St Ives flood – August 1912
Here are three cards that show a flood at St Ives, Cambridgeshire, well it was Huntingdonshire before the change in boundaries in August 1912
Summer drought? There’s always been floods!
And it was in early June 1725 that the River Great Ouse flooded higher than anyone could remember. Or in the more picturesque language of the parish clerk at Houghton: “On Wednesday June 9th was such a prodigious flood in Houghton and Witton as never was known before in the memory of man. Boats and lighters swam through Houghton and Witton and all along the road from Witton to Hartford.”
A couple of miles downstream, St Ives man Edmund Pettis described the terrifying speed with which the water rose. “June the 8th at nine in the evening no thoughts of a flood, but at 11 the water began to rise and so continued until nine the next morning, when twas so high that it almost touched the coping of the Wharf”.
It’s a rare flood that reaches the top of the quayside at St Ives. But just six months later, in January 1726, an even higher flood followed. Bridges were swept away and large areas of the Fens were under water.
In those days, every flood seemed to be the highest anyone could remember. In September 1797, a flood at St Ives was “greater than ever known in so short a space of time.” November 1823 brought “the highest flood ever remembered”.
The 19th century was more scientific. July 1875 saw “the highest flood that has occurred here for upwards of 50 years” and November 1894 “the deepest flood for 71 years”. In both cases it was 1823 they were looking back to.
This year is the centenary of a flood in the Ouse Valley that was particularly destructive because it came at harvest time, in August 1912. It was also the first flood when lightweight, portable cameras were available, so there are lots of photographs of it.
The pictures are a bonus for historians because the floods lured photographers into the unfashionable back streets of the Ouse Valley towns.
There are endless photographs of main streets, market places and parish churches. But if you want a picture of the yards and alleyways that once surrounded our town centres, you’ll probably find that it shows water over the cobbles and children paddling in the floodwater.
Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler
Nellie Spindler was born in Wakefield, a small city in Yorkshire, England. She’s the eldest daughter of George and Elizabeth, has two younger sisters, Lillie and Mary, and a brother, Edward. Her father is a police sergeant. Nellie is educated as a nurse in the Leeds Hospital. From November 1915 she works as a nurse in the military hospital of Lichfield, a town in the West Midlands.
In May 1915, she left for the front line. She became a staff nurse in No.44 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS), an evacuation hospital that at that time was located in Brandhoek, a township near Poperinge, beside the road to Ypres. There were strong objections to Brandhoek as a hospital location. It was too close to the front line and was, moreover, surrounded by ammunition and supply depots. Not a very tranquil location, in other words.
The incessant clamour of bombardments didn’t help the patients’ mood either, while the nearby depots were obvious targets. On 21 August 1917 Brandhoek was hit by German artillery shells. Nellie Spindler was hit by a schrapnel and died that same day. After the bombardment Brandhoek was evacuated. The 321 patients and the body of Nellie Spindler were transported to Lijssenthoek, where it was placed in the mortuary. The next day, Nellie Spindler was buried with full military honours. Her fellow nurses, meanwhile, were on their way to Saint-Omer.
She is the only woman buried between more than 10,800 men at Lijssenthoek Cemetery.
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My wife, bless her tells me that I am rapidly becoming, or perhaps that should read have become a “Grumpy old fart”, so what better forum to spread my doom, gloom and paranoia than WordPress. I also have a love of old pictures, postcards and Edwardian Actresses, in particular Miss Gabrielle Ray which I hope to share at regular intervals. As my collection has grown I have set up another blog which contains only pictures of Miss Ray. Gabrielle Ray Thank you for viewing and comments are welcome.
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Grumpy old fart!!! 