History – the avoidable tragedy that shattered New Year’s Eve in Bermondsey

It was a cold day on the thirtieth of December 1908; people were huddled around their fires, preparing for the forthcoming New Year's Eve celebrations. Outside a blizzard was blowing around Bermondsey's streets, covering the sooty roofs and pavements in a pure white frosting of snow, writes Debra Gosling...

Windows glittered and pipes were adorned with icicles. It was the severest weather London had suffered for years with three inches of snow falling overnight.

The roads were treacherous with ice and slush, the pavements like glass. Guy's casualty was heaving with locals waiting on plaster casts for their broken limbs.

Such was the severity that Bermondsey Borough Council employed an extra nine hundred men to clear the highway. To earn some much-needed cash after the Christmas festivities they shovelled the snow to the side of the road before it was disposed of down sewers and into the river.

This snowy wonderland only added to the enjoyment of the Langley children as they crunched their way back to Alscot Road that evening. Teenagers Louisa and Alfred were returning home from New Kent Road with their younger brothers William and Georgie. They had been to a kids Christmas entertainment in the church and were happily carrying home the Christmas gifts they'd been given.

As they turned into Grange Road from Crimscott Street they paid little attention to the workmen down a hole in the pavement. They were just passing a local pub near Spa Road when what occurred next literally tore their lives apart.

At around 8.15 that evening, the road outside the Alaska Works exploded, leaving a hole that was twelve foot across and six foot deep. The deafening noise of the blast was heard all over Bermondsey. People ran out of pubs and houses to see what all the commotion was about, only to be met with a heart-breaking scene.

Alaska fur factory in Grange Road, Bermondsey, 1976 (SLHLA)

Alaska today Google Street View

The children had been crossing the road when the explosion happened. Local bobby PC Perkins was first on the scene as he had been walking his beat when the blast shook through his hob-nailed boots. Poor Louisa, badly burned and almost blind from the blast ran about screaming for her brothers. He rescued her and led her away to the local GP, Doctor Martin.

Tragically, ten-year-old William had been blown into the sky before being hurled down outside the doctor's house. He was dead before he hit the ground. His sister, Louisa, saw his body as she was carried into the surgery.

Alfred, burnt with broken limbs, could only look on stunned. Little six-year-old Georgie was lying just yards away from them, unconscious and badly injured. The dying boy was rushed to Guys who abandoned their plastering to tend to him.

There was now a strong smell of gas and the shocked crowd was ushered from the dreadful scene as the clanging bells of the Fire Brigade approached.

PC Perkins whistled for back up and soon the boys in blue swarmed the area, putting up barricades and shouting for people to put out their fags. They hurriedly knocked on doors around the area getting occupants to extinguish their coal fires.

Total panic broke out when less than twenty minutes later four more blasts tore apart Grange Road, leaving a series of fires in their wake. The second explosion blew the rear of the pub across to the other side of the road. Unfortunately the blast completely wrecked its outside toilets, raining sewage down on the terrified locals.

Licensee John Lilly went back into the pub to find the gas pipe on his stove alight and the kitchen ablaze.

Luckily, the Fire Brigade were on scene within three minutes of the initial blast and quickly put the fire out.

There would be more work for them: a third explosion occurred minutes later further along Grange Road, blowing out house windows and shattering railings. The twisted metal was found for days after in back yards and on roofs.

Chaos reigned when a fourth explosion wrecked the front of tanners Barrow Hepburn and Gale and shattered the windows of the Samson's Castle. A three-foot block of paving stone was projected into an upper window in the pub but miraculously nobody was in the room at the time.

Samsons Castle 1970 - from David Greenhalgh

A final blast at the junction of Grange Road and Tower Bridge Road blew a manhole cover spinning into the air where it cracked in two. A tram that was parked at the junction, called Star Corner, was lifted off the ground before being set back on the tracks. The passengers could only look out of the windows in disbelief as they came back down to earth literally with a bang!

In just thirty minutes the road had turned into a scene from hell. Fires blazed up from the holes, lighting up the road, people ran screaming over piles of shattered glass and masonry, not knowing which way to turn. Others stood, ankle deep in slush, under an overhanging cloud of fog completely stunned by the blasts.

Chief firefighter Gamble called in six pumps to deal with the incident. Every available police officer was drafted into the scene to look after wanderers suffering from the blast and to assist in clearing the debris. As a precautionary matter the source of the gas was lit to prevent any further build up. Residents were evacuated to Upper Grange Road Police station (now Dunton Road) where in true British fashion they were given hot tea and sympathy. Meanwhile the gas board and the borough council worked through the night to find the cause of the catastrophe.

As another freezing day dawned the magnitude of the disaster became clear. Curtains flapped in pane-less windows, catching on shards of glass. Walls were stripped bare of wallpaper and plaster. Masonry and rubble was found on the rooftops. Large sections of the pavement were missing, leaving gaping holes on the footway.

No one was allowed to return to their home until late afternoon on New Year's Eve. When people came back they found their best crockery and ornaments in pieces. Even worse, they had become inundated with rats that had been taking refuge in the old sewer (a fact that the gas board refused to believe).

It was also established that three other people had been badly injured; Emily Cooper, William Sparkes and John Driscoll (whose life hanged in the balance but eventually recovered).

Sadly, during the night poor little Georgie had lost his fight for life and was reunited with his brother.

For days after Grange Road was closed off. Many people were frightened to return to their homes and spent the next few days in the police station or with relatives. Those that did venture back were not allowed to use their gas stoves and lamps, nor could they light any fires or smoke cigarettes. It was hardly a Happy New Year for Bermondsey people as they shivered in their dark cold bedrooms with such horrible memories so fresh in their minds.

An inquest was held into the deaths of the Langley brothers at Bermondsey Town Hall on the Saturday following the incident. The hall was packed full to bursting with blast victims, the press, council officials and representatives of the gas and water board.

Bermondsey Town Hall

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As pathologist Dr FJ Waldo read out the horrific injuries that poor William and Georgie had suffered their distraught father fainted and had to be carried from the hall by two police officers. Witnesses to the incident then took the stand and gave their evidence. As each person related their experience a picture emerged of the incompetence, arrogance and stupidity of the three authorities responsible for the road maintenance.

One man by the name of Toomey stated that on the evening in question he saw three men in Grange Road standing around a hole searching for a gas leakage. One of them was holding a torch made of the lighted end of a tar rope! He heard one of them say 'that's it, Jack you've found it'. The explosion then occurred and Toomey was blown against the railings of a house, the jug of ale he was carrying blown from his hand.

Leather dyer John Hazell stated he and his wife also saw the lighted rope before being blown against railings and seeing the body of a boy fall from the sky.

The gas board denied the rope had been lit and insisted that their men carried safety lamps but admitted tarred rope was used to bandage pipe fractures. Mrs Susan Sweeting of Grange Road disagreed with their story. She too saw the three men around the hole at 8.15pm and one of them had a lighted piece of rope that he was swinging round in an arc.

Louisa bravely gave evidence at the inquest. Bandaged and shaking she took the stand and told the Coroner how she and the boys had been walking back home down Grange Road. As they reached Spa Road "something blew us up. I was thrown to the ground; one of my brothers went up in the air and I do not know where the other went. Outside the doctor's house I saw William lying close to the kerb. We didn't smell any gas as we walked along the road".

In the weeks that followed the facts became clear. The gas and council officials had already been on scene searching for a leak before the explosion occurred. They had not thought of closing the road or evacuating residents.

The council already knew about a disused sewer under the road by the Alaska works that had last been checked as safe in 1896. Officials admitted that it should have been filled in long ago. Engineering consultant Sir Alexander Binnie commented that he was surprised that the pressure of the buses and trams above hadn't made it collapse and congratulated the council on such a well-made road!

The extreme weather that day had caused a water pipe to burst which released two hundred thousand gallons of icy water into the cavity. The sandy gravel that is typical of Bermondsey was washed away, hollowing out the old sewer and leaving the gas pipe with no support. The constant pressure of the water cracked the pipe, releasing gas into the cavity. The water, air and gas made a lethal explosive mixture under Grange Road. Then some fool went and lit his tarry rope to find the source of the gas. No doubt he got promoted.

After many adjournments the inquest was finally closed at the end of January 1909. The jury found the cause of the explosion to be the ignition of gas caused by the use of lighted tar rope by gas company engineers.

The council, gas board and water board were all found responsible and their employees negligent but not criminally so.

In the time-honoured practice of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted it was recommended that a full enquiry of procedures be undertaken and lessons learned.

The case was so harrowing that the Coroner excused the jury from service for the next twenty years.

It was stated at the time that the tragedy could have been even more disastrous but for the fact that most people were indoors that night. The cold weather and build-up to New Years Eve had kept people in their homes, in the pubs and off the street.

This was no consolation for the Langley family who had to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives.

Ten days after the event the funeral cortege of William and Georgie left their modest home in Alscot Road bound for Nunhead Cemetery.

https://southwarknews.co.uk/history/history-plus/sadness-and-spectacular-beauty-how-nunhead-became-one-of-londons-great-victorian-cemeteries/

In true Bermondsey manner thousands of people lined the route, their heads hung in respectful silence. As people wept openly in the street the little coffins were adorned with wreaths from the children of every Bermondsey school. Pub licensees, other blast victims, locals and the Mayor of Bermondsey carried hundreds of others.

At the service the hymn 'Safe in the arms of Jesus' was sung. Local funeral directors W Uden showed their sympathy for the sorrow-stricken parents by carrying out the whole of the service free of all cost.