The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-30 00:00:00

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1875

THE YEAR OF STORM AND FLOOD.

Few who noted the progress of the dry
parched Spring, when the east wind blew con-
tinuously for weeks across these islands, could
have supposed that the summer and autumn
would bring with them floods marking out 1875
as well nigh the wettest year that the century
has produced. When the year was young it
seemed as though we were to have a continu-
ation of the drought of 1870, when huge fiscures
apps tared in tke thirsty land, and the unwatered
soil seemed to look up to the unclouded sky
with an expression almost human in its aspect
of physical endurance. For weeks and weeks
in that meepentous veer, one hereafter to be re-
membered as that of the great Continental War.
not a drop of rain fell upon the land, and this
was all the more,tantalising from the fact that
the decks of the ships crossing the Atlantic
were constantly wet with a copious rainfall.
The clouds indeed discharged their contents in-
to the sea. which could very well have done
without them, while the grass and the roots of
the Eritish farmer were dying from the want of
that which fell unappreciated into the vast
bosom of the ocean. But 1875 has belied the
forecast of its earlier days. The bright sun-
shine of March and April was succeeded by a
burst of heat in May ; but June was cold, cloudy
and cheerless, and was succeeded by such a
month of devastation as has rarely been recorded
under the heading of July. It had been rain-
ing more or less for three weeks, the ground
having become couspletely sodden, when upon
the 14th a fall set in which, continuing for 43
hours, swamped the lands that had been so
thoroughly drenched already, caused alarming
floods in different parts of the kiugdora, and
was unfortunately attended with a• sad loss of
life. It took almost the remaining fortnight of
July to clear off the surface water from the
fields; and then August came. Although we
had none of those fierce heats with which its
name has been so often associated, it was upon
the whole a good one, and it handed its tradi-
tions to its successor. The first half of Sep-
tember was a delightful time. Brilliant sun-
shine and calm weather characterised the pass-
ing days ; and almost up to the day when the
sun crossed his equator all may be said to have
gone well. At that time when, for a few how s
the day and night are equal all over the globe,
there seemed to be a gathering together of the
forces of nature for an attack which has been
without a paralled for certainly halfa century.
We are accustomed to what are called the
equinoctial gales and to a period of moisture
about this time ; but we are scarcely prepared
for the sudden unloosing of the four winds of
Heaven, for the prevalence of cyclones upon our
seas which scatter devastation amongst the
fleets of white winged ships, and for deluges of
rain that for volume and persistency might chal-
lenge comparison with those of tropical cli-
mates. Such has been the experience of this
autumnal equinox. It is not only the sea which
has witnessed a lamentable sacrifice of life.
Even in the midland districts, so rapid was the
rise of rivers that people were drowned in the
streets of the town where they had lived for
years, and that which they had been accustomed
to tread as solid ground was suddently conver-
ted into a merciless torrent that swept them in-
to eternity without giving them a chance of
clinging to an ark of refuge.
From the earliest ages the people of this
country have been subject to visitations of storm
and flood. In the days when the Christian era
was young, viz., in the year 245, an inundation
of the sea in Lincolnshire laid under water
many thousand acres. There was another in
Cheshire, a hundred years latter, by which
5,000 persons perished, and an immense number
of cattle was swept away. A flood at Glasgow
in 757 drowned more than 400 families. In 876
the Tweed overflowed its banks, and lid waste
the country for 80 miles around. An inundation
on the English coasts demolished a number of
seaport towns in 1014. Earl Godwin's lands,
exceeding 4,000 acres, were overflowed by the
sea, and an immense sand bank was formed on
the coast of Kent, now known as the Goodwin
San Is, in 1100. Only eight years afterwards
Randers was inundated by the sea, and the
town and harbour of Ostend were totally
immersed. More than 300 houses were over-
whelmed by the sea at Winchelsca, 1230.
Rather more than two eentures later—in 1483—
the Severn overflowed during ten days, and
carried away men, women, and children in their
beds, covering at the same time the tops of
many hills. The floods settled upon the lands,
and were called the Great Waters for one hun-
dred Tears afterwards. The Severn was agaie
a sinner in this respect in 1697, when the
waters rose above the tops of the houses, and
more than a benched persons perished in the
counties of Somerset and Oloncesfer. In 1686
there was an inundation in Yorkshise, whet a
rock opened and poured out water to the height
,af a church steeple. In 1671 there was why her
fearful inandatien in the s line county, know.
In local trada ion as the hipon flood. In 1787
and 1892 the Liffey overflowed and did gceat.
damage- In May, 1811, by the bursting of a
cloud during a -tone in the vicinity of Saloze
many persons awl much atock perished. le
June, 1810, more than 5,000 acres were deluged
in the Fen countries. In August, 1829, oc-
curred the " Morey Floods," when the Spey
and Find horn rise in setae places more than
fifty feet above their ordinary level, and caused
great destruction of property. Melly lives were
lost, and whole famiiies whd took retiree on
elevated places were with difficulty rescued'. In
January, 1841, there was lamentable inundation
at Brentford and the surrounding country ;
' several lives were lost, and much property was
destroyed. The floods which caused Ilia
Holmfirth catastrophe early in 1852 will be well
remembered ; there was again the bursting el
the Bradfield reservoie, when 250 persons were
drowned, in March 1864, while still more re-
cently we had the heavy rains and floods of the
autumn of of 1806. Still the atmospheric
disturbances of 1875 will mark out the year as
one of the moat destructive since the century
dawned. The desolation which it has scattered
has been of various kinds. It bas devastated
the sea, damaged incalculably the agricultural
lands, and carried death into the streets of popu-
lated towns. There is no help but to make the
best of these extraordinary visitations. We can-
not avert them ; we cannot even effectually deal
with them ; for in such cases all that man can
do is to wait until the forces of Nature have
exhausted themselves.