The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead…

The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead is a tragic and spectacular series of events starting on Friday October 6, 1854, in which a substantial amount of property in the two North East of England towns is destroyed in a series of fires and an explosion that kills fifty-three and injures hundreds.

There is only one building still extant on the Newcastle Quayside that predates the fire.

The towns of Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead sit opposite each other, on relatively steep slopes leading down to the River Tyne.

On the north side is Newcastle, the quayside of which is—at least by local accounts—one of the largest in the kingdom, with much shipping and the concentration of town's business and commerce.

Gateshead has similarly dense development opposite the quayside with factories, mills and warehouses built down to the water's edge, behind which and running up the hill are numberless densely occupied tenemented dwellings.

The towns are linked by two bridges, built no more than one hundred feet (thirty meters) apart.

The older is a nine-arched stone bridge, built in 1771, the third to have been constructed on the site.

Slightly upstream is Robert Stephenson's new High Level Bridge, completed five years previously in 1849, an ingenious double-decker design allowing railway traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower.

On the Gateshead riverbank, a few yards downstream of the old bridge, stands the splendid new mill premises of Messrs. J. Wilson & Sons, worsted manufacturers.

This large gaslight-lit building had been erected after a fire that had destroyed their previous premises, on the same site, three years before the events of this great fire.

At half past midnight on Friday October 6, 1854, the mill is discovered to be on fire; the cry is raised and immediately the streets crowd with people hurrying to the scene of the growing conflagration.

The fire being confined to the upper stories of the building, efforts are made to salvage stock on lower floors; but the great quantities of oil in the premises, used to treat wool, add fuel to the fire and quickly curtail the attempts.

Despite the prompt attendance of the North British and Newcastle fire engines, within an hour the building is one mass of flame and within two the roof falls in and the building is a total wreck.

Such a large fire naturally attracts many spectators, who occupy every spot on the bridges, boats, quayside and surrounding buildings.

The fire spreads to a wooden staith or jetty used in former times for loading coal, which for a time shares with the warehouse the attention of the thronging multitude.

A slight concussion warns the crowd that there is something more perilous than sulfur alone in the burning pile.

A second slight explosion does not warn the firemen and surrounding crowds.

A third passes unheeded..

After a few minutes, the final explosion occurs.

The vaults of the warehouse are burst open with a tremendous and terrific explosion, heard twenty miles (thirty-two kilometers) away.

Vessels on the river lift as if lashed by a sudden storm.

The old bridge shakes, and the new quivers.

Massive walls are crumbled into heaps, houses tumble into ruins.

The venerable parish church, on the hill, is shattered to a wreck.

Gravestones are broken and uplifted.

The hands on the dial of its clock stood at ten minutes past three.

Thick black smoke rises; temporarily all is silent; then the scene is lit by falling burning debris from the warehouse, the noise of falling dwellings and the cries of the injured.