases. A judicial inquiry has been begun, but up to the present, beyond establishing the fact that the fire was caused by the cinematograph, the Magistrate in charge of it has only collected a list of the names of the organisers of the various stalls, and of the persons involved to come to the Bazaar.

Next week he will take the evidence of persons who were in the building when the fire broke out.

PARIS, May 7, Later. All those persons whose disappearance was reported to the police have now been found except six, and as there only remain six unidentified bodies, it is believed they are those of the missing persons. Their names are Countess de Luppe, Mesdames Filon, Jauffred, and Bouvier, and Mesdlles. Chabod and Moret.
- Morning Post - Saturday 08 May 1897

One of the victims of the terrible tragedy was Sophie Charlotte of Bavaria. Also known as the Duchess of Alcenon, she was the sister of Empress Elisabeth, or Sisi as she was affectionately known (Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from 1854 – 1898) Sophie Charlotte and her husband, Prince Ferdinand Phillipe, actually lived in Teddington, London for a while in the late 1860’s, and had their first child together there, Louise d’Orleans, who was born at Bushy House.

Sophie Charlotte

Sophie Charlotte was fifty years of age in 1897, and during the fire at Bazar de la Charite, had repeatedly refused any attempt to rescue her, insisting that the workers all be saved first. By the time it was her turn to be pulled from the inferno she was dead.

One notable outcome for good from the fire was the advance of forensic science. With so many bodies being badly burned and unidentifiable, this was believed to be the first time that dental records were used to identify victims.

Whilst this event is not widely known of, fifteen years previously in Nice, France, a terrible fire broke out in a theatre. The Municipal Theatre had already had a long history of entertainment prior to the disaster, and had been a location for theatrical entertainment since 1776. The story that caught my attention was in one of my old newspapers:

Burning of a theatre at Nice.
A terrible disaster, which has caused the loss of nearly a hundred lives, took place at Nice on the Wednesday night of last week. The Municipal Theatre, at the opera representation of "Lucia di Lammermoor," by a special company of performers from Italy, with Signora Bianca Donadio for "prima donna," was occupied by a large audience. It was the first day of the regatta at Nice, which had brought a great many visitors to the town.

- Illustrated London News, April 1881

Had it not been for thumbing through my old papers, this is an event I would, in all likeliness, never have known about. The fire was caused by a gas explosion (in those days theatre’s would have been lit by gas. Actress Ellen terry mentions in her memoirs that when theatre’s changed from gas lighting to electric the light was not very flattering, and she much preferred the soft and dramatic glow of gas.) After the theatre burned down, it was decided that a replacement should be built. The man charged with this task was Francois Aune, who had studied under Gustave Eiffel.

Fire at The Municipal Theatre in Nice

The new theatre – which incidentally is still standing today – opened in 1885 with a performance of Verdi’s Aida, which seems to be a popular choice of first show for theatre’s reopening after fires; The Royal Opera house in Malta reopened in 1877 with a performance of Aida after burning down in 1873.

And finally…

The above stories are, whilst not being of common knowledge, fairly medium-to-large-scale events. But the real joy of reading old newspapers comes from tiny stories, which have become buried like fossils by the weight of time and which, when revealed, tell little stories which would have affected people’s lives when they occurred.

FATAL TERMINATION TO A BOXING MATCH.

An inquiry was held at Sheffield to-day relative to the death of Michael Moran, aged twenty-seven, a retired champion boxer. While taking part in a boxing-match last week with a man named Maurier he slipped, and his opponent falling upon him caused internal injuries which rendered an operation necessary. Peritonitis, however, supervened, and death ensued. Before his death Moran said that no one was to blame, and a verdict of "accidental death" was returned. A sequel to the international football contest between England and Scotland was enacted in the Glasgow police-courts yesterday. Of those who sung "Scots wha hae," and who cheered the "conquering heroes" on Saturday, no fewer than 252 appeared before the magistrates in the rather undignified role of "drunks."

Some things never change.

If you have an interest in history then I really can recommend getting hold of a newspaper from the past (preferably an original) Even if you’re not interested in the stories, the adverts and correspondence can be fascinating. They can also make wonderful birthday gifts, if you can 
manage to find a newspaper that was published on the day of the person's birth.

If that is an idea that interests you, I can recommend the work of historic-newspapers.co.uk very highly, having sampled some of their super work myself!

“Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me, for of Such is the Kingdom of God” The Victoria Hall Disaster of 1883

The Victorian era was beset by many tragedies of both large and small scale, of both everyday and extraordinary tragic occurrences. The poverty suffered by much of the population, along with the living conditions that went hand in hand is an example of large scale, and yet everyday, commonplace Victorian tragedy. Extraordinary occurrences such as the Whitechapel murders of 1888, the Tay Bridge Disaster, and the Princess Alice Disaster inevitably soaked up more headlines than the ongoing misfortune of a large percent of the population.

Tragedy involving children is always particularly heartbreaking. I have already blogged about the terrible murders committed by Amelia Dyer, the baby farmer who killed at least seven innocent infants. The verb ‘Murder’ can often take the impact away from any historical killing, I think. Whether murder is something that we have seen too many times on television, in films, plays, books and magazine’s, I do not know, but reading about historical tragedies where no murder is involved always carries a heavier tone, I find.

The aforementioned murders of ‘Jack the Ripper’ are a good example of this; despite these crimes being a horrible tragedy, they never appear to be thought of as such, and seem to have become almost pantomime-fare, with the murders themselves almost a side-story against trying to prove or guess the identity of the villain.

(As a remedy to this, I recommend the excellent novel ‘Whitechapel’ by Ian Porter, which is a fact-based novel concentrating on the real lives of the people living in Whitechapel during the time of the murders. An excellent read. Find it on Amazon, here)

But, of course, this post is nothing to do with Jack the Ripper, but rather, the tragic death of 183 children in the Victoria Hall disaster of 1883.

Victoria Hall was built in 1872 in Sunderland as a venue for all sorts of public meetings and entertainment shows. The hall was a very large venue, with seating on the ground floor, a dress circle on the first floor, and above these, a gallery.

Victoria Hall

On Saturday 16^th June 1883, an entertainment show was to take place, when traveling entertainers Mr. and Mrs. Fay were due to perform a children’s variety show. The show contained all the usual things that one may expect to see in a children’s show, such as puppetry, ventriloquism and little magic tricks.

Mr. and Mrs. Fay declared that every child who attended the show would have the chance to get a present after the show had finished. The present, Mr. and Mrs. Fay tantalizingly promised, was; 'The Greatest Treat for Children Ever Given'. 

To further ensure that plenty of children would turn up, the entrance fee to the show was a very modest 1d.

On the day of the performance two thousand excited children between the ages of three and fourteen turned up at the hall, entered, took their places and waited for the show to start. Other than one of Mr. Fay’s magic tricks – which involved lots of smoke – making a handful of children vomit, the show was enjoyed by all, and by a little after five in the evening, the show came to an end.

The end was the part of the show that the children had been waiting for, because, as promised, Mr. Fay announced that now was when the presents would be handed out. Mr. and Mrs. Fay began giving out gifts to the children on the ground floor nearest the stage, and in the excitement – or more accurately, the desperation – not to miss out on 'The Greatest Treat for Children Ever Given', 1,100 children who had been watching from the gallery raced toward the staircase, that they may descend as quickly as possible and not miss out on the promised treats.

At the bottom of this staircase there was a very narrow door which opened inwards and had been bolted to allow only one child to pass though at a time (supposedly so that tickets could be checked as the children were arriving) Due to the mass of bodies crowding towards it, the children at the front were unable to step backwards so they could pull the door open and squeeze through the gap. Within seconds, opening the door was an impossibility, due to the pressure coming from the children still rushing down the stairs, unaware that nobody in front of them was moving and crushing the children in front.

With relatively few adults at the event, by the time anyone noticed what was happening and arrived to assist, the prostrate bodies were twenty deep.

Frederick Graham, the caretaker of the hall, ran up another staircase and diverted around 600 children to safety, whilst what few adults were in attendance had resorted to pulling the children one by one through the narrow gap of the door, before one man pulled the door from its hinges, allowing children to pour through.

A survivor of the incident, William Codling Jr., wrote the following account of the crush at the bottom of the staircase, and describes the moment he realized all was not well;

“Soon we were most uncomfortably packed but still going down. Suddenly I felt that I was treading upon someone lying on the stairs and I cried in horror to those behind "Keep back, keep back! There's someone down." It was no use, I passed slowly over and onwards with the mass and before long I passed over others without emotion.”

As the crush died down and the damage was assessed, it was announced that 183 children between the ages of three and fourteen had been killed, with a hundred more seriously injured, making the incident the worst of its kind in British history.

The bodies of the dead children were laid out in front of the hall so that parents could identify them. One particularly tragic case is that of a man and wife who walked down the rows of the dead together; the man pointed to one little child, identifying it as theirs. A little further down the row he pointed to another, and at the end of the row, another, before breaking down and crying out "My God! All my family, gone!"

Upon learning of the tragedy, Queen Victoria sent messages of condolences to families who had lost children, and the words she had written; “Suffer little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of God” were read out at many of the funerals. The disaster pulled at the heart of the country, and a nationwide collection gathered £5000 which was used to pay for the funerals of the children, and what was left was added to a fund for a memorial to the dead. The memorial – a statue of a grieving mother holding her dead child – was originally situated in Mowbray Park opposite Victoria Hall, and was later moved to Bishopwearmouth Cemetery, but after a while it became somewhat worse-for-wear and succumbed, eventually, to inevitable vandalism, until in 2002 it underwent a £63,000 restoration and was moved back to Mowbray Park, where it still stands today.

The Memorial

The tragedy raised many health and safety issues, and the outcry in the press over the fact that the children had no means of escape lead to changes in public venue safety features. ‘Emergency Exits’ were introduced, which were to be easy-to-open doors that opened outwards rather than inwards for easy escape.

These steps lead to the invention of the familiar ‘push bar’ emergency door opening handles that can still be seen today. As with so many things that benefit us in modern times, and take care of our everyday health both as individuals and as a society such as the emergency exits mentioned above, or airline security, advanced policing techniques and the like, the shame is that these measures are taken too often as a reaction to tragedy, rather than the prevention of one. To hark back to my earlier point regarding the popularity of the Whitechapel murders, whilst any death is a tragedy, one could argue that the Victoria Hall disaster deserves to be just as well known as the Whitechapel murders, and yet, since it does not lend itself to dramatization, it is not.
Victoria Hall was destroyed by a German bomb in World War 2, but until then, it had continued to be used as a public venue. The person who bolted the door was never identified, and, of course, neither was Jack the Ripper.
In June this year, people of Sunderland held a memorial service in Mowbray Park to mark the 128^th anniversary of the tragedy. A full account of this can be read here

One week after the event, on Saturday 23^rd June, popular illustrated weekly newspaper The Graphic carried engravings on its front page, depicting the inside of Victoria Hall whilst Mr. Fay was performing, showing the two tiers of children above those on the ground floor, and also showed an engraving of the actual staircase down which the children poured, including the door.
The front page of the paper can be seen below: (Click to enlarge)

The Staplehurst Rail Crash, Or; How We Nearly Lost Charles Dickens Early:

Any fan of Dickens will know that he died before he could finish ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’. But, if not for him surviving a train accident in Kent in 1865, his last piece of work could well have been ‘Our Mutual Friend’

On the 9^th June 1865, Dickens was traveling back from a holiday in France in a first class carriage at the front of the Folkestone Boat Express train. Ellen Ternan, the actress for whom he had left his wife Catherine Hogarth two years previously, and her mother were traveling with him. Also accompanying them was another important passenger; the manuscript of the latest installment of the novel he was writing at the time; ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

The train tracks in an area immediately prior to a low cast iron girder bridge near Staplehurst were in the process of being renovated and repaired. The timber baulks of the bridge – which crossed the little River Beult – were in the process of being replaced, but at the time of the crash these replacements had not yet been fitted.

The Folkestone Boat Express train carried passengers who had arrived on the south coast of England on ferries and ships, and so its departure times were largely dependant on the tides, which often altered the times that boats arrived at port, and therefore the times at which the trains ran.

The foreman of the track works, John Benge, was carrying out the work in the time between trains, rather than close the track off. He had a copy of the timetable which showed the running times of normal trains and also the boat trains. He had been informed that there were two hours until the next train would be passing by the work site, and had posted a lookout, John Wiles, a little further down the track to give the workers and train driver warning, should a train unexpectedly appear chugging down the tracks toward the work site.

Unfortunately, John Benge had misread the timetable, thinking the train was due to pass by the works at 17:20. In fact, it was due at 15:15. 

John Wiles, the lookout, should have been posted a thousand yards from the work site, from which distance he may have effectively been able to warn the driver about the lack of track ahead in time. John Benge had placed him only 554 yards from the work site, meaning he was not far away enough from the works to give adequate warning to the fast approaching train.

As an additional safeguard for such situations, the standard practice was to place detonators on the track at 250 yard intervals over a distance of around a thousand metres. The detonators would explode under the wheels of any unexpected train as it drove over them and the driver would thus be warned of danger ahead. These detonators should have been placed on the track by John Wiles, but he had been given only two detonators rather than the three required. He had also been told that the detonators need not be placed on the track unless visibility was poor, saying that the driver would see the lookout and stop. It was a bright sunny afternoon; detonators were not put in place.

Work carried on at the site, where two 21ft lengths of rail still needed to be laid on the bridge, and the train trundled down the track on its way to London, everyone involved was unaware of what lay ahead – including Charles Dickens.

The driver of the train saw John Wiles waving his red warning flag, but, being only just over 550 yards from the work site and the unsafe – largely unsupported – bridge, it was too late for the driver to stop the train, which was traveling at 30mph. (Quite fast in a time when the only other means of transport was a horse – pulled cab or carriage)

The engine and the first part of the train went across the 21 foot breach, avoiding plunging into the River Beult through a mixture of momentum and luck. Coaches in the middle and the rear of the train, however, fell through the breach and plunged into the river below. All of the first class coaches fell into the river, apart from one: The coach that carried Charles Dickens and his companions.

Although their carriage did not fall through the gap, it was hanging dangerously off the bridge as the picture below - from the Illustrated London News - shows. Dickens and Ellen Ternan’s mother were unharmed, whilst Ellen suffered minor injuries. They were extremely lucky.

Ten people were killed and about fifty were injured.

The Illustrated London News Picture - Dickens' Carriage is to the Right of the Image, Hanging From the Bridge

Dickens helped Ellen and her mother from the coach before going about tending to fellow passengers and assisting people to escape from other carriages.

He bravely went back into the train where he managed to recover his top hat and a flask of brandy. He used his hat as a vessel, filling it with water for the injured to drink or wash their wounds and gave people mouthfuls of the brandy, including a badly injured lady he had found by a tree. The next time he passed this lady, she was dead. 

The already shocked passengers who recognized him must have thought they had received a particularly bad knock to the head – looking up to see this famous author tending to them.  

A male passenger could be seen, but nobody could reach him. He was pinned beneath the train. He later died where he lay. For three hours Dickens went about the survivors doing what he could to help and assist until help arrived.

As the accident site and the remaining carriages were being cleared and evacuated by the emergency services, Dickens remembered about the other important passenger that had accompanied he and the Ternans’.

He made the dangerous journey back into the wrecked carriage in which he had been traveling, which still hung precariously from the bridge. He risked his life, but managed to rescue his other companion: the latest installment of ‘Our Mutual Friend’.

In the post-script of the above novel, Dickens referenced the accident, writing:

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast) were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage— turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting Bradley Headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book:—THE END

He became a public hero for his efforts in helping the dying and injured passengers, but the experience affected Dickens psychologically for the rest of his life. He wrote the short story ‘The Signal-Man’ a few years after the accident, in which a rail crash occurs in a tunnel. For the rest of his life Dickens would try to avoid travel by high speed rail, and even suffer from sudden feelings of anxiety when he was traveling by slower, stopping train services, which he made every effort to do in a bid to avoid faster, direct trains.  

Ellen Ternan and Dickens

Dickens wrote an account of the incident in a letter to an old school friend Thomas Mitton, five days after it occurred. In it, the author describes his experiences in helping the injured, and his distress can be keenly felt in his words. Note also how he does not refer to Ellen or his mother in any familiar terms:

My dear Mitton, 
I should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if I had been quite up to writing. I am a little shaken, not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which I was, but by the hard work afterwards in getting out the dying and dead, which was most horrible.

I was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. It was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. Two ladies were my fellow passengers; an old one, and a young one. This is exactly what passed:- you may judge from it the precise length of the suspense. Suddenly we were off the rail and beating the ground as the car of a half emptied balloon might. The old lady cried out “My God!” and the young one screamed.

I caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite, and the young one on my left) and said: “We can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. Pray don't cry out.” The old lady immediately answered, “Thank you. Rely upon me. Upon my soul, I will be quiet.” The young lady said in a frantic way, Let us join hands and die friends.”

We were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. I said to them thereupon: “You may be sure nothing worse can happen. Our danger must be over. Will you remain here without stirring, while I get out of the window?” They both answered quite collectedly, “Yes,” and I got out without the least notion of what had happened.

Fortunately, I got out with great caution and stood upon the step. Looking down, I saw the bridge gone and nothing below me but the line of the rail. Some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out of the window, and had no idea there was an open swampy field 15 feet down below them and nothing else! The two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. I called out to them “Look at me. Do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me.” One of them answered, “We know you very well, Mr Dickens.” “Then,” I said, “my good fellow for God's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and I'll empty this carriage.”

We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two and when it was done I saw all the rest of the train except the two baggage cars down in the stream. I got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. Suddenly I came upon a staggering man covered with blood (I think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage) with such a frightful cut across the skull that I couldn't bear to look at him. I poured some water over his face, and gave him some to drink, and gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, “I am gone”, and died afterwards.

Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a little brandy, and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left her for somebody else. The next time I passed her, she was dead.

Then a man examined at the Inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed) came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. No imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water.

I don't want to be examined at the Inquests and I don't want to write about it. It could do no good either way, and I could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, I would rather not do. I am keeping very quiet here. I have a – I don't know what to call it – constitutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least flustered at the time. I instantly remembered that I had the MS of a Novel with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of recollection, I feel the shake and am obliged to stop. 
Ever faithfully, 
Charles Dickens

It’s clear – particularly from the last few lines – the effect the crash had on the 53 year-old Dickens. For his entire career his writing had been prolific, but after the crash he finished ‘Our Mutual Friend’  and for the next four and a half years wrote very little, but performed public readings of his work. His next novel was ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ which started serialization in April 1870.

On 9^th June 1870 – on the five year anniversary of the Staplehurst crash – Charles Dickens suffered from the last of a series of strokes at his home at Gad’s Hill Place. This stroke was fatal and he never awoke, dying at the age of 58 leaving ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ only half finished.

His last words according to his obituary in The Times were:

“Be natural my children. For the writer that is natural has fullfilled all the rules of art.”

Of course, nobody knows whether Dickens would have lived any longer had the Staplehurst crash not occurred, but it is something that will always be wondered. One of the real tragedies of Dickens dying when he did is that, had he lived only another seven years or so, we may have had a sound recording of him speaking, or even reading one of his novels at a public reading.

The Disastrous Debut of the World’s First Traffic Lights: London 1868

More of a Victorian ‘factoid’ than a genuine post, I came across this snippet of information and thought I would share it.

In the 1860’s, the traffic of British roads – particularly cities, and even more particularly London – had massively increased. More people required ways to move about the city (a situation which led to the opening of the underground in the same decade) and businesses multiplied, requiring ways in which to transport goods from shops or warehouses by road to the closest train station. Markets increased in size and vendors had to carry more produce to sell, often they carried by hand, but usually a donkey and cart would be employed.

By the middle of the decade, trains were beginning to surpass the waterways as a means to transport goods about the country, and as local shipping trades diminished in London, the trains took over, and traders needed to get their produce to the trains. This invariably happened by road.

On top of this, personal vehicle ownership was increasing as the upper classes purchased, or sometimes hired, carriages, and the increase in population AND tourism (British people could now use the trains to visit their capital city rather than spend days travelling by horse) gave rise in the number of cabs and public carriages – especially outside train stations, ready to ferry newly arrived tourists around.

With all these vehicles fighting for space on the roads, London’s streets were chaos as the pictures below show, taken from Gustave Dore’s 1872 book: ‘London: A Pilgrimage’

London Bridge

Ludgate Hill

To combat this congestion, an ingenious device had been made to secure the safe passage of traffic through the metropolis, and on 9^th December 1868, Londoners driving through the junction of Great George Street and Bridge Street (where you turn right off Westminster Bridge to go down Whitehall and left to drive past the houses of parliament) would have been greeted with the sight of the country’s first traffic lights.

The lights were designed by superintendent of the South-Eastern Railway, John Peake Knight. Knight had given evidence at a House of Commons committee in which he had put forward the safety benefits of the traffic light system, and the committee found in favour of introducing the new signals.

Knight was given the task of creating the traffic lights, and the initial design was a pillar with semaphore arms. When the arms were positioned 90 degrees to the pillar, the traffic was to stop, and when the arms were at 45 degrees to the post, traffic was to ‘be cautious’. The signals were simple, and designed to replace the movements of a traffic policeman’s arms.

To allow drivers to see the signals at night, red and green lights were added to the device, which had been manufactured by railway signal makers, Saxby and Farmer, who produced a fine looking iron pillar, 24 feet high and weighing five tonnes, painted green and ‘relieved with gilding’.

Initially, the new traffic signal was a success, but three weeks after the lights were erected, on 2^nd January 1869 there was a disaster when a leaking gas valve caused the signal to explode. The police officer who was operating the signal suffered terrible burns to the face. The traffic lights were declared a safety hazard and removed immediately.

The traffic of London went about its business traffic-light-free until 1929, when, sixty years after John Peake Knight’s first set was erected.

As for Knight himself, he continued with his railway career, working as manager of the Brighton Railway Company until his death, at the age of 58 on 23^rd July 1886. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery.

A blue plaque commemorating Knight as the inventor of the worlds first traffic lights can be seen in London at 12 Bridge Street.

Dreadful Accident on the Tay Bridge...

I feel that most of the posts on this blog so far have been heavily linked to London, as that is my main area of Victorian interest and I live fairly close to the capital. But, today I am spreading my wings a little, and looking into one of the darkest days in the recent history of Scotland – and indeed, Britain – the Tay Bridge Disaster.

When it was built in 1878, the Tay Rail Bridge that spanned the Firth of Tay between Dundee and Wormit in Scotland, was considered a marvel of engineering. Designed by architect, Thomas Bouch, the bridge was fabricated using ten million bricks, four thousand tons of cast iron and fifteen thousand casks of cement.

However, eighteen months after the marvelous bridge opened, on the stormy night of December 28^th 1879 the bridge collapsed as a passenger train crossed it, plunging into the freezing Firth of Tay and killing all 75 people on board.

The exact cause of the collapse has never been discovered, though, at the time Bouch – who had received a knighthood upon the bridge’s completion – was heavily criticized for not allowing for strong enough winds when designing the bridge, for allowing poor quality girders to be used in the construction (there was some evidence that imperfect castings were disguised from the (very inadequate) quality control inspection) These were tested for the Inquiry by David Kirkaldy and proved to break at only about 20 long tons rather than the expected load of 60 long tons, causing the entire mid-section of the bridge to become destabilized during the storm and indeed recent research has suggested that the cast iron used on parts of the structure was too soft.

Below is the disaster as reported in The Times the following day:

Dreadful Accident on the Tay Bridge

Loss of Passenger Train

Dundee, Sunday Midnight

To-night a heavy gale swept over Dundee and a portion of the Tay bridge was blown down while a train from Edinburgh due at 7.15 was passing. It is believed that the train is in the water, but the gale is still so strong that a steamboat has not yet been able to reach the bridge. The train was duly signalled from Fife as having entered the bridge at 7.14. It was seen running along the rails, and then suddenly was observed a flash of fire. The opinion was that the train left the rails, and went over the bridge. Those who saw the incident repaired immediately to the Tay-bridge station at Dundee and informed the station master of what they had seen. He immediately put himself in communication with the man in charge of the signal-box at the north end of the bridge. The telegraph wires are stretched across the bridge, but when the instrument was tried it was soon seen that the wires were broken.

Mr. Smith, the station-master and Mr. Roberts, locomotive superintendent, determined, notwithstanding the fierce gale, to walk across the bridge as far as possible from the north side, with the view of ascertaining the extent of the disaster. They were able to get out a considerable distance, and the first thing that caught their eye was the water spurting from a pipe which was laid across the bridge for the supply of Newport, a village on the south side, from the Dundee reservoirs. Going a little further, they could distinctly see by the aid of the strong moonlight that there was a large gap in the bridge caused by the fall, so far as they could discern, of two or three of the largest spars. They thought, however, that they observed a red light on the south part of the bridge, and were of the opinion that the train had been brought to a standstill on the driver noticing the accident. This conjecture has, unfortunately, been proved incorrect. At Broughtyferry, four miles from the bridge, several mail bags have come ashore, and there is no doubt that the train is in the river. No precise information as to the number of passengers can be obtained, but it is variously estimated at from 150 to 200.

The Provost and a number of leading citizens of Dundee started at half-past 10 o'clock in a steam-boat for the bridge, the gale being moderated; but they have not yet returned.

Monday, 1.30 A.M.

The scene at the Tay-bridge station to-night is simply appalling. Many thousand persons are congregated around the buildings, and strong men and women are wringing their hands in despair. On the 2d of October 1877, while the bridge was in course of construction, one of the girders was blown down during a gale similar to that of to-day, but the only one of the workmen lost his life. The return of the steamboat is anxiously awaited.

The Times, 29th December 1879

In an enquiry held to establish the cause of the collapse, clear evidence was heard that the central structure had been deteriorating for months before the accident. The maintenance inspector, Henry Noble, claims that he heard the joints of the wrought-iron tie-bars "chattering" a few months after the bridge opened in June 1878, a sound indicating that the joints had loosened. Noble did not attempt to re-tighten the joints, but hammered shims (thin sheets) of iron between them in an attempt to stop the rattling.
However, the problem continued until the collapse of the High Girders. It indicated that the centre section was unstable to lateral movement, something observed by painters working on the bridge in the summer of 1879. Passengers on north-bound trains complained about the strange motion of the carriages, but this was, apparently, ignored by the bridge's owners, the North British Railway.

Tay Bridge Today

The Lord Provost of Dundee had reportedly timed trains on the bridge, and found they were travelling at about 40 mph – well in excess of the official limit of 25 mph.

The enquiry destroyed Bouch's professional reputation, and the contract for the new Forth Bridge was awarded to William Arrol & Co. using designs by Benjamin Baker and John Fowler. Bouch died within a year of the disaster.

To this day, the collapse of the Tay Bridge remains the worst structural disaster in British history, and the lessons learned from it proved a major influence on the way bridges were built afterwards – particularly the replacement Tay Bridge which was built alongside the remains of the original – and the much larger Forth Rail Bridge near Edinburgh.

On the picture above can be seen the re-built Tay Bridge, the foundations of the old bridge run alongside the new in a fitting tribute to its predecessor.

The last word on this subject I will allow to the Scottish poet William McGonagall, who, in 1880 wrote a poem about the tragedy. Although he states there were 90 victims, there were only 75.

The Tay Bridge Disaster

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

'Twas about seven o'clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clods seem'd to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem'd to say-
"I'll blow down the Bridge of Tay."

When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers' hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say-
"I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay."

But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sught,
And the passengers' hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov'd most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.

So the train mov'd slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o'er the town,
Good Heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill'd all the peoples hearts with sorrow,
And made them for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav'd to tell the tale
How the disaster happen'd on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.

It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay,
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of thSilv'ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

For a far more detailed and informative read about the disaster, see this website, which gives lots of details about the investigation too.

Also, if you prefer to read upon paper than on screen, then try these:

High Girders: Tay Bridge Disaster, 1879 by John Prebble,

The Bridge is Down: Dramatic Eye-witness Accounts of the Tay Bridge Disaster: of 1879 as Reported in Transcripts of the Public Enquiry by Andre Gren,

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879  by Peter R Lewis