6th October marks the 170th anniversary of the Great Fire of Gateshead, that shook both Gateshead and Newcastle to their very foundations on that date in 1854.
Indeed, it might be said that on that fateful day, the people of Tyneside believed that the end of the world was upon them. In the early hours an explosion occurred, and this explosion was to cause death and destruction on a terrible scale.
The start of the fire
Our story begins between midnight and 1am on Thursday 6th October, when an eagle-eyed Police Constable from Newcastle Constabulary, by the name of John Ewart, spotted flames coming from the upper windows of the Worsted Manufactory of Messrs. Wilson and Sons in Hillgate, Gateshead. As a worsted factory, with plenty of flammable wool this was serious enough. Something even more dangerous was next to the worsted factory. However, as P.C, Ewart raced across the old Tyne bridge to raise the alarm, he could still never have foreseen the calamitous events to follow.
Private Fire Engines Assisted Soldiers
Private engines assisted by soldiers from nearby barracks fought strenuously to beat back the flames with little success and the fire raged quickly out of control. By 3am the whole area was one huge sheet of fire. Next to Wilson’s stood the warehouse of Bertram and Spencer containing a nightmare cocktail of chemicals and combustible materials, including lead, tallow…and most dangerously sulphur. The intense heat from the nearby blaze presented a very real danger. Soon Bertram and Spencer’s warehouse was also on fire…
Crowds trying to put fire out
By this time many people were trying to put the fire out, while crowds assembled at every point where a view could be obtained, enthralled at the spectacle of melted sulphur flowing like lava from Bertram and Spencer’s. The fire was so fierce that a detachment of fifty soldiers hurried down with the fire engine from their barracks to help those already at work and additionally, other aid was telegraphed for.
Then at ten minutes past three several popping sounds were heard from the warehouse but were ignored. Big mistake. With sulphur pouring out of Bertram and Spencer’s warehouse like lava, the popping sounds should have been a warning…
The explosion
Suddenly Bertram’s warehouse blasted apart with all the force of an erupting volcano and theair was filled as if multiple thunderclaps had suddenly burst through the smoke and flames and the scene was so frightening that it looked as if the spume of a volcano had been unleashed.
Meanwhile huge walls were crumbled into heaps and whole blocks of houses tumbled into ruins. The explosion wrenched windows from their frames far and near and a shower of burning timbers and crashing stones rained terror death and fresh destruction onto people all around. Thirty of the fifty soldiers advancing with their engine were struck down, two of them dead and one with an iron rail driven into his body.
People awoken by noise
On both sides of the coaly Tyne, huge numbers of people woken by the noise and the light of the flames, had gathered to watch the terrible spectacle. Once the explosion came shortly after 3 a.m., the crowds on the opposite side of the river were cut down and the old Tyne bridge, built after the Medieval bridge had been washed away in the flood of November 1771. Huge blocks of masonry, burning timber and red-hot metal were tossed effortlessly into the air, cascading down onto people and property with dreadful consequences. More windows shattered and streetlamps were extinguished. Roofs split open, with the hot and swiftly sinking sulphur spreading the flames over a wide area, starting new fires.
Panic
The people were held in a paralysed stupor, broken suddenly by screams and wails as the enormity of the situation was realised. Men, women and children stumbled about in blind panic, bloodied and grimy. Many were seriously injured, some in their night attire, having been shaken from their beds. The tenement housing collapsed, burying occupants. Many of those who had been fighting the fire disappeared under falling debris.
News of disaster spread like wildfire
Outside Newcastle sat many put villages where people only too often ended up rushing to the mine as news of a disaster spread like wildfire through the community. The shock of the Gateshead explosion was so great that it was felt from Blyth in Northumberland to Seaham near Sunderland and in some pit villages it was feared that there had been an explosion underground.
Meanwhile, in Hillgate on the Gateshead bank of the Tyne, as the explosion rent the Tyneside air, firemen, policemen and volunteers had crowded into the long narrow street, near to Bertram and Spencer’s warehouse. Among them were Charles Bertram, Magistrate of Gateshead, Robert Pattinson, a member of Newcastle Council and Alexander Dobson, the 26-year-old son of famous local architect John Dobson. Positioned as they were, at the very heart of the explosion, death must have been instantaneous before they were buried under the tons of falling wreckage that filled Hillgate to a depth of several feet.
The aftermath
Casualties were laid out by the old Fish Market, with injuries including burns, impalements and fractures. Elizabeth McMillan, sixteen months old, suffered a fractured skull, bruises and burns but somehow survived. Less fortunate was Anne Ludlow, who was said to be a tripe dealer of Oakwellgate was not so luck; she was said to have had ‘her arm torn off by the stone’. She died later in Newcastle Infirmary.
Firefighters battling the fire throughout the night
Firefighters worked ferociously through the night battling not only the suffocating fumes of burning sulphur as well as the fearsome flames. Despite all this. at sunrise at about 7 a.m. the fire was still gaining ground on both sides of the Tyne. Consequently, appeals for help went out to surrounding towns and special floating engines from Siunderland and Shields and were put into use, while fire engines from Morpeth, Durham, Berwick and Hexham, were urgently transported to Newcastle by rail to replace those lost or crippled.
Church on fire
Nearby was St Mary’s church, a beautiful old Medieval church, whose foundation can be traced back perhaps as far as 653 A.D. This church, which can still be seen today, just to the east of the Tyne Bridge, was in great peril from the flames. It was only the swift and courageous actions of a certain Mr James Mather that saved the ancient landmark, as he entered the church armed only with a hose pipe and an axe, helped by miners and Army sappers who began blowing up buildings in the fire’s path until the flames were gradually brought under control.
The full extent of the disaster
Come the dawn, the full extent of the disaster could be seen. Where Bertram and Spencer’s warehouse had stood there was now a crater over thirty feet deep and some fifty feet across, while whole streets were laid waste. In all 53 were killed, with hundreds more injured, while the cost of the disaster was estimated at about £500 000, which would be nearly £70 million today.
It was only now that the bodies of the dead could be recovered, although little remained of those who had perished in Hillgate. It was only a piece of coat and a bunch of keys that helped people to recognise the body of Alexander Dobson, his body described as a “charred and crumbling mass”, while nothing was found of Charles Bertram JP, except for a key and a snuff box…
