Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines. Henry Charles Moore

HANNAH ROSBOTHAM AND THE CHILDREN OF SUTTON SCHOOL

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      On October 14, 1881, a gale raged throughout England, and in all parts of the country there was a terrible destruction of lives and property. Round our coasts ships were wrecked, and the number of lives lost at sea on that day was appalling, while on shore many people were killed by the falling of trees, chimney-pots and tiles.

      In Sutton, Lancashire, the gale raged with tremendous fury, and the children in the local National School, frightened by the roaring and shrieking of the wind, could pay little attention to their lessons. Hannah Rosbotham, the assistant mistress, was in charge of the school, the head mistress being absent through ill-health. She was very popular among her pupils, and knew them all intimately, having herself lived all her life in the village, and having been educated at the school in which she was now a teacher. She calmed the more timid of her pupils, and endeavoured to carry on the school as if nothing unusual were happening outside.

      While she was teaching the bigger children, the infants (little tots of three and four) were sitting in the gallery at the further end of the room in the care of a pupil teacher. Over this gallery was the belfry, a large stone structure. It had weathered many a storm, but none had equalled this gale. Suddenly about 11 o'clock Hannah Rosbotham was startled by a loud rumbling, grinding noise, and almost at the same moment a portion of the belfry crashed through the roof and fell in pieces upon the poor little children in the gallery.

      Immediately there was a stampede. The pupils and the pupil teachers rushed terror-stricken into the wind-swept playground, every one anxious for her own safety. But Hannah Rosbotham did not fly from the danger; she thought only of the little children in the gallery. The air was filled with dust, but she groped her way to the gallery staircase, which was littered with stone, wood and slates. Hurrying up she found, to her great joy, that many of the little ones had escaped injury. Some were crying, but others sat silent and terror-stricken, gazing at the spot where several of their little friends lay buried in the ruins.

      Having hurried out the children who had so wonderfully escaped injury, she set to work to rescue those who lay injured. And the magnitude of the task which lay before her may be realised from the fact that sixteen-hundredweight of belfry-ruins had fallen through into the gallery. Quickly and unaided Hannah Rosbotham tore away the timber, stone and slate that were crushing the little sufferers, whose pale faces and pleading voices filled her heart with anguish, but gave strength to her arms. As she knelt tearing away with her bare hands the mass of ruins, fragments of stone and slate fell continuously around her, and she knew that at any moment she might be struck dead. The gale was still raging, and as she glanced up through the hole in the roof she saw the part of the belfry which had not yet given way. A continuous shower of fragments fell from it, but if the remaining portion were blown down simultaneously, she and her infant pupils would be crushed to death.

      Working with tremendous energy she set free one by one the terrified young prisoners. Some were very little hurt, and were able to hurry away into the playground, but there were others who had been severely injured, and these she had to carry away.

      At last her task was done, and happily without any serious results to herself. Although she had been throughout her brave work surrounded by danger she escaped with nothing more serious than a few scratches.

      When she came into the playground with the last of the children she had rescued, she found that the villagers had arrived on the scene. They had heard of the accident, and had come to seek their children, and having found them alive they joined in showering praise and blessings upon Hannah Rosbotham. Now that all danger was over the brave young schoolmistress—she was only twenty years of age—broke down and cried hysterically, but before long she was calm again, and started out to visit at their homes the little ones whom she had saved.

      Such bravery as Hannah Rosbotham had shown could not of course escape recognition. The Albert Medal was presented to her on January 11, 1882, and later the Managers of the Sutton National School gave her a gold watch, on which was inscribed their appreciation 'of her courageous behaviour in rescuing the school-children during the gale of October 14, 1881, that destroyed the roof of the school, and for which act of bravery she has been awarded the Albert Medal by Her Majesty.'