1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:01,920
Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

2
00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:07,880
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello and Welcomed. This Day in History Class

3
00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,760
Speaker 1: a show that honors the dead by sharing their stories

4
00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:15,880
Speaker 1: with the living. I'm Gay Bluesier and in this episode,

5
00:00:16,200 --> 00:00:20,280
Speaker 1: we're reflecting on an infamous tragedy that transformed what should

6
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,440
Speaker 1: have been a joyful day into a waking nightmare. As

7
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:28,520
Speaker 1: a warning, today's episode deals with an accident involving children

8
00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:32,000
Speaker 1: and includes descriptions that may be upsetting to some listeners.

9
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:44,240
Speaker 1: The day was June eight, eight three at Victoria Hall

10
00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:48,560
Speaker 1: in Sunderland. The rush to receive free toys left one

11
00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:53,520
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty three children dead. The tragedy occurred during

12
00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:57,639
Speaker 1: a performance by the Phase of Tynemouth, a touring variety

13
00:00:57,720 --> 00:01:00,240
Speaker 1: act that had been billed as the greatest tree eat

14
00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:04,440
Speaker 1: for children ever given. More than two thousand tickets had

15
00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:07,960
Speaker 1: been sold for the Sunday performance at Victoria Hall, and

16
00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:10,920
Speaker 1: most of the seats were filled with children, many of

17
00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:14,800
Speaker 1: whom had attended unsupervised. At the end of the show,

18
00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:19,120
Speaker 1: a prize giveaway was announced. Each child would receive a

19
00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:23,640
Speaker 1: free toy as they exited the hall. Unfortunately, the distribution

20
00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:26,679
Speaker 1: was poorly planned and little was done to prevent the

21
00:01:26,720 --> 00:01:30,840
Speaker 1: eager children from crowding toward the exit and the stampede

22
00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:34,640
Speaker 1: that followed, Nearly two hundred children between the ages of

23
00:01:34,760 --> 00:01:39,679
Speaker 1: three and fourteen were killed. In the nineteenth century, the

24
00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:43,640
Speaker 1: port city of Sunderland in northern England was home to

25
00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:47,080
Speaker 1: a massive concert hall that hosted all kinds of events

26
00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:50,960
Speaker 1: and shows. On that fateful day in eighteen eighty three,

27
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:55,960
Speaker 1: the visiting performers where Alexander Faye, a self described conjurer,

28
00:01:56,320 --> 00:02:00,080
Speaker 1: and his sister Annie Faye, the enchantress the Hand and

29
00:02:00,160 --> 00:02:05,000
Speaker 1: bills for their show promised talking wax works, living marionettes,

30
00:02:05,360 --> 00:02:09,400
Speaker 1: and something they touted as their great ghost Delusion. The

31
00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 1: show was an easy sell thanks to its mere one

32
00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:15,680
Speaker 1: penny ticket price, but to really seal the deal, the

33
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: Phase also advertised that every child in attendance would receive

34
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:23,000
Speaker 1: a free toy. On the day of the show. The

35
00:02:23,040 --> 00:02:27,160
Speaker 1: excited children of Sunderland turned out on mass, filling the

36
00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:32,320
Speaker 1: undred seat hall almost to capacity. Most parents let their

37
00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:36,079
Speaker 1: kids attend unaccompanied, and while that was against theater policy,

38
00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:40,760
Speaker 1: they were seated anyway. The Phase enthralled their young audience

39
00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:44,840
Speaker 1: and the performance ran smoothly. Then for their final act,

40
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:48,960
Speaker 1: the magicians performed a hat trick. They began pulling toys

41
00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:51,640
Speaker 1: from a hat and throwing them out to the audience.

42
00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:55,840
Speaker 1: Of course, the phase could only reach the children nearest

43
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:59,120
Speaker 1: to the stage. Those seated closer to the exit or

44
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:02,440
Speaker 1: in the upper gallery were told to collect their prizes

45
00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:05,720
Speaker 1: as they left the building. With few adults around to

46
00:03:05,880 --> 00:03:09,520
Speaker 1: encourage patients, the children in the upstairs gallery ran to

47
00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:13,639
Speaker 1: the nearest staircase All at once. They pushed and squeezed

48
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: past one another, anxious not to miss out on the

49
00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:20,040
Speaker 1: rare treat of a new toy. One six year old

50
00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:23,400
Speaker 1: boy named William Coddling made it safely out of the

51
00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:26,560
Speaker 1: hall that day. He later recalled the early moments of

52
00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:30,320
Speaker 1: the disaster, saying, quote, I raced through the gallery as

53
00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:33,600
Speaker 1: fast as I could, scrambled with the crowd through the doorway,

54
00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:37,480
Speaker 1: and jolted my way down two flights of stairs. Here

55
00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:41,040
Speaker 1: the crowd was so compressed that there was no more racing,

56
00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:45,800
Speaker 1: but we moved forward together, shoulder to shoulder. Soon we

57
00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:51,120
Speaker 1: were most uncomfortably packed, but still going down. Coddling didn't

58
00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:53,640
Speaker 1: know it at the time, but the crowd had slowed

59
00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:56,400
Speaker 1: because the doorway at the bottom of the stairs was

60
00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:00,640
Speaker 1: only half open. The inward opening door had been partially

61
00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:03,880
Speaker 1: opened and then bolted to the floor. This left a

62
00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:06,680
Speaker 1: gap of only about two feet for the children to

63
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:10,240
Speaker 1: pass through. The door's position may have been an attempt

64
00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:12,920
Speaker 1: to make ticket checking easier at the start of the show,

65
00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:15,840
Speaker 1: but there was no staff member station there at the

66
00:04:15,920 --> 00:04:18,440
Speaker 1: end of the show. That meant there was no one

67
00:04:18,480 --> 00:04:21,719
Speaker 1: present to remove the door bolt, or even to organize

68
00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:25,279
Speaker 1: an orderly line. The first kids to reach the door

69
00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:28,600
Speaker 1: easily passed through the gap, but as more and more

70
00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:32,320
Speaker 1: children made their way downstairs, those in front couldn't get

71
00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:36,080
Speaker 1: through fast enough, and the exit became blocked. As the

72
00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:40,080
Speaker 1: stampede continued, some children fell to the floor and were

73
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 1: trampled beneath the way to the crowd. William Codling remembered

74
00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:48,520
Speaker 1: that terrible moment, saying quote, Suddenly I felt that I

75
00:04:48,600 --> 00:04:51,800
Speaker 1: was treading upon someone lying on the stairs, and I

76
00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:55,640
Speaker 1: cried in horror to those behind, keep back, keep back,

77
00:04:55,960 --> 00:04:59,880
Speaker 1: there's someone down. It was no use. I passed slowly

78
00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: over and onwards with the mass, and before long I

79
00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:06,719
Speaker 1: passed over others without emotion. At last we came to

80
00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:10,599
Speaker 1: a dead stop, but still those behind came crowding on.

81
00:05:11,839 --> 00:05:14,720
Speaker 1: By that point, the adults in the theater had realized

82
00:05:14,760 --> 00:05:17,799
Speaker 1: what was happening. They tried to unfasten the door bowl,

83
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:21,479
Speaker 1: but they couldn't. The door only opened inward anyway, and

84
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:24,120
Speaker 1: there were too many kids piled against the other side

85
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:27,360
Speaker 1: for it to open any wider. Other adults ran up

86
00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:30,200
Speaker 1: a different staircase and urged the children still in the

87
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:33,479
Speaker 1: gallery and on the stairs to exit that way instead.

88
00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:38,159
Speaker 1: This action likely saved dozens of lives, but again the

89
00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:41,920
Speaker 1: damage was already done in the end. One hundred and

90
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:45,280
Speaker 1: eighty three children died in the crush, one hundred and

91
00:05:45,320 --> 00:05:50,280
Speaker 1: fourteen boys and sixty nine girls. The entire country was

92
00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:54,080
Speaker 1: devastated by the event, and a collection was quickly raised

93
00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:57,719
Speaker 1: to pay for the children's funerals. Queen Victoria was among

94
00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:01,080
Speaker 1: the contributors, and she sent personal indolences to each of

95
00:06:01,080 --> 00:06:05,440
Speaker 1: the families as well. About five thousand pounds was raised

96
00:06:05,480 --> 00:06:08,159
Speaker 1: for the fund, the equivalent of nearly six hundred and

97
00:06:08,200 --> 00:06:12,440
Speaker 1: fifty thousand pounds today. The money left over was used

98
00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:16,480
Speaker 1: to construct a memorial statue and Mowbray Park just across

99
00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:21,120
Speaker 1: the road from Victoria Hall. The hall itself continued to operate,

100
00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:25,320
Speaker 1: but its reputation would never recover from the tragedy. Some

101
00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:29,200
Speaker 1: people said the towering Gothic structure was quote shaped like

102
00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:33,120
Speaker 1: the coffin it once was, and many residents vowed never

103
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:36,919
Speaker 1: to go inside again. As a result, that option was

104
00:06:36,960 --> 00:06:41,240
Speaker 1: removed altogether in April of nineteen forty one, when Victoria

105
00:06:41,320 --> 00:06:44,520
Speaker 1: Hall was destroyed in a German air raid during World

106
00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:48,560
Speaker 1: War Two. The big question that lingered after the disaster

107
00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:52,680
Speaker 1: was who was responsible, who would locked the exit door

108
00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:57,960
Speaker 1: in that deadly position and why. Parliament launched two investigations

109
00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,320
Speaker 1: into the events of that day, and any of the

110
00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:06,560
Speaker 1: surviving children offered eyewitness testimony. Unfortunately, their accounts were contradictory,

111
00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:08,919
Speaker 1: and in the end, the person who had bolted the

112
00:07:08,960 --> 00:07:14,000
Speaker 1: door was never identified. That said, the second inquest did

113
00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:18,080
Speaker 1: find fault in several parties, including the phase, the theater

114
00:07:18,280 --> 00:07:22,040
Speaker 1: staffed and management, and the parents and relatives of the children,

115
00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:25,080
Speaker 1: all of whom were blamed for neglecting the safety of

116
00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:29,800
Speaker 1: their young charges. However, the jury ultimately decided that their

117
00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:35,520
Speaker 1: negligence didn't constitute active endangerment, and so no one was prosecuted.

118
00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:39,840
Speaker 1: It's often said that to raise a child takes a village,

119
00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:44,120
Speaker 1: because although kids are smart and brave and resilient, they

120
00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:47,440
Speaker 1: still need guidance and care from the adults they're entrusted to.

121
00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 1: The Victoria Hall disaster is a reminder that the success

122
00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:56,000
Speaker 1: of that venture depends on everyone working together to provide

123
00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,200
Speaker 1: a safe environment. When any link in that chain of

124
00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:03,400
Speaker 1: care failed for any reason, the results can be devastating.

125
00:08:04,040 --> 00:08:08,440
Speaker 1: In times like that, holding those responsible to account is important,

126
00:08:08,680 --> 00:08:11,320
Speaker 1: but even more so is looking for ways to prevent

127
00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:15,320
Speaker 1: similar tragedies in the future. If there's any silver lining

128
00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:18,480
Speaker 1: to the story of Victoria Hall, it's that the English

129
00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:23,160
Speaker 1: government did exactly that. The inquiries led to new laws

130
00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:27,160
Speaker 1: requiring all places of public entertainment to install a sufficient

131
00:08:27,280 --> 00:08:30,840
Speaker 1: number of exits, including doors that could be easily opened

132
00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:35,560
Speaker 1: outward without needing to be unlocked. This rule directly led

133
00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:39,480
Speaker 1: to the invention of the pushbar emergency exit, also known

134
00:08:39,520 --> 00:08:42,920
Speaker 1: as the crash bar. The wide scale adoption of the

135
00:08:42,960 --> 00:08:46,800
Speaker 1: pushbar saved countless lives in the century that followed, and

136
00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:51,400
Speaker 1: it remains a nearly universal feature on emergency exits today.

137
00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 1: Statues and prayers and speeches are all admirable ways to

138
00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,600
Speaker 1: grieve and honor the victims of public tragedies. But the

139
00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:02,760
Speaker 1: most bidding tribute, the greatest show of respect for the

140
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:06,240
Speaker 1: lives lost, is to examine what went wrong and to

141
00:09:06,280 --> 00:09:11,000
Speaker 1: do everything possible to keep the same misfortune from befalling others.

142
00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:16,600
Speaker 1: I'm Gay, Bluesier, and hopefully you now know a little

143
00:09:16,600 --> 00:09:20,760
Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd

144
00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:23,280
Speaker 1: like to keep up with the show, consider following us

145
00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:28,120
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d i HC Show.

146
00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:31,960
Speaker 1: You can also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts,

147
00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:35,040
Speaker 1: or you can email your feedback directly to me at

148
00:09:35,080 --> 00:09:38,800
Speaker 1: this Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks to

149
00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:42,120
Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening.

150
00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:45,680
Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another Day

151
00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:47,000
Speaker 1: in History class