Sheffield Flood
At Malin Bridge ...
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At Malin Bridge the river is narrow and bent, the hills on each side are steep and lofty, and the buildings that stand on the banks of the Loxley are on riband-like slopes of low land at the foot of the hills. Near the water, and projecting into it, were the water-mills, and of these the wheels alone are to be seen. One large work is partly saved and partly destroyed. Placed in a position where the full set of the current was thrown on the opposite side, it has lost part of its walls, and its couple of cylindrical boilers, removed from their beds, remind us of those anatomical models in which the skin and ribs are removed to exhibit the lungs. Near to these manufacturing premises are several whitewashed houses three storeys in height, and on these the water line is on a level with the tops of the windows of the second floor. On the Owlerton side the houses are with few exceptions either gutted or demolished, but there still exists a wing of Malin Bridge. A piece of street still stands, and through the middle of this street trees, cattle, and pieces of machinery, not to mention the drowned of the upper village, have been driven. Great stones have been bowled down the street like marbles, castings from the neighbouring mill have been floated along it like chips, and lie near a quarter of a mile away from their original position, and the appearance of the place as the inhabitants are shovelling out sandy earth by the cartload from the interior of their houses is most miserable.
The Sheffield Telegraph says:
'Judging from the way in which the water spread itself out at this point the remnant of houses at this spot must have looked at one time like sunken arks in the middle of a lake. The way in which some houses have stood, while others no weaker have fallen, may be accounted for, perhaps, by the set of the current from side to side. Certain it is that one house is taken and another left, and that one side of a street nearest the river has withstood the torrent, while of another that was further from the water nothing remains but broad, flat-topped heaps of stone - heaps which must be looked at and studied if you would understand that each heap represents a house. In some parts a long chain of houses are broken down, and a very low bank of stone and lumber - a bank apparently not more than two or two and a half feet high - stands for what was so lately a 'terrace.' The stone houses appear to have resisted the pressure worse than the slighter-looking brick ones, and their bones lie in such a manner as to give us the idea that they had collapsed under hydraulic pressure. One almost wonders how many people are under those stones, for the dwellings look as if they had dropped perpendicularly down upon their inmates. Between the houses of Malin Bridge and the hills there is a large piece of ground which the river has spread over with plunder. We notice a kitchen dresser - a good respectable article of furniture - at gunshot distance from any house. Was it the farmer's at the bend of the river, or did it belong to the landlady of the spruce inn of which nothing but the cellar can be found? There are no less than three kitchen boilers scattered unnoticed among the stones. In a pool of dirty water an iron bedstead in emerald green - fancy an article for the class of house to which it had belonged - lies half buried, and its mistress is probably either drifting down the Don, or stretched on one of those boards where the corpses are, for greater saving of space, laid unwashed and much bruised close side by side. The adhesiveness of mortar is shown in the behaviour of some of the brickwork. There are pieces of brick wall that have, after being carried a considerable distance, hung together like boards. There are sections of brick chimneys which lie on their sides like boxes at several hundred yards from where they were thrown down. A solitary perambulator stands apart, and sometimes a bit of oil cloth, a man’s boot, or a piece of broken crockery crops up among the stones, and, but for these signs of home, you would not suspect that the stones laid down in a confusion like that of the small boulders which lie at the foot of the hills had ever formed the walls of a house. There is a large tree that has got upon its feet again, and there is a case where several others have fastened their arms round one living one and held their ground. A gig and some carts and railway trucks have stuck in separate corners of the river. 
The carts are farmer’s carts; the gig is said to have been carried off the adjoining road with the horse and driver. The houses we see at Owlerton are exposed as if they had been made for the purpose of exhibiting their interiors. In one room there is an iron bedstead, in another an old mahogany one, and in a third the floor has canted like a corn shoot, and the bed and its occupants have been sent down the river. A picture hangs against a wall, which itself hangs in air without supports from below. We have already alluded to the adhesiveness of brickwork, and we have now to mention a more remarkable case. At the stone bridge there is, or was on Sunday, a brick house which had been brought down by the current with its roof and flooring all complete. The story may seem an incredible one, but the fact has been witnessed by thousands. Another remarkable fact is the heavy burden of earth which the flood brought down with it. It is not uncommon thing to see men at work with spades shovelling up the soil from the floor of what had been their best room, and as a rule the smallest rooms appeared capable of furnishing several hundredweights of earth for carting away. The movement of great weight by hydraulic power was illustrated at the bridge below the New Barracks. This bridge was not upset, or, rather, it was only partly upset. The current, not to be baffled, turned the position, and cut itself a road round its opponent, the bridge. Some of the stones removed are very fine ones in respect of size and weight, and it is known that the tree which now lies across the entrance to the Barrack Road was brought down all the way from one of the upper villages. That tree is a very choice one in point of girth and weight, yet it has been tossed like a cork into the middle of one of our most public streets.'
On the river bank between Hillsborough and Owlerton nearly all the buildings are destroyed. The premises of Messrs. Butler, Wilson, and Co., and Mr. John Wilson, Forgers and rollers, have almost entirely disappeared. Ten dead bodies were found in the stream opposite these works, and were removed, part to the Yew-tree Inn, and part to the Rodney. At the back of the Stag several houses were demolished. Thomas Bates and his family and Thomas Bulland and his wife were drowned here. Between Bowers-row and Hillsborough the flood had taken a clean sweep across the road and the fields, obliterating all the landmarks, and leaving nothing but a large tract of mud, which was thickly strewn with trees, parts of the roofs of houses, the lighter parts of machinery, casks, grates, fire-irons, and hosts of other things. The sweep of the flood seems to have been towards the left, and a row of houses on the left-hand side of the road, above the Hillsborough Inn, felt its full force. They were submerged, back and front, to the top of the ceiling of the bedrooms. The first house, occupied by a man named Dyson, his wife, seven children, and his brother, was entirely destroyed, with the exception of the bedroom and attic, and the inmates, with the exception of Dyson's brother, were drowned. He escaped by breaking through the slates.
In a smaller class of house at the end of this row the loss of life was fearful. James Atkinson, his wife, two little boys, and his daughter were drowned. In the next two houses lived William Atkinson and his family, and in the next George Atkinson and his wife. Not one survives.
In the furthest house of the row Isaac Drabble, his wife, and two children were drowned. These house were of older date that the others, and were rather more strongly built. Across the road was a little hovel, which seemed a mere mass of stones loosely piled. The bedroom, as it was termed, was scarcely eight feet from the ground. In one corner was a large box, in which the occupant of the house, an old man, had sought shelter from the flood. He closed the lid on himself, and was found high and dry and uninjured when the waters receded. A man named Turton and his wife, who lived at Marshall’s paper mill, were drowned. In one of the small cottage houses lived a family named Dean. In one of the upper rooms two little boys were in bed, and they were awakened by feeling the bed floating about. One of them by pressing against the ceiling, prevented the bed from touching, and so saved himself from being suffocated, but his brother jumped out and was drowned in the chamber. The stream of water has left a clearly defined course, extending for nearly 300 yards, upon the wall of Hillsborough-hall, which is partially demolished.
Passing to the point where the Loxley joins the Don, the flood swept over Rawson's meadows and dashed against the hill at Wardsend, and in its recoil carried away several of the mills and forges on both banks of the river. The Wardsend slitting mill was submerged and immense damage done to the machinery. Four bodies were found among the ruins, but they were those of persons drowned higher up the river. Bodies were also found scattered about the fields and in the deep brooks. In the Park-house Mill ten bodies were hastily laid upon the mud. Lower down the stream, at the silver mill of Mr. Peace, the wonder was not at the extensive devastation that had been committed, but that any part of the building had been left standing. A large quantity of silver which was being rolled is missing. Ten bodies were recovered in this locality. One dead body was found resting in the branches of a tree, and another was jammed between a beam and the wall of a house. It is expected that a large number of bodies will be recovered when the brooks and water courses are along the wood side can be cleared. Coming down the Hillfoot, the most serious damage to buildings seems to have been done at the works of Messrs. Marchington and Makin. A man named William Simpson, who was working at the forge with a boy named Capper, ran out of the workshop and sought refuge on the top of a boiler which was erected by the side of the goit. Capper took refuge on a beam over the boiler and escaped the fate of his companion who was washed away with the boiler and the brick piers upon which it stood. Between Hillfoot and the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway are about 900 acres of land laid out in gardens. This space is covered in deep mud. All the landmarks are swept away, and the wide plain is covered with the debris of the flood.
In Neepsend lane the scene of devastation was almost worse than at any other place. In several wretched garden houses, one storey high, whole families have been drowned. A man named Petty, his wife, and three children were drowned in a little building that seemed scarcely larger than a pig-sty. In another, a file-grinder named Hukin, his wife, and two children were drowned. Messrs. Fawley's tannery, opposite Bacon Island, has suffered tremendously. Near these works the body of a man was found in a tree, and another was jammed between part of a haystack and the side of a cottage. The gardens behind the Victoria Hotel presented the appearance of a lake of mud, the ruins of the garden houses sticking out here and there. Eleven bodies were found in the gardens, and removed to Mr. Bagshaw's house. A serious loss of life occurred in the garden houses between the Victoria-gardens and the gasworks. A woman named Bennett was lost. Her husband was rescued from the roof of a garden house by a man named Poston. A man named Hilston, his wife, and a child 14 days old were reported missing. A man named Howard, and his wife and daughter, and a named Fletcher, got on the roofs of their respective houses, and were saved by Poston and members of his family. In Poston's house there were three babies alive, which he had taken in, and was doing the utmost in his power to supply their wants till they were claimed or provided for in case of the loss of their parents. A house occupied by a man named Jenkinson was partially swept away, and he lost his life. A family named Moss, five in number, were swept out of their house into the stream, near Neepsend Bridge. They were all drowned but Joel Moss, who saved himself by clinging to some timber that had accumulated against one of the piers. The works of the Gas Company at Neepsend suffered to a very serious extent. The workhouse in Sheffield was deeply flooded, and nothing but the promptitude with which the alarm was given saved loss of life there also.
The Sheffield Telegraph says:
'It will be noted that the poor, and more especially the deserving poor, are the chief sufferers by this catastrophe. The knocking down of one side of a whole row of houses has shown that many of our operatives wives have a pride in their houses which says much for their love of home. Bright tins hang on clean walls, and it is noted that these little cages are, as at Neepsend, often the property of their tenants. The smart furniture is spoilt, the houses and their waterways are seriously damaged, some thousands of workmen are suddenly thrown out of work, many orphans need help, and we trust help will come most liberally from all classes of the people of Sheffield, and also from the leading towns in the United Kingdom.' continued »
