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The claims for compensation made
following the Sheffield Flood of 1864 were recorded in ledgers which
are currently held at Sheffield Archives (reference CA 7 [1-11]).
There are eleven volumes in total covering claims for Loss
of Property, Loss of Life, and Bodily
Injury.
Summary of Records - Brief overview
Claims For Loss of Property
The majority of the volumes - numbers
1-8 - are concerned with the Claims for Loss of Property, and are
made for loss of household items, loss of livestock, shop and factory
contents. Other things claimed for include fees for evaluation and
the cost of cleaning up after the Flood.
The headings look like this, spread across two pages:
| No.of Claim |
Name of Claimant |
Description of Claimant |
Address of Claimant |
Nature of Claimant’s Interest where claim is for damage
to real or personal property |
Particulars of Claim |
Amount of Damages Claimed |
Here is an example of an actual claim,
made by Edward Houseley, a cab proprietor, for domestic goods and
three pigs lost in the Flood. He claims for £29.16.6 (twenty-nine
pounds, sixteen shillings and sixpence) and is awarded £9, just
under a third of what he claimed for.
[For those unfamiliar with pounds, shillings and pence : 12 pence
= 1 shilling; 20 shillings = 1 pound]
| No.of Claim |
Name of Claimant |
Description of Claimant |
Address of Claimant |
| 4064 |
Edward Houseley |
Cab Proprietor |
Back of 32 Wicker
Now of Brewery Yard |
| Nature of Claimant’s Interest where
claim is for damage to real or personal property |
Particulars
of Claim |
Amount of
Damages Claimed |
| Damage to Personal Property |
The following are the Particulars
of Goods lost, destroyed and damaged
|
|
[pounds] |
[shillings] |
[pence] |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
5 chairs 15/ -, Round Table 6/ |
|
1 |
1 |
|
| |
Square Table |
|
|
10 |
|
| |
Dresser |
|
1 |
15 |
|
| |
11 Engravings |
|
2 |
15 |
|
| |
Crockery |
|
1 |
|
|
| |
Knives & Forks |
|
|
6 |
|
| |
Hearth Rug |
|
|
5 |
|
| |
Fender & [?] |
|
|
6 |
|
| |
3 Pigs £2.00 each |
|
6 |
|
|
| |
Pig Stye - washed down |
|
1 |
10 |
|
| |
Cleaning out Premises |
|
2 |
|
|
| |
Whitewashing House & Chamber |
|
|
10 |
|
| |
2 Top Coats |
|
3 |
|
|
| |
2 Pair Trousers |
|
1 |
4 |
|
| |
Black Coat |
|
1 |
5 |
|
| |
2 Pair Boots |
|
1 |
|
|
| |
Pair Top Boots |
|
1 |
10 |
|
| |
Children’s Clothes |
|
1 |
|
|
| |
2 Dresses |
|
|
14 |
|
| |
Pair Woman’s Boots |
|
|
7 |
|
| |
Children’s do |
|
|
10 |
|
| |
Commission for Valuation |
|
1 |
8 |
6 |
| |
[total] |
|
29 |
16 |
6 |
Certificate Granted
6 March 1865 |
Agreed by Consent at |
|
9 |
- |
- |
[If you want to check your arithmetic in using old money
- the shillings column here amounts to 136 shillings, which is equal
to six pounds, 16 shillings (6 x 20 = 120, + 16 = 136). Carry the
six pounds over into the pounds column, where 6 + 23 = £29]
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Claims For Loss of Life
The Claims for Loss of Life and
for Bodily Injury are just contained within the one volume (no. 9),
and are subdivided into A (for Loss of Life) and B (for Bodily Injury).
Even though between 240 and 250 people died as a direct result of
the Flood, there are only 116 claims for loss of life. The details
in the entries are minimal and fit on one page, whereas those claims
for Loss of Property can often run into several pages.
The 'Claims for Loss of Life' headings look like this:
| [No.of Claim] |
Name and Description of Claimant |
Whether Executor or Administrator of Deceased Person |
Name and Description of Deceased Person |
Party for whose benefit claim is made, being Wife or Husband
of the deceased person or his or her parent or child as defined
in 9 and 10 Victoria C.93 |
Amount of Damages Claimed |
The sample claim below is the first claim in the volume.
It is made by Aaron Dean, claiming compensation for the death of his
son, Joseph Dean, aged 17, who was living with him and working as
his apprentice.
| [No.of Claim] |
Name and Description of Claimant |
Whether Executor or Administrator of Deceased
Person |
Name and Description of Deceased Person |
Party for whose benefit claim is made, being
Wife or Husband of the deceased person or his or her parent or
child as defined in 9 and 10 Victoria C.93 |
Amount of Damages Claimed |
A1 |
Aaron Dean,
Creswick St
Sheffield;
Butchers Blade Grinder |
Administrator of deceased |
Joseph Dean aged 17 an apprentice
living and working with the said Aaron Dean |
I claim as Father of the deceased
Assessed by consent at £
|
200
50 |
0
0 |
0
0 |
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Claims For Bodily Injury
The Claims for Bodily Injury are
in the B section of volume 9. There are 347 claims.
| No. of Claim |
Name and Description of Claimant |
Name and description of person who received bodily
injury |
Nature of Bodily Injury |
Assessment of damages claimed for bodily injury |
In the following example George Rogers
claims for the loss of help afforded to him in his business now that
his wife is suffering from 'fright and rheumatism' as a consequence
of the Flood. However, the record shows that they withdrew their claim.
| No. of Claim |
Name and Description of Claimant |
Name and description of person who received
bodily injury |
Nature of Bodily Injury |
Assessment of damages claimed
for bodily injury |
B53 |
George Rogers
76 Harvest Lane
Coal Dealer and Carter |
Sarah Rogers
Claimants wife. |
Fright and Rheumatism. Her teeth having nearly all dropt
out since the flood and she being much afflicted with rheumatic
pains. She used to be of great service in weighing Coals etc.
Withdrawn
W. Overend
N. J. Mills
[signatures] |
5
|
- |
- |
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Summary of Records
The Claims can be considered as
5 data sets as follows:
1. Claims for Loss of Property. CA 7 (1-8).
2. Claims for Loss of Life. CA 7 (9: A1-116).
3. Claims for Bodily Injury. CA 7 (9: B1-347).
4. Amended Claims. CA 7 (10).
5. Appendix to Registers. CA 7 (11).
1-3 The first three data sets are described above,
including examples.
4 The Amended Claims often contain quite detailed
information. The original claim details will have been crossed out
(in one of the CA 7 (1-8) volumes) and the reader is referred to this
book. The entry headings are exactly the same as for the original
claims (CA 7 (1-8)). They are not entered in any particular order,
i.e., not by Claim No. or Name of Claimant. There are usually three
outcomes offered: ‘Assessed in Original Claim’, ‘Withdrawn’,
‘Dismissed’.
5 These entries contain very detailed information,
acting as expansions of detail in the original claims, mainly from
shops, factories and mills. A looser format is used than those of
the other volumes because the information recorded is quite variable.
E.g., Claim 4525 (page 94) has three ‘Schedules’ for its
Claim, with Schedules 1 and 2 detailing loss of property and ‘Schedule
3’ itemising ‘Wages to Men during Lost Time and Wages
to Boys during lost time’, with 94 men and 119 boys listed,
noting Name – Time Lost – Rate. The claims are recorded
in Claim numerical order. 1st one is 2692, last one is 6609.
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page last updated 10/01/2005