The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-06 00:00:00

ACCIDENTS BY LIGHTNING.

Seldom have so many serious accidents been pro-
duced by a storm of thunder and lightning as that
of Tuesday last. Minor disasters are reported almost
beyond number, and several of e fatal character.
At West Bromwich, the lightning struck the house
of a labourer named Timmins, situated in a row
near the Old Church. The electric fluid entered
the ceiling of the front bedroom, from the roof,
making apertures similar to what would be produced
by a discharge of four rifles. The fluid struck the
bedstead, burnt the curtains and bed-clothes, and
the blankets and feathers of the bed were completely
singed. The electric fluid seemed then to have ex-
pended itself, as regards that part of the house, but
unfortunately it appeared in another part and pro-
duced a fatal effect. Timmins, the occupier of
the house, was at that moment engaged in pour-
ing some water from a kettle, just taken off the
fire, into a teapot. The lightning struck him
on the back of the neck, and produced
immediate death. A small round black scar was
afterwards found on the neck, and a hole corres-
ponding with the scar was found in his collar. One
of deceased's little girls said she saw fire at the back
of his neck at the time he fell. The front bedroom,
where the bed was struck and burnt, was in a state
of dust and confusion, but the room downstairs,
and which was at the back of the house, exhibited
not the least mark of the presence of the electric
fluid, neither of ingress nor egress ; nothing was
displaced, no soot nor dust disturbed. The town of
Mansfield was visited by a severe thunderstorm in
the afternoon, and it raged with great fury for a
considerable time. Shortly before 8 p.m. the light-
ning struck the house of a person named Dawes,
who lives on the Chesterfield-road, about a mile
from Mansfield. The son of Dawes, a boy eight
years of age, was going to bed when the lightning
struck him, and he fell down, expiring almost im-
mediately. The lightning then passed through the
bedroom floor into the kitchen, and caught the de-
ceased's sister on the shoulder and side, inflicting
such injuries that she is not expected to recover. A
less serious accident occurred at Dunford-bridge.
A number of sheep belonging to Messrs. Fox and
Haigh, of PenistoneTownhead, farmers and graziers,
were near to the wire fencing, which in that neigh-
bourhood surmounts the walls to prevent the sheep
from jumping over. The storm was raging fearfully
and the lightning flashed vividly. On its course it
struck the wire fencing, and six of the sheep were
killed instantaneously, while the wire fencing was
torn up for a considerable distance. At Wombwell,
near Barnsley, a house was struck by the lightning.
The chimney fell, and several slates were removed
from the roof. The inmates were from home. At
Dukenfield the lightning struck the chimney of a
cottage in Parliament-street, occupied by a dresser,
named Robert Harrison, and forced itself into the
front bedroom, in which seven persons, includ-
ing children, were in bed. The lightning was
seen to play about the chimney-piece, and then with
a crash, it broke through a small window and so
escaped, happily doing not the least harm. In
Leicestershire the storm was very severe on the
forests; the thunder and lightning raged with almost
unprecedented violence, but fortunately no damage
was done. At Rugby the storm was also very severe.
Three cows were killed by lightning while standing
in a field near the town. Between eight and nine
o'clock in the morning the storm was felt slightly at
Leicester, but passed over. The day, however, was
very sultry, and the atmosphere heavily charged
with electricity, which culminated in a perfect tem-
pest of thunder and lightning, accompanied by
torrents of rain. About seven o'clock the clouds
gathered and hung ovEr the town like a huge sable
pall, and it became as dark as midnight. All at once
the rain descended heavily, the dark clouds emitted
fearful flashes of lightning, and the peals of thunder
were loud and frequent, and appeared literally to
shake the buildings. The family of William Smith,
a spindle maker, living near Wolverhampton, had
a narrow escape. Between seven and eight o'clock,
when the thunder was the loudest, the lightning the
most vivid, and the rain the heaviest, the lightning
struck the gable end of the roof of Smith's house,
ripped up the tiles, passed between the rafters and
the ceiling, cracking the latter all over, described
an angle, came down between the plaster and the
wall, and forced a way out just over the timber
framework of an iron casemented window. Here
it fused away the lead plug which usually occupies
the corner of such casements, burnt a portion
of the iron, and fused and cracked the pane of
glass nearest to the plug. From the window it
seemed to have leaped on to the brick work below
the window, and to have forced a passage for
itself into the room, tbroagh the mortar which
unites two of the bricks. Upon re-entering
the room near to the boarded floor, it blew
away from the wall a trunk, cantaining wearing
apparel and papers, setting both the trunk and its
contents on fire. From the bedroom it passed down
into the sitting-room beneath, from the nearest
corner of the upper apartment. On entering the
sitting-room it stripped away a portion of the
plastered and papered surface of one wall, burnt
the paper on another wall, scattered about the room
a number of plants that stood in the window, and
singed their foliage. Its exit from the sitting-room
was not traceable. All, however, of the lightning
does not seem to have re-entered the bedroom from
the outside, for an iron hinge and latch of a
wooden gate below were both slightly fused, a por-
tion of the gate was splintered off, and a part of
a brass water tap that stands near to the gate has
also been melted away. A young man in the yard
at the time this happened describes the effect of
the lightning, which, he says, fell around him, and
rebounded from the yard in sparks, as from an
anvil. The report at the same time was exceedingly
deafening, alike to him and to Smith's wife and his
grown-up daughter, both of whom were at home at
the time. All the apartments were filled with dense
smoke, as from exploded gunpowder ; and th 3
mother, upon hastening upstairs, where two children
lay abed in the room which the lightning entered,
found the trunk and its contents in a blaze, and one
of the children apparently stupefied and very pale,
as from the effects of partial suffocation. This
stupor continued for some time, even after the
children were brought down stairs. The furnitur
in the sitting-room is described as presenting the
appearance of having been spotted over with soap
water which had become dry ; and in the yard
similar marks are stated to have been seen upon the
ground at the point at which the young man says
he saw the rebounding sparks of fire. Evidences
of the fierce heat of the lightning are pre-
sented upon one of the bricks outside the
window, the surface of which has the polished
metallic appearance of an overburnt brick, and
at the point at which the lie, a htnin re-entered the
room through the mortar, 'the endsp of the bricks
between which it passed are also similarly vitrefied.
At about the same time the lightning struck a
chimney stack not far away from Smith's house, and
forced away several of the bricks. The storm was
felt with equal severity in Devonshire. Few people
were asleep in Exeter and for many mijes round at
four o'clock on Tuesday morning. Before that time
thousands were roused from their sleep by an extra-
ordinary war of the elements. Exeter people say
that they remember nothing of the kind so appalling
since Feb. 20, 1833, when 25 noble trees were blown
down on Northern hay, and great devastation was
caused in all the country round. Between nine and
ten o'clock on Monday night low rumblings of dis-
tant thunder were heard, and the air was exceed-
ingly oppressive. Not till one o'clock, however, did
the lightning become vivid, and the thunder loud.
No rain fell until half-past three, but shortly before
four it descended in torrents, mixed with large hail-
stones. Between that and a quarter past four the
awful storm was at its height. The lightning
flashes, blue and rose in colour, followed each other
in rapid succession, quivering wondrously, and the
air seemed at times to be one sheet of glowing flame.
The thunder rolled also in continuous peals, but did
not crash so startingly as has been often heard. The
peculiarity of the storm was the awful vividness and
long continuance of the lightning flashes. During
a quarter of an hour the scene was one of wildest
fury ; the rain, the hail, the wind, the lightning,
and the thunder, combined in terrible confusion.
The rain-fall was unusually heavy--DO parts of an

inch in the half hour. It is reported that a lad was
struck blind by the lightning at Countess Weir. A
man, living in Newtown, was injured by the fall
on him, as he lay in bed, of a part of the roof of
the house. At Dawlish many houses were injured.
At Totness a hayrick near Dart Villas, belonging
to Mr. Win. Byne, and at Coombe, Loddiswell, a
barn in the occupation of Mr. Came, were ignited
and much injured. At Torquay 40 flashes of light-
ning were counted in a minute. During a thunder-
storm which prevailed in the neighbourhcod of
Leisingham, in Norfolk, on Sunday afternoon, the
lightning struck Smallburgh parish school, where

several children were assembled preparatory to at-
tending service at the church. Two little girls, aged
respectively eight and seven, were killed on the spot
and four more were injured, one of them seriously,.
in addition to which the school-house has sustained
considerable damage. The bell tower of the school
seems to have attracted the electric fluid. A violent
thunderstorm broke over Oldham and the surround-
ing districts, and continued for about an hour.
Next morning a man named William West Hirst
was found dead on the road at Oxhey, in Saddle-
worth. He was lying on his face, and had a small
electrical machine on his back. It appears that the
man, who worked at Denshaw, was returning from
Holmfirth, when he was caught in the storm. His
hat was torn into pieces, and found in an adjoining
field about 15 yards from him, and one of his boots
was also cut into shreds. It is supposed that the
electrical machine he had with him was struck by
the lightning, as there were marks on his body as if
the fluid had radiated from it.