3-016-829 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Illustrations of the Flood at Sheffield: drowned cattle at High Bank, on the River Don, 1864. Aftermath of a burst reservoir, caused by inadequate building materials. Over a hundred people were killed. '...a number of cattle...lay at High Bank, having been carried down by the flood to that part of the river - their carcasses hugely swollen, and plastered with mud and clay, an ugly spectacle, and such as may seldom be found in the suburbs of a great commercial town. When daylight broke, on the Saturday morning, large trees and dead cows and horses were lying mixed with several human bodies in the very streets of Sheffield'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.