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In 1899 two Sowerby Bridge sisters burst into flame at around the same time while in different houses. At the time the tragic deaths were put down to “singular coincidence” but more recently the deaths have been attributed to spontaneous human combustion (SHC), a controversial and hotly debated phenomenon where people apparently burst into flames for no known reason.
This is the terrible story of the “Fire from Heaven” that visited Sowerby Bridge.
Six year old Alice Ann Kirby lived on Wakefield Road with her father and grandmother, while her younger sister Amy lived with their mother about a mile away on Hargreaves Terrace.
On 5 January 1899 Alice's grandmother left her asleep alone in the house at about 10.00 am. At around 11.00 am a neighbour noticed flames coming from the house. The door was open and she could see Alice with her clothes alight and together with another neighbour they put out the fire, wrapping the unfortunate girl in a rug.
Meanwhile at Hargreaves Terrace Amy's mother left her alone for two minutes to fetch water from a nearby well. As she returned she heard her daughter screaming: Amy too was on fire. A witness said she had flames a yard high coming from her head. The fire was extinguished and the distraught mother hurried to Wakefield Road to tell her estranged husband what had happened. On the way she met a neighbour hurrying in the opposite direction to tell her the news about her eldest daughter.
Both girls had suffered appalling burns and were taken by the same horse drawn ambulance to the Royal Halifax Infirmary. Alice died from her injuries later that evening followed by her younger sister the next day.
The case was revisited in 1985 in the Halifax Evening Courier of 13 March and SHC was offered as the explanation. The newspaper offered some circumstantial evidence for this conclusion. SHC victims, the paper said, are usually working class females, it usually happens indoors and cases sometimes happen in close proximity to one another. It is rather strange though that contemporary accounts do not mention SHC despite the controversial phenomenon being in the popular consciousness.
In Alice's case, at least, we are told that there was a fire burning in the grate and as it was January it seems likely that a fire would have been burning in Amy's house too.
Whether the tragedy is in fact spontaneous combustion or just a horrific coincidence there was one final grim twist to the tale: the doctor who treated the dying girls was called Doctor Wellburn.
Information
from Paul Weatherhead
Author of 'Weird Calderdale'
Pub: Tom Bell Publishing
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