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| 1884 Damage to Mill House in the Essex Village of Fingeringhoe |
It was a bright sunny spring morning in
Essex, when without any warning whatsoever, the earthquake struck Colchester and
caused the ground to rise and fall violently for around 20 seconds as the shock
waves spread. The townsfolk were terrified and Colchester was brought to a
standstill in a great cloud of dust. All around the district, there was
destruction and chaos. Some people first thought that the gas works had blown
up, while others wrongly believed that there had been a dreadful explosion somewhere
in the Colchester Army Garrison.
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| The people of Colchester running through the streets during the terrifying earthquake of 1884 |
The earthquake only lasted up to twenty seconds or so, but
in that time, villages were wrecked and life in Colchester Town was reduced to sheer pandemonium.
Hundreds of chimney-stacks crumbled and fell from buildings all over Essex. Tiles and slates rained to the
ground as roofs collapsed and walls buckled and cracked. Window glass shattered
in many houses and in some places, gaping fissures opened up in the ground - some over 100 yards long. The top of the spire of Lion Walk Congregational
Church in Colchester crashed to the ground, with some bits narrowly missing a
young boy by a matter inches.
The Guardian
Newspaper reported:
“The Earthquake was greeted
with sheer terror by the people of Colchester. The scene is spoken of by eye
witnesses as most painful in the extreme – startled men, women and children
rushed out of their houses in the greatest terror, many of them shrieking & screaming in
the streets.”
The Reverend John Mills, Rector of St Lawrence Church in Essex
recorded the events in his diary:
“At about 9.20am on
April 22, a very severe earthquake took place in this district. It lasted only
a few seconds, but it wrecked many buildings and Churches, at Wyvenhoe, Colchester,
Langenhoe and Peldon - Bradwell suffered severely and Tillingham somewhat. The
shock was felt very distinctly in this parish, and the houses, the church and the
school, were rocked and twisted to and fro, but by God's mercy no harm was
done, except that a few tiles were shaken from the roof of Motts Farm.”
In London, over 30 miles away from the epicenter, as in many other places in the UK, the earthquakes shock waves were still fairly severe. The Houses of Parliament were violently shaken and a three-foot
wave engulfed boats on the River Thames. Throughout much of the south-east of
England, and in places as far away as Exeter , Portsmouth, Birmingham, Leicester
and Yorkshire, houses shook, windows
rattled, furniture and crockery moved, church bells rang and clocks stopped.
Even where the earthquake was too weak to cause any serious damage, the
vibrations still left many people feeling frightened and nauseous. The effects of
the earthquake were even felt across the English Channel in Boulogne, and in Ostend.
The Essex County Standard Newspaper reported:
“The awful event came
without the slightest warning and lasted for 10 to 20 seconds but in that short
period of time, a large amount of damage was done to property which it will
take weeks to set right, and in some cases the destruction is irreparable. From
one end of Colchester town to the other the ground was convulsed, and if a
spectator could have taken a bird's eye view of the Borough, the effect would
have been much the same as a sea wave, the ground upheaving and lowering by
means of that gigantic power pent up beneath the earth's crust. The general
impression appears to be that the ground and the houses with it were lifted up,
shaken two or three times in a manner that made the stoutest heart quake, and
the bravest to cower with fear, and then subsided, disappearing with a kind of
final shake or jerk, and then it was all over."
About 1,250 buildings in Essex were badly hit, including
almost every building in Wivenhoe, Mersea Island and Abberton, and in many
other villages all the way to Ipswich and the Suffolk and Norfolk borders. Old,
poorly-maintained properties were hit the hardest, although timber-framed
houses seemed to fare better than brick buildings.
In Abberton gable walls were
cracked, and roofs and chimneys collapsed. The schoolhouse was rendered
unusable and the foundations of the Roman Hall were damaged to such a great extent
that it became uninhabitable. A new rectory in the course of construction in Abberton
was badly damaged and the little church at Virley was also badly hit.
The medieval church
in Langenhoe was partially destroyed, when masonry tumbled off the tower,
crashing into the roof of the nave and chancel. The nearby rectory was also
damaged, as were many other places of worship in the villages of
Layer-de-la-Haye, Layer Marney, Layer Breton, and Peldon, where the local
newspapers claimed that every single building had been affected in some way or
another including The Peldon Rose Public
House which was also wrecked. Some Church clerics disputed the commonly expressed view that “the earthquake was a punishment from God
for all the sins of Colchester".
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| Earthquake damage to the Rose Inn at Peldon |
Many people in Essex reported damage to their property. Mr
John Rogers of Stokes Hall, Althorne, reported that his clock had stopped at
9.18am with the pendulum stuck at a strange angle and two clocks which both stopped dead at 9.18am were also reported
at the Latchingdon home of Mrs E.Fitch.
At Wivenhoe the Church turrets collapsed and at nearby Wivenhoe
Hall, the chimneys and the front of the building collapsed.
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| Eathquake damage at Wivenhoe, Essex. |
In Bradwell on Sea about
40 Chimney Stacks were damaged. At Waymark’s Farm only one chimney remained on
the three farmhouses and the farmhouse was badly damaged. Several windows were
broken at East hall and 180 Children at the local village school panicked and
ran out into the street screaming in fear for their lives.
In Burnham-on-Crouch and in The Dengie area of Essex, a rumbling
noise was heard, shocks were felt and pictures swung on their hooks. Turbulence
on the River Crouch frightened the local fishermen so much that they refused to
go back to work for several days.
On the River Blackwater the Stansgate Coastguard's were on patrol when the quake struck. The
crew rowed immediately back to base as they were convinced that a torpedo had
exploded among nearby shipping. The Waves in the River Blackwater were of
sufficient strength to force two Thames barges backwards against their sails.
In Southminster the Reverend
Berkeley felt the floor move in the vicarage and saw his dining room wall sway.
He then heard two of the church bells ring of their own accord. A later
examination of the vicarage showed that 3 chimney stacks were badly damaged and
needed to be replaced. William Page in Southminster Hall saw his gas light
swing, his dining room clock stopped and he noticed that the water in his moat
was very agitated.
In Tillingham the
villagers reported tremors and then complained of strange vapours. There were
also about 6 chimneys knocked down from houses in the Village.
Melford Hall in
Sudbury on the Essex / Suffolk borders also suffered some damage.
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| Rebuilding the Bell Inn, Old Heath after earthquake damage |
Maldon suffered with the weights falling from the moot hall
clock, which greatly alarmed Head Constable Wombwell and PC Parrot who had
rushed from the Police Station in Moot Hall following the tremors. On a lighter
note, it is recorded that a pet cockatoo in a cage in Maldon was so affected by
the earthquake that it fell off its perch!
The death of a small child in the Village of Rowhedge was attributed
to the earthquake and there were also some reports that between 3 and 5 adults
were killed elsewhere, but this has been disputed by some more contemporary accounts. The
fact that there were very few human casualties or deaths in this natural
disaster is nothing short of a miracle.
The giant waves caused by the earthquake also destroyed many
of the small fishing craft on the Essex coast as they rolled 'like floating corks'. The quay at
Wivenhoe was described by witnesses as being ‘on the move as if going right down'.
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| Earthquake damage to The Ship at Launch pub in Wivenhoe |
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| Part of a1884 Newspaper Report about the Earthquake |
The poor working class people of Essex, whose flimsy
cottages could not withstand the might of the Earthquake, were the most badly affected
of all and many Essex families. The Times Newspaper reported damage "in the many villages in the neighbourhood from Colchester to the
sea coast", with many working class people being made homeless. A Times reporter commented: “How many of the poor people whose houses
have thus been wrecked, are to find shelter for themselves and their families
for some little time, is more than we can say."
It was estimated that the full financial cost of
the earthquake would amount to over £10,000. In June 1884, just 2 months after the Earthquake had hit, a national relief fund, which had been started by the Lord Mayor of London, had
raised over £9,900 (£478,269.00 in today's money) and by 1st August 1884 the Times
reported that the fund stood at £10,413 (£503,052.03). Bradwell on Sea was one
of the main beneficiaries in Eastern Essex with the Church and 27 other buildings
receiving financial help with the repairs.
The vicar of Broomfield noted in his parish register:
"On Tuesday, April 22nd this year there was a
shock of earthquake, about 9-20 a.m. which shook the house perceptibly, but by
God's great mercy, did no damage. It was severely felt at Colchester, and did
much damage in Wyvenhoe, Peldon and Wigborough, so much so, that a public
subscription was opened at the Mansion House for the relief of the poor people
who had suffered and to restore the Churches and Schools and which had been
injured."
A report in the The Essex Standard Newspaper of 21st March
1885 – nearly a year after the earthquake occured - carried the final detailed
report of the fund which helped the owners of 20 churches, 11 chapels and 1,213
other properties.
There was some criticism of the way the money had been
distributed, particularly for the repair of churches. However, it was pointed
out that the aims of the fund announced at the beginning of the fund raising
was to be the 'restoration of churches,
schools and other buildings', and they defended themselves by stating that
half of the fund did actually go to 'the poor'.
There are records of well over a
thousand earthquakes occurring in Britain. One in 1692 is said to have cracked
the tower of St Peter’s church in Colchester, although it does not seem to have
been in anyway as severe as the earthquake of 1884. Records are too incomplete
and patchy to allow proper comparisons, but it seems that perhaps only six of
the recorded earthquakes in early Britain, which occurred many years earlier between the years 1185 and 1480, are
in anyway comparable in magnitude to the one that happened in 19th century Colchester. This may have been the most
severe earthquake in Britain for 500 years but the people of Essex survived a major brush
with the awesome power of Mother Nature – and they survived to tell the tale.
Further Reading:
Haining, Peter (1976), The Great English
Earthquake, Robert Hale, ISBN 0-7091-5395
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