The Victoria Hall Disaster: The Afternoon at Least 183 Children Died in Sunderland

The Victoria Hall Disaster: The Afternoon at Least 183 Children Died in Sunderland

On the 16th of June 1883, around 2,000 children went to Sunderland’s Victoria Hall for a Saturday afternoon variety show by travelling entertainers known as the Fays.

The event had been promoted as “the greatest treat for children ever given”. Toys and books were among the prizes, advertisements for the show had been distributed to children through local elementary schools, and most of those filling the hall that afternoon were between seven and eleven years old.

Victoria Hall stood opposite Mowbray Park, at the junction of Toward Road and Laura Street. It had opened in 1872, so the building was still relatively new. The audience was spread between the ground floor, dress circle and gallery, with around 1,100 youngsters sitting in the gallery alone.

Near the end of the performance, certain numbered tickets were announced as prize winners. Gifts had already begun to be handed out downstairs, and large numbers from the gallery left their seats and headed for the staircase.

At the bottom was an inward-opening door that had been bolted partly shut, leaving a gap of only about 20 inches, or 50 centimetres. Sunderland’s Local Studies Centre suggests this was probably intended to control the number passing through at once while tickets were checked.

Few adults were present and there was no organised queue. Those at the front could only squeeze through slowly, while more children continued down the stairs behind them. The stairwell filled until those nearest the bottom were trapped under the pressure of the crowd.

Adults who realised what was happening began pulling children through the gap. Others joined them, and clearing the stairwell took around half an hour.

Sunderland’s Local Studies account records 183 deaths, all from asphyxia. Some families lost every one of their children, while one local Sunday-school Bible class had taken 30 youngsters to the performance and lost all 30.

The death toll differs between surviving sources. The Sunderland memorial records 183, while Historic England now gives a total of 191 and notes that eight traveller children may not have been properly registered at the time.

Funerals began the following Tuesday and continued until Friday. Businesses across Sunderland closed as a mark of respect. A disaster fund helped with funeral expenses and later contributed towards the memorial, while Queen Victoria sent condolences and made a donation.

William McGonagall also wrote about the disaster in a poem titled The Sunderland Calamity.

Inquests were held in Bishopwearmouth and Monkwearmouth. The Bishopwearmouth jury did not place responsibility on one particular person, although the hall manager was criticised. At Monkwearmouth, the jury called for places of entertainment to have enough exits and for both internal and external doors to open outwards. Historic England records that this safety principle was incorporated into legislation by the end of 1883.

A second enquiry was later held, but it still did not establish who had bolted the door.

The memorial created after the disaster depicts a grieving mother holding a dead child. It was moved away from Mowbray Park for many years before being returned there in 2000. Victoria Hall itself survived until 1941, when it was destroyed during an air raid.

The doorway appears to have been restricted to control the flow of children, but nobody was ever able to establish who had actually bolted it that afternoon.

Image info:

Victoria Hall – The Staircase Calamity, contemporary illustration of the Victoria Hall disaster, Sunderland, 16th June 1883. Unknown artist. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.