Statement of Witnesses

STATEMENT OF MR HENRY BEARDSELL
Son-in-law of Mrs. Hirst, as follows:-

“Mr Beardsell had become somewhat alarmed at the rapid rise of the water in the reservoir, and began to fear that the embankment would not be able to resist under the immense pressure. 

He accordingly determined to make an examination of it the last thing before retiring to rest on Wednesday night; and for this purpose he walked up the valley to the top of the embankment, taking his stand on the side opposite the funnel. 

The weather had cleared up, and the moon being at the full, shone bright, so that an inspection could easily be made.  As he stood on top of this embankment, at an elevation of more than sixty feet, he saw the water roll over its topmost height; and while he gazed, the embankment gave way in a mass, and was burst away at a distance of not more than two or three feet from the place where he stood. 

In this fearful position his thoughts reverted to his family and the family of his mother-in-law, all the members of which he had left only a short time previous in their houses at Digley. 

It occurred to him that he might out-run the flood; and he started off at full speed down the valley, intending to give the alarm to his family and friends, keeping in his route to the left of the bed of the water-course. 

On mounting a wall, which he had to cross, the torrent of water spread out into the valley and levelled the wall the moment he placed himself upon it, for the length of the fifty feet, the swell of the water extending towards him. 

Finding himself in this imminent peril, he made for the high ground, and only reached the hill-side in time to see the mill, houses, and other premises at Digley carried away by the resistless torrent, and, for aught he knew, the whole of his relatives and domestics with them. 

This must have been a moment of immense agony, as he thought upon the fate of his family and friends; but, to his amazement and delight, very soon his friends and domestics surrounded him on the hillside. 

What a moment of ecstacy and joy must that have been to find himself again in the presence of those who only the instant before, he felt assured, had been swept away with the resistless flood! 

‘How had they escaped?’ was a question which he might well ask, and which was promptly answered. 

During the absence of Mr. Beardsell, Mr. Edmund Barber, a step-son of Mrs. Hirst, who resided at Holme Banks, about half-a-mile from Digley, whose family had become alarmed for the safety of their friends, had been sent by his father to get them out of the valley. 

He arrived during the absence of Mr. Beardsell at the reservoir, and insisted upon everyone leaving the houses; and through this most providential interference, the lives of these two families, and also of the families of the cottagers, were saved, with some of the furniture of the lower rooms of the houses. 

Mr Barber wished to remove his books belonging to the establishment, but Mrs. Hirst, who left the house with great reluctance, refused to tell him where they were, intimating that they were ‘safe enough."