183 children crushed to death in the Victoria Hall Disaster

The excitement was massive. Older children hauled toddlers by the hand; some lugged babies along.

And just hours later, more than 180 of them were dead, crushed breathless in a stampede for free toys.

To this day, the Victoria Hall catastrophe of 1883 remains the worst disaster of its kind. But how could a treat on a sunny afternoon go so horrifically wrong?

A 1904 postcard showing the momument to the disaster in Mowbray Gardens, Sunderland, with the Victoria Hall behind

The facts are stark. By show’s end, the audience of over a thousand children with just a handful of adults, was in a frenzy. Then conjuror Mr Alexander Fay promised some would get a toy as they left.

Hell ensued.

Hundreds of youngsters in the gallery ran down a winding stair, racing for the toys, but a huge door had been bolted just one foot open on the landing. The first ones, reaching for their prize, fell; then the others fell on top of them, piling up behind the unmoveable door.

Mr Fay’s assistant Charles Hesseltine, waiting with the box of toys, ran frantically for help.

Mr Fay told the inquest: “He said: ‘There’s some of them stuck fast and they are dead.’ I asked how many and he mentioned the word ‘dozen’… I noticed two or three little boys lying on their backs in the pit entrance and a man with another in his arms… I said to the man, are they dead? And he said: ‘Yes. There are a good many more dead. Run for a doctor’.”

Doctors and crowds of rescuers came running – but none could shift that door, which opened inwards.

The bodies laid out in the Victoria Hall

The deceased children were laid out in the hall where they had thrilled at the magic tricks. It’s hard to imagine the horror of the scene as terrified parents combed the silent ranks.

Everywhere lay pathetic bundles of bonnets and shoes; their small owners would never need them again.

The anguished tale was reported around the world (above), and Queen Victoria sent condolences. Many lost several children; the Mills family of Ann Street took home four small bodies. But as the inquests found (two, because the deceased covered two administration areas), there were also tales of heroism.  

Hallkeeper Frederick Graham saved hundreds of lives by diverting children through another exit, and a disabled girl, 12-year-old Ines Coe, saved herself and her friend by jamming her crutches in front of them to preserve a tiny survival pocket.

She was one of many children who gave inquest evidence alongside the adults, including Darlington architect GG Hoskins who stated that the bolted door was not on his designs.

In the end, though, no one was held accountable – the inquests could not determine who bolted the door.

The door was bolted slightly open so only one person could gain access to the stairs

Incredibly, some good came of it. Budding architect Robert Alexander Briggs designed the ‘panic bar’ door opener now common worldwide, and by law, exit doors now open outwards.

So as they say it’s an ill wind that blows no good. But even with these consolations, few would disagree that the Victoria Hall Disaster of 1883 was a very ill wind indeed.

Adrienne Hunter researching her novel about the Victoria Hall Disaster

WHAT happens to a town after an unthinkable disaster? The question has possessed Adrienne Hunter, a former features editor of The Northern Echo, ever since she wrote about the Victoria Hall Disaster as a young reporter.

Now doing a PhD in creative writing at Sunderland University, she is writing a novel to find out. In Death in the Tall Streets, she inserts fictional characters into the events of June 16, 1883, event alongside real people, then follows their story.

Adrienne said: “There are some brilliant people researching the disaster, including Meg Hartford, a descendant of hallkeeper Frederick Graham, who helped me discover what happened to some of those involved.

“We can’t know for sure how people felt. But with historical fiction I can breathe a little bit of life back into these long-gone people.”

Adrienne is now seeking a publisher.

She said: “It’s a tale haunted by tragedy, consequences and the central mystery – who fastened the bolt that condemned so many little children to death?”

To find out more, CLICK HERE

Alexander Fay performing inside the Victoria Hall

Extract from Death in the Tall Streets by Adrienne Hunter

Mr Alistair Fay, assisted by his sister Annie with a spiritualist act, was the magician at the Victoria Hall on the day of the fatal show.

ALISTAIR FAY is pleading, something he seldom cares to do. And his sister is ignoring him, which is even more rare.

“Please, Annie, please,” he says, grasping the tasselled edge of the stars-and-moon embroidered cloth she has thrown across the table. “Not again.”

She looks at him blankly, and clamps her hands on her side of the table to hold the cloth in place. After tugging, he desists, and flops down in the chair opposite. The room is dark and exceptionally stuffy because she will not open the curtains. Mixed with the pervasive smell of damp and the humidity, the air feels as warm as soup in the back of his throat.

“But I must, Alistair. They are calling me,” she says, matter-of-fact, and smiles at him, spreading her fingers wide on the table with the thumb tips just touching.

“No, they are NOT.” His voice rises; he realises he is almost yelling, and stops to gulp at the thick air, calming himself. “You have to stop this nonsense – it’s doing neither of us any good.”

“But they clamour at me, Alistair. Day. And. Night.” There is a strange sing-song to her voice; he knows she has not been sleeping. He knows because he does not sleep either. “They want to tell their story, you see.” She has stopped smiling now, which he is glad about.

“There’s no story to tell, for God’s sake. They ran. They fell. They died. Died, Annie. We saw them, we saw them, all laid out in...in rows on the floor.” A catch in his throat; he coughs. He has run through this explanation a hundred times or more.

“Nevertheless, they speak to me, Alistair. You know the dead have always used me as their channel.” Her pale hand is brushing across the pile of the velvet cloth, back and forth, back and forth, as though to clear crumbs from it.

“No, Annie, they have not. The act – our act – it was all a fake, you know that. Always. It was just a show, an…an entertainment, a cheap thrill for the audience. All tricks and gauze.”

“Then why do the children call so hard to me now?” The whispered question sounds innocent, and when he looks across the table into her blue eyes, their pupils wide and bottomless, he can see no sense there, and no vestige of his willing partner in illusion and deception these many years.

“Annie…” he pleads again, reaching over the table to put his hands over hers, to still them. They are clammy and cold. “Listen to me. We’ll go away from here. We’ll go back down south, they love the Fays there. The Alhambra at Brighton, even. You like that place, remember? And I promise, I promise, we won’t ever do any more shows for children.”

She draws away from him, her head cocked at an odd angle, and peers over his shoulder.

“And yet, they are all still there, Alistair.” He glances behind him, cannot help it.  “They are sitting in their seats in the stalls and in the gallery, row after row after row of them, just waiting. Waiting to speak to me and tell me about what happened to them.”

Thoroughly sceptical though he is, the conjuror shivers in the hot room. Were there quite so many shadows five minutes ago? They clot in the corners like dust-laden cobwebs.  He lets loose of her damp hands and jumps to his feet, knocking the hard chair over backwards. Annie twitches at the clatter, but only a little. Her face is a white splotch in the gloom.

“Alistair.” There is such a chill in her voice now; she has closed her eyes, and her words seem to come from far away. “Oh, oh, Alistair.”

“What? For God’s sake, what?” Her eyes spring open, wide and black, but she is looking right through him. “What do they want from me, Annie?”

“The children…the poor children.” Merely a breath. Her head falls to her breast, and he thinks she has passed out. But then she rears up, almost spitting in his face.

“Alistair,” she says. He does not think she can see him any longer.

“Alistair Fay. The children… The children want their TOYS.”

© Adrienne Hunter Humberstone 2023

An advert to see the Fays at the Victoria Hall in Sunderland