Matthew Street Disaster Memorial Event

In August 1886, a wall on the grounds of Messrs, Daniel Doncaster and Sons, supporting 200 tonnes of steel, collapsed on a number of children playing below on Matthews Street. Eight children lost their lives. Despite insufficiency of the wall to carry such weight, no one was held responsible, and the story of the children and their families has been lost.

Of the eight children, four are buried in unmarked graves in Wardsend Cemetery, with the remaining children buried across our city, in Burngreave and Sheffield General Cemetery.

On Sunday 28th September, between 12pm – 3:30pm, Wardsend Cemetery will be hosting a memorial event, to honour the lives of the children, their families, and the often forgotten deaths of working-class people in our area during a celebrated period of industrial progress.

• Tour the graves of four children buried in Wardsend.
• Learn about the disaster, the aftermath and lives of the children lost.

The event will also feature a performance of ‘The Children of Furnace Park’, a piece dedicated to the Matthews Street Disaster, written by Alice Collins and performed by By The book, at 2:30pm on the Chapel Ground.

Wardsend Cemetery Heritage Park
Club Mill Road
Sheffield
S6 2ET