Birkenhead Dock Disaster - Disaster Strikes

Disaster Strikes

Just after midnight on 6 March 1909, during a blinding snowstorm, disaster struck. A gang of navvies were working in a 45-foot-deep pit (14 m) which formed the entrance channel to the new dock. They were clearing away rubble and timber, which was hauled up to the dockside by a crane which straddled the excavation. The waters of the neighbouring East Float were held back from the entrance channel by a 200-foot-long (61 m) temporary coffer dam, formed from pilings rammed with mud and cement, which had been built in 1907. There was only a small amount of work left to do, and the whole four-year dock project would be finished by the following evening.

At around 12:20 am—just after high tide—the dam collapsed without warning, sending millions of gallons of water and hundreds of tons of timber and mud crashing down on to the men working in the pit. Fourteen were killed, but one survived by being shot to the surface. Two men working on the crane were injured as it collapsed into the flooded pit, one losing a leg. The disaster widowed seven women and left 13 children fatherless. It took a month for divers to recover all the bodies, and the victims were buried in three mass graves in Flaybrick Hill Cemetery, Birkenhead, now known as Flaybrick Memorial Gardens.