Bid to tell story of tragic mill blaze
AHISTORIAN is seeking to tell the real story behind one of Stockport’s worst fire disasters which killed 10 men, including his greatgrandfather.
David Hulme, 72, from Heaton Mersey, is researching the blaze that ripped through Vernon Mill, Portwood, on November 5 1902.
He says a casual approach to fire safety from the cotton mill’s directors that saw an outside escape staircase removed - was to a large extent responsible for the tragedy.
But these people escaped blame and David wants to set the record straight by publishing a book on the subject. To help with this he is appealing for relatives of other victims to get in touch and share any information and photographs they may have.
David, a retired journalist and broadcaster, said: “A key cause of the deaths was the absence of an outside fire escape, taken down when a mill extension with a supposedly fire-proof stone staircase was built.
“But the mill directors escaped any blame following inquest hearings. Everyone else appears to have been blamed, from an under-equipped and under-manned fire service to the men who died.
“It was said at one inquest that they should have made an immediate escape instead of staying behind to try to fight the fire.”
Isaac Peet, David’s greatgrandfather, managed to smash a window and escape the building but later died from his burns.
The other eight men to perish during the fire or its aftermath were Thomas Hipwell, Joseph Beard, George Rowarth, Thomas Ashton, John Cotton, William Wright, Richard Jones and Robert Hunt. A tenth man, Joseph Adshead, was badly burned and died three years later.
The fire broke out in the afternoon in the cotton spinning machine in the third storey of the mill.
Workers attempted to fight the blaze themselves until firefighters arrived but were unsuccessful and smoke and flames drove them up to the top of the five-storey mill.
Here they became effectively trapped because it was too late to use the internal stairways.
David, who has a son, daughter and two grandchildren, has spent 25 years researching his family history - even managing to identify his father as a late American GI who came to Stockport in World War II.
As part of this he decided to learn more about the fire that killed his great-grandfather. Anyone with information can contact David at david.r.hulme@btinternet.com.