[Illustration: THE ROYAL NURSERY, OSBORNE.
(_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde._)]
The day after the ceremony at Buckingham Palace was marked by a catastrophe which seriously shocked the Queen. The Bradfield reservoir of the Sheffield Waterworks burst, and the letting loose of its pent-up waters spread desolation far and wide all along the river from Bradfield to Sheffield. Whole villages were swept down the Valley of the Don, and places once populous were suddenly converted into a swamp of mud, with here and there a broken mill wheel left to mark the site of what had once been a happy hive of industry. Some of the streets of Sheffield itself were flooded, and low-lying, open spaces were turned into lakes dotted with islands formed by rubbish heaps. Wreckage of all kinds and the corpses of the drowned marked the track of the current. The disaster was appalling in the suddenness of its occurrence. The first intimation that hundreds of people had of it was the lifting up of their beds by the water as they lay asleep in their homes. In Sheffield, during the stillness of the night, those who were awake said they suddenly heard an unearthly roar which increased in volume, that this was succeeded by a hissing noise, as of angry waves dashing on sharp and beetling crags, and then by weird shrieks, soon followed by the rush of a panic-stricken crowd, flying with their families from the neighbourhood of the river for safety, and crying, “Oh, God! the flood! the flood!” Some 270 lives were lost, and property to the value of £1,000,000 was destroyed. A relief fund was at once started both in Sheffield and in London, and on the 16th of January Mr. Roebuck, M.P. for Sheffield, received the following letter, which testified to the sympathetic interest with which the Queen had read the accounts of what had happened:--
“SIR,--I have had the honour to submit to her Majesty the Queen your letter received last night. Her Majesty had already directed me to make inquiry whether any subscription had been commenced for the relief of the sufferers by the fearful calamity which has occurred near Sheffield. The Queen has commanded me to inform you that it is her Majesty’s intention to contribute £200 towards the objects advocated in your letter. Her Majesty has commanded me to add the expression of her deep sympathy for the poor persons thus suddenly overwhelmed with grief, and exposed to suffering of every description in consequence of this unexpected and dire calamity. As I am not aware of the name of the treasurer, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will take the trouble to forward the enclosed cheque to the proper quarter.