The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-09 00:00:00

FURTHER PARTICULARS.

Tho shocking and extraordinary disaster at Holm
firth, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, from the bursting
of the Bilberry Reservoir, continues to excite an amount of
interest beyond anything ever recollected in the neighbour-
hood, and on Saturday the number of people attracted to
the town was very great. Every train from Huddersfield
was crowded, and it was found acecuary to attach two
powerful engines to each load. In addition to the details of
the dreadful occurrence which we were enabled to furnish
on Saturday, we might add some extraordinary accounts of
hairbreadth escapes, a well as !aorta* struggles for life.
At Diglee Upper Mill, half smile uelow the reservoir, two
messengers from the Leeds Court of Bankruptcy, were
in possession of Mr. Furnise's stock-is-trade and
furniture, when the alarm was given of the bunt-
ing of the reservoir; and these men had barely
time to put on a few clothes and rush up ono Bide of the
valley before the torrent came down. One of them was up
to his waist in the water, so narrow was his escape. The
sad scene at Hinchliffe Upper Mill, where a row of six
houses called Water-ttreet and their 40 inmates were all
carried away at a swoop, is easily accounted fur on examiniog
their situation. The valley contracts very ruddeuly there.
Water street was close to the river on the left hank, and
immediately opposite was an immense reservoir of water be-
lunging to the mill, elevated high above the right bank of
the river. Below it stands the mill. The elevated position
of the reservoir probably saved the mill (coin the destruc-
tion, but the torrent of water swept partially over the re-
servoir, and caused it to burst on the river side opposite to
Water-street. Tho houses in Water-street had thus an
extra pressure of water thrown impetuously against them,
and were struck at the end and front silmoot simul-
taneously. Mr. Crossland, Mr. Mettcrick, and Mr. Earn-
shaw, who lived in three of these houses, were
respectable clothiers. James, one of the Sons of Mr. Met-
terick, was saved almost by a miracle ; but he lies iu a pre-
carious state from bruises and other injuries. Ile states
that there were ten of them in the house—his father, step
mother, and eight children. They were row.eil by some
one anon after one o'clock. lie hastily put on a few clothes
and run to the staircase window, looking up the valley,
where bo met his step-mother. A glance at the approach-
ing water satisfied theta that it was the reservoir had burst.
The children were asleep below stain, but his father handed
them up to him and M. Metterick, and they were placed
in the chamber. Just then the deluge came, and the lower
room was filled in an instant, and the water burst through
into the chamber. He and Mrs. Metteriek again seized the
children, and carried all but one a story higher, into the
attic: the flood had caught bin father and our child on the
stairs and overwhelmed them. The no at moment the
whole house was carried away, and he saw no more of any
of the family : he found himself in the raging torrent,
swept before it for a quarter of a nude like
• feather. He got hold of a floating plank, lost it, and
seized another ; was carried aside into the Bottom Mill Re-
servoir, where the water s on became quieter, and though
of immense depth, he paddled himself out of it by means of
another floating piece of wood which he seised. Ito reached
the bank of the reservoir in a very exhausted condition. A
buy iu a cottage belonging to Mr. Floyd, solicitor, Holm
firth, was separated from the man-servant by the water
bursting through the window, and violently closing the door
of the room after the man had passed out, and before he
could follow. The little fellow was raised up the next
moment by the water to withiu a f. w inches of the ceiling,
where he had the presence of mind to lay hold by a beam.
To this he clung for an hour, when the water subsided, and
he was liberated. About 50 bodies are said to have been
floated from the graveyard of the methodist chapel in
Holmfirth, and amongst them the corpse, it is stated,
of the late Mr. John Herein, the projector of
the reservoir that has caused this fatal calamity.
Great numbers of men were at work again on Saturday,
searching the river and the mill ponds on its banks, for the
missing bodies. In addition to those taken out previously,
five others were discovered—the bodies of Nancy Marsden,
Charles Crosland, and Sarah Hannah Dods, being taken'
from a mill-dam a little below the houses iu Waterstrect,
in which they perished; and tho bodies of one of the
Misses Sandford and another poson from the Holmforth
mill-dam. A tin cash-box was found containing 5001., but
it has not yet been claimed. Mrs. Hirst is said to have had
• sum of 1,0001. swept off along with her dwelling, and the
Shackletons a similar amount. Among a heap of wreck
left by. the flood at Holmfirth, a gentleman lifted up six
sovereigns lying together.
The magistrates have not taken any steps, it would ap-
pear, toward, making out or causing to bo prepared a
perfect list of the persons missing, or of the bodies found ;
and our correspondent had great difficulty in collecting ma-
terials for the following, which, though imperfect, is the
nearest approach to a correct list that could be obtained
yesterday :