Corpus Christi

We had a visit from Richard today who came to tell us about a part of Gateshead and Newcastle’s history. We started by looking at photographs of the Quayside from today and from 100 years ago. The children looked for things that were the same and things that had changed. We noticed a big gap where buildings should be…this because there was a fire some years before that.

Next we investigated different jobs from Victorian times on the Quayside. We had to explore boxes of artefacts and work out which job they represented. Richard then told us lots about the jobs. The jobs included policemen (women were not allowed to be police officers!), coal miners, sailors, cloth workers, teachers, builders and the rector. We created actions to go with each job.

After that, we looked at the Quayside 170 years ago. In the middle of the night on 6th October 1854, a fire broke out at Wilson’s Clock Factory. People living in houses on Hillgate were alerted to the fire by a police man. They moved lots of their furniture in to a nearby church.

The Clock factory was made out of wood and was full of cloth and oil so it grew into a huge fire. Luckily, there was a fire service in Gateshead in 1854 but it was not like the fire service today. Water had to be pumped manually which was very hard work. The fire started to spread to the warehouse next door. They had to shout for firemen in Newcastle to come and help. Still, the fire got worse. People watched the fire from the High Level bridge and on the Newcastle side of the Quayside, they thought they would be safe there. We imagined what it might have been like to be in the crowd. 

There were some huge explosions because the warehouse was full of chemicals. The biggest explosion sent the flames over to Newcastle. The fire spread rapidly because the buildings were close together and made out of wood. It was eventually stopped by knocking some houses down to stop the spread. Sadly, 53 people died during the fire.

We learnt a song to help us to remember some key facts about the fire.