Run Piggy Run....
- johannavalentine
- Jan 17, 2017
- 8 min read
I’ve loved history since I was a child and whilst kids were buying Smash Hits, I subscribed to the History magazine about Tudors and the plague. I completely blame the fact that I had a great history teacher at school who made the lessons so engaging.
As long time readers of this blog will know, I completed my first degree majoring in history and therefore I have a real interest in looking at historical disasters, how they impacted upon emergency management practices we know today and whether or not we have indeed learnt our lessons from the past.
When I think of terms I use within my course of study, I often find myself unconsciously associating them with modern day disaster images. Relief funds, government inquiries, critical infrastructure protection, corporate responsibility…but surely these things are not new concepts?
When trying to decide on my next blog post, and with this observation of my tendencies to think only in modern day imagery, I decided to go back to the start. My home town. I realised I actually knew very little of any disasters that occurred there so began to do a basic search to see what I could find.
The event that caught my eye, and the one that I think reflects the application of some modern day terms quite well, is the Great Timber Yard Fire which occurred in Hartlepool in the north east of England in 1922.
Believed to have begun at around 1pm on the 4th January, it has often been referred to as the greatest disaster in the history of Hartlepool, excluding the bombardment of the town during WWII. At the time the damage estimate was set at 1 million pounds (about £36.5 million today) and left over 100 families homeless.
Alleged to have been spotted by a young boy, he raised the alert to workman who were nearby eating lunch. The fire began in the timber yard of Messrs George Horsley and Son. At its height, the fire covered 80 acres of ground (32.38 hectares), destroying several streets of houses nearby, but fortunately resulting in no fatalities.
Sited to the north-west corner of the old Hartlepool docks at Greenlands, the site was situated to the east of the main railway line going north. A strong wind was blowing from the north-west threatening to push the fire across the dock complex and burn a creosote works. Additionally, the Central Marine Engine Works, would also have been in its path.
The Hartlepool, West Hartlepool and North Eastern Railway fire brigades were called and soon arrived. With help from a north west wind, the fire soon covered eight to nine acres. (3.2 hectares) The flames from the fire were fifteen to twenty feet high (approximately six meters).
The gale blew the fire across the timber yards to Union Road on the edge of Central Estate, towards houses and flats causing them to alight thanks to the intense heat. Roads were closed and the tram that ran from West Hartlepool to the Headland was forced to stop.
With reports the fire could be seen from as far away as Newcastle and Gateshead, about 50 kilometres away, it was obvious the morning would hold scenes of devastation.
“The remains of railway trucks looked like twisted skeletons, having crumpled in the intense heat. The heat had twisted tram and railway lines so badly that they were useless; lampposts were melted and bent double. Rows of houses close to the timber yard were roofless and gutted. As for the timber yard, only ashes remained. “(Blog entry, Hartlepool History: Then and Now, 2017)
By January 6th the fire was under control with firemen ‘mopping up’.
Largely educated guesswork, two theories are held as to how the fire began. The first is that a spark from a locomotive, which was shunting in the area, caused the blaze (indeed this is widely believed to have been the cause of a fire in the Swan Valley, Western Australia a few years ago). The second theory was that the fire was caused by the fusing of one of the electric cables taking power to the saw benches in the timber yard.
Evacuation
Over one hundred families were made homeless with many losing all possessions. During a time of post war recession and large scale unemployment, this was devastating to families affected. Families removed what they could in motor vehicles, carts and even prams. Hastily flung into the street, many possessions were damaged or lost due to difficulties in tracking belongings. Sadly, no government pay-outs were available (as would not be the case today) for families who lost everything. They had to turn to the charity of other ordinary people, and local firms who offered to help.
Relief Fund
Set up by the Mayor of Hartlepool at the time, Alderman J.T. Turner, the Relief Fund held a concert to raise funds at The Empire Theatre. Money was collected at football matches and even Cadbury sent one ton of cocoa. Sir William Gray & Company contributed £100 (£3650 today) immediately to help start the fund. The Mayor, three aldermen, a councillor and the Town Clerk of Hartlepool all gave £10 (£365 today) each. Answering the call to assist were a range of local firms and individuals and within 24 hours the fund had risen to £300 (£10,940 today) with a committee established to distribute funds.
The fire received national newspaper coverage and even King George V gave £100 to the fire relief fund, and Queen Mary gave £50.
Recovery
The majority of those affected found shelter with friends and relatives, but unlucky ones had to find shelter in public buildings. Some larger Hartlepool leading business owners, such as Sir William Gray offered accommodation at the Gray convalescent home at Seaton Carew, (now the site of the Staincliffe Hotel) and in some new houses at Graythorp where Sir William had built the houses for his workforce near to his newly built shipyard.
The recovery process began with residents repairing their homes as best they could, but costly repairs had to be paid for from the relief fund money. Some houses were relatively unharmed at the back, but the front of the house was badly damaged.
Incorrect Journalism
In addition to the many harrowing stories that emerged, including that of a local family with a child who had recently died and was ‘laid out’ at home as the fire began, the incident also provides a rather humorous example of how stories from incidents can be incorrectly reported.
As reported by the Northern Daily Mail newspaper on 7th January1922,
“Among the incidents of the fire that are reported today is one that concerns a pig, whose fate is unknown, though it is to be feared that it may easily be surmised. When the fire was at its height, it is stated, piggy escaped from somewhere in the vicinity into the streets. It ran squealing right between two walls of flame that bordered the involved section of Cleveland-road, its bristles actually singeing as it ran. No human being could venture in pursuit, and the distracted animal literally disappeared into the prop yard and was never seen again.”
The story was corrected two days later. From the Northern Daily Mail, Monday 9th January:
“Regarding the pig which was seen scampering towards the heart of the fire, the worst has not happened. It appears that the animal at first refused to leave its sty, although the flames were uncomfortably near, and it was not until a fireman turned the hose on the pig that it was persuaded to quit. It promptly bolted, but was headed off.”
Some London papers mistakenly reported that West Hartlepool was in flames. This gave concern to readers who had friends and relatives in West Hartlepool. The Northern Daily Mail stressed that the fire was “wholly confined to Hartlepool, though at several points it came very close to the boundary of West Hartlepool.”
Government Inquiry
On Saturday, Inspector Captain Hooper from the Ministry of Health was dispatched from London to investigate the fire. Accompanied to the afflicted area by the Mayor of Hartlepool, the Town Clerk and Borough Surveyor, he visited the affected area and directed his attention to the closeness of railway sleepers and pit props to houses. When asked whether the Hartlepool Corporation could be awarded compensation for damage to the roads and loss of rates, his response was that any recommendations he made would be included in his report.
Local residents had already raised concerns that the height that the sleepers had been piled just behind the fence on the opposite side of the road from the houses was too high and indeed this wood set alight first, thereby making it impossible to prevent damage to the nearby houses.
The interested public
By morning, hundreds of sightseers came to survey the damage. The Police had to keep order and to guard property. Extra trains were put on to cater with increased demand, owing to there being no tram services due to damaged lines. The “ordinary” traffic of the town was added to by numerous motor cars, motor cycles and people on push bikes from all areas of the town. By Monday 9th January a film of the fire was being advertised and it was shown at the Royal Electric Theatre all week.
Future mitigation
In the Northern Daily Mail’s report of Saturday 7th January, Superintendent Allan of the Fire Brigade recommended that all fire hydrants should be standardised meaning any brigade would be able to get water from the local supply. Brigades from the other towns had found that they could not use local hydrants as the standpipes they carried were a different size. He also suggested that timber storage should have a water supply, punctuated by hydrants, for an emergency as the water supply in the yards was inadequate and the dock supplies were too far away to help.
Protection of critical infrastructure
Major industries located within the area largely escaped undamaged. The main concern was that the Central Marine Engine Works (C.M.E.W) would be in the direct path of the fire, and although the pattern store did receive damage due a number of small fires, these were quickly extinguished by the C.M.E.W own brigade. Additionally, Gray’s central shipyard was threatened, but a crowd of men on duty all night prevented any major fires erupting. The boat building works of J.H Pounder removed a number of boats and materials that were deemed at risk and the fish curling houses escaped unscathed. The Cooperative Society’s stables burnt down, but the delivery cart horses had been removed earlier. Two spare creosote tanks had caught fire and blazed furiously. The main creosote works escaped, because of the hard work of firemen and volunteers who protected it.
Corporate Responsibility
The timber importers, Horsleys, reported that 300,000 railway sleepers were destroyed by the fire. They estimated the cost of the damage was £1m, (£36.5m today). There were five fires in another timber yard owned by William Pearson. Thirty men prevented these from getting out of control.
Critical Infrastructure Damage
The corporation tramways system suffered serious damage. The local paper reported:
“Two or three standards were brought down, and the overhead wires were rendered useless over a long section. So intense was the heat along part of the track that the pitch boiled through from underneath the tram setts” (Blog entry, Hartlepool History: Then and Now, 2017)..
The North Eastern Railway hydraulic power station at Middleton was also damaged by the fire.
Lessons for the Future
As always with Disaster Relief funds, there were reports of people abusing the system including a comment in the local newspaper that although prior to the fire only one home in Union Street had actually owned a piano, everyone home appeared to have one now.
Hartlepool certainly learned valuable lessons. On August 8th 1922 a lady was fined five shillings because smoke, flames and burning soot were issuing from her chimney in the direction of the timber yards although like today, the recommendations from the review into the fire were slow to be implemented with the North Eastern Railway Company’s precautions against a reoccurrence still being criticised a year after the event.
It took a long time for the town to fully recover from the fire.
References
