25. The disaster at the Brinksway Mill, Stockport in 1850

At 1:20pm on Tuesday 30 July 1850, during the dinner hour, when most of the workforce had gone home except for a few who had stayed to eat in the work rooms, suddenly and with a loud crack and a fearful crash nearly a quarter of the newly-built Brinksway Mill at Stockport fell in.  Four floors collapsed, carrying with them girls and women and crashing down on labourers and wheelwrights.  13 people were killed.

Wren & Bennett had drawn up the plans, were superintending the building, and building the water wheel, shafting and gearing, with the iron castings supplied by Williamson & Roberts of Stockport.  Work had begun in August 1849 on the site on the Lancashire side of the River Mersey about three-quarters of a mile from Stockport marketplace and by June 1850 the mill could be occupied – all that remained was the setting up of a water-wheel and installation of some cotton machinery.  As soon as he heard of the disaster, John Hopkinson – now a young married man and father of a little boy who had just had his first birthday – left Manchester, taking the 4:15pm train for Stockport.  He will have found a scene of shocking devastation.  

The mill was now a mass of rubble, debris of large cast-iron beams and smashed machinery.  The walls were standing, but highly dangerous.  The floors were gone and the basement, filled with collapsed masonry, ironwork and machinery, was open to the sky.  On nails in the wall, high up on the third storey, could be seen three dresses, hanging where the girls had left them before starting work.

For three dreadful hours men had worked to stabilise the ruins, trying to tie the beams of the different floors more firmly together.  At about the time of John's arrival they began to move the fallen mass and dig for the missing.  Two men had been heard crying out from under the masonry and ironwork, but only for a few seconds – nothing could be done for them and, wrote the journalist of the Manchester Examiner and Times of 3 August, "their voices soon ceased to afflict the ears of the bystanders."

Some people had been lucky enough to get out.  Bridget Larney, who worked in cardroom number 3 on the third floor, was sitting with half a dozen of her workmates having their dinner among the machines. She heard a crack and looking up saw the floor above them tumbling down over Ellen Ashton's bobbin frame.  She cried, "Good God, what's coming!" and got up and ran down the room – and then when she got to the door she looked back and she saw that where they'd been sitting, that part of the mill had fallen down and there was a hole up to the roof.  "All that I left in the room were killed," she told the coroner.  

Extra hands were taken on – the journalist doesn't say who was in charge, but as Wren & Bennett were superintending the building we must assume that John Hopkinson was part of this – and the first person was taken out at about 8:30pm.  They found five others after that, three of whom were dead.  The men worked on through the night until the Wednesday morning, the surgeon John Rayner standing ready in a nearby warehouse to give help when called and the Borough Police at hand to keep people clear.

There was so much to be moved, there were so many cast-iron beams, that progress was painfully slow.  It wasn't until Wednesday at four that they found more bodies – by then they were expecting to find seven people beneath the rubble.  The workmen worked on, in spite of the considerable risk from the walls which were in a very dangerous condition, desperate to find their workmates.  Mr Trimmer the factory inspector was on site on Wednesday at 11am, and work went on until 6pm when the weather worsened and the wind rose, and it was decided that they had better pull down the worse parts of the tottering walls – unfortunately the walls fell inward, adding to the amount to be moved.  At about 9pm they started again, frantically searching.  The journalist wrote

The interior of the ruined portion at this period presented a mournfully picturesque appearance.  The flashes of light from a fire placed in a portable grid, with the glare of several double oil lamps, threw a strong gleam over spectators and workmen, and with the associations natural to the beholder at such a moment, gave to the scene a thrilling interest.

Work went on without a break all night.  By 7 o'clock on the Thursday morning, they had reached the place where the women had been seen to fall through and disappear.  They found their bodies at 11am, dreadfully mangled and starting to decompose.  Then they found the body of a young labourer, Samuel Harrop, who had only been taken on for work on the Monday.

The bodies were quickly coffined and taken to the nearby Egerton Arms, ready for the Lancashire county coroner to come and hold the inquest.

Three of Wren & Hopkinson's millwrights had been found dead:

• Ephraim Kitson, aged 50, millwright, married with 3 children, he had been 15 years in the service of Wren & Bennett
• Wright Barker, aged 36, millwright, who left a widow
• John Bushby, aged 19, "a very promising apprentice", who lived with his parents in Manchester

Two labourers working with the millwrights had been found badly injured and had died in the infirmary:

• Joseph Orme, aged 53, who left a widow and five or six grown up children
• James Robinson, aged 28, single

The rescuers had managed to get Ellen Ashton out of the ruins where she had fallen three storeys deep, but she was shockingly mangled and died in the infirmary a couple of hours later.

Parents, siblings and friends gave evidence at the inquest of the identity of those who had been found dead:

• Mary Ann Macnamara, 14 years old, jack-tenter, daughter of a painter
• Elizabeth Sykes, 14 years old, jack-tenter, daughter of spinner David Sykes
• Hannah Cash, drawing-tenter, 19 years old, single, only daughter of James Cash, twister
• Ann Swindells, 30 years old, jack-frame tenter, mother of five, wife of George Swindells, self-acting minder
• Margaret Ardern, 30 years old, jack-frame tenter, single woman, mother of two and sister of John Ardern
• Bridget Silk, about 36 years old, drawing-tenter, single
• Samuel Harrop, 22 years old, labourer, son of James Harrop

As three people had died at the Infirmary, which was in Cheshire, while the others had died at the mill, which was in Lancashire, two inquests had been opened.  But the coroners, Mr W S Rutter for Lancashire and Mr Charles Hudson for Cheshire, agreed that the inquests should run together, beginning on Friday 9 August at 3pm.

John Hopkinson gave his first evidence at the Lancashire inquest at the Egerton Arms, Brinksway on the Wednesday and then returned to give his evidence in full at the joint inquest on 9 August before both coroners and the juries for both Lancashire and Cheshire.  During his evidence, journalists report him as using both "I" and "we" in his explanations, but it is clear that at least one crucial decision was made jointly by him and Mr Henry Wren.  

As the Home Secretary had turned down the coroners' request for somebody competent to survey the mill to establish the cause of the collapse – on the grounds that this wasn't necessary – they had called in two Manchester experts themselves.  These were formidably qualified men – the engineer and mathematician Professor Eaton Hodgkinson FRS (1789-1861) and civil engineer William Fairbairn FRS FRS (later Sir William Fairbairn, Bt) (1789-1874).

They were pioneers in investigating structural failure and in particular the question of cast iron.  John, 26 years old and a junior partner in the firm, would be facing two experienced men of sixty-one with strong views and many experiments and publications behind them – as well as the friends and families of the dead.

The interior of the mill was 14 yards (nearly 13m) long, consisting of 14 regular 10 foot (3m) bays, and was 60 feet wide.  Each floor was supported by two rows of cast-iron pillars running the length of the building at 10 foot intervals.  The mill was to be worked by both steam- and water-power.  After the plans were drawn up, the owner Mr Cephas Howard and the future tenant Mr Joseph Heaward decided it would be better to have the mill moved 11 feet closer to the River Mersey.  This meant a significant alteration to the plans.  

An old tunnel ran under the ground floor the whole length of the mill; it was in this tunnel that the water wheel was being fixed.  Cast-iron columns went through the tunnel to support the upper floors, and were fixed into solid rock on the floor of the tunnel.  But because the mill site had been moved, one of the cast-iron columns had to be left out to make space for the water-wheel.  So, to support the line of pillars above, a large cast-iron beam was placed over the water-wheel, resting on the two adjoining columns, which were accordingly made stronger.  One entire line of columns, four storeys in height, rested upon the centre of the large beam.  "We should have avoided," said John, "if it had been practicable, placing a row of columns on the middle of a beam."

Professor Hodgkinson and Mr Fairbairn both found that it was, as had been suspected from the beginning, this cast-iron beam that had given way.  As this interesting article entitled 'An Iron Will' by Clive Richardson explains, cast iron "was reliable for columns but treacherous for beams."

A crucial point was that it had been not a solid beam but an open-work beam.  When John was recalled to explain his calculations for the beam (made "according to a rule laid down in a book (produced)", noted the Manchester Courier of 10 August 1850) and the tests that had been carried out on the castings, he said that they had made the decision to make it open-work rather than solid when the "the drawing of it was executed … on account of its large size.  That was decided by himself and Mr Wren."

Professor Hodgkinson was brutally clear, citing the published research carried out by himself and Mr Fairbairn

the beam, to save metal, had, however, been made with apertures at the side, which, according to my experiments, greatly impairs the strength ... From the experiments I have made it is proved that beams with open work have great weakness.  Open-work beams ought to be discarded.  I am sorry that a want of knowledge of that fact led to the accident.  I think the accident has arisen from error of judgment … I attribute the falling of a portion of the mill to an error of judgment in the form of the beam and of the pillars; it is quite possible the form of the pillar led to the fracture of the beam; the brick-work of the mill seemed to be good …

John defended the pillars in his reply

I believe this form of pillar has been used by architects of the greatest eminence; I believe they have been adopted in the new houses of parliament by Mr Barry; the interior of the Manchester Athenaeum rests upon four columns of the same description, and all the pillars in the Free Trade Hall are of the same description.

William Fairbairn
in 1877

William Fairbairn – who had worked briefly for Thomas Cheek Hewes until a disagreement over the design over a bridge over the River Irwell – was equally condemnatory, though he spared the pillars from criticism

Cast-iron may be said to be of almost universal application at the present time in the construction of buildings.  Its use is at all events very extended, and the repeated occurrence of lamentable accidents, which have hurried numbers to their graves without the means of escape or a single moment's reflection, evidences a deplorable want of knowledge of its general properties amongst those who undertake the designing and erection of buildings, and seems to call for the interference of the strong arm of the law, or, at least, for the supervision of some higher authority than now exists to enforce obedience to those well-established principles and facts, which point out a way to its perfectly secure adaptation when duly and accurately proportioned to the duties it may be called upon to perform ...  

when its application is undertaken by, or entrusted to the management of, the unthinking and ill-informed, who possess no knowledge of, or have not taken the trouble to make themselves acquainted with its cohesive strength and powers of resistance, it becomes in such hands a most dangerous enemy, instead of a useful and powerful auxiliary ... 

I have, therefore, no hesitation in stating that I have come to the conclusion, that the unfortunate accident at the Brinksway Mill has arisen from the weakness of the large beam which supported the columns and brick arches over the water-wheel.  My opinion further is, that although the bearing powers of the beam had been very materially diminished by the openings made in it, yet it appears that it is in some measure owing to the unequal shrinkage of the casting during its cooling, occasioned by these very openings, that we must attribute failure.

As some consolation to John, Mr Fairbairn did, before sitting down – and presumably in answer to a question from one of the coroners – bear testimony to the skill and talent of the architects.

The journalist on the Manchester Courier on 10 August 1850, recorded John's response to these damning conclusions:

It would be improper for him to give any opinion as to the quality of the metal, as that would seem as if he wanted to throw the responsibility on other parties.  This he wished particularly to guard against, and take the whole responsibility upon himself and his partners.

John wrote to his wife at the end of his day at the inquest

For about two and a half hours I was on my legs with all sorts of questions on all hands.  I felt more comfortable than I have done since this deplored occurrence, the verdict condemns the beam as of imperfect construction and improper calculation, but fully aquits us of anything like want of care or negligence 

And on 10 August he wrote to her with more and very encouraging details

And for your ear only, dearest Alice, for are you not my second self.  The coroner, in summing up, remarked that the jury had had the fullest explanation and clearest evidence with regard to the construction of the building from one of the partners whose statements, he must say, had been characterized by a veracity, straightforwardness and moral courage which were infinitely creditable

We don't know whether any of the families took action under the Fatal Accidents Act 1846 against Wren & Bennett and we don't know how the loss – estimated at about £1,000 for the buildings and £7,000 for the machinery – was made good, and whether covered by insurance.  I don't know if Wren & Bennett changed the way they used cast iron afterwards.  But the experience must have been formative for John.

Next: 26. John Hopkinson: out & about in Manchester in the 1840s