3-008-901 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The fatal fire at the Liverpool Workhouse, Brownlow-Hill: ruins of the children's dormitory, 1862. '...a most calamitous fire...resulted in the loss of the lives of two women and twenty-one children...the greatest efforts were made to extricate the children through the windows...however, the smoke was so dense and the heat so great that it was utterly impossible for any one to gain an entrance without the certainty of almost instant death...two adult nurses and a girl fell victims to their exertions to save the lives of the helpless children...On the subjugation of the fire the ruins presented a distressing appearance...among the wreck were the remains of the unhappy victims of the flames...In the dormitory the bedsteads were all iron, and in one row of these lay fourteen bodies of lifeless children, and partially covered with fallen portions of the roof...The inquest respecting the cause of death of the unfortunate nurses and children terminated on Wednesday...and the jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death," but accompanied it with a presentment declaring the absence of an efficient water supply. There was no evidence to show how the fire originated'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.