According to family lore, a fireball once manifested in my family’s home. My great-great grandparents lived on the edge of Sutton Marsh, in an isolated house. One day, so the story goes, there was a storm. This fireball was probably a manifestation of ball lightning, although it did not behave as it should have. A fireball came down the chimney, and floated through the cottage living room and out of the window. I have so many questions. Did my ancestors open the window to release the ball of flame, or was the window already open? Did they scream? Did they try and touch it? Was my great-great grandfather unflappable in the face of danger?* Or was he equally startled by this strange occurrence? Did they think it was an act of God?
My mother grew up in the same house, many years later, knowing this story and was always terrified of thunderstorms. In my childhood home, there was a downstairs bathroom – a windowless cupboard – and she would hide in there during storms. When we went camping on the cliffs of Happisburgh, she would sit in the car during the inevitable sea storms, regardless of the time of day. She could not be reasoned with: she knew that electrical storms are unpredictable.
They are particularly unpredictable around fens and marshland. The newspapers of the 18th and 19th century abound with tales of weird lightning, of unusual survivals. While categorising my accidental death data recently, I found a story that I could not explain. I gave it a category of its own: Act of God.
Helpston, summer 1876, ‘swarthy summer, by rude health embrowned‘, in the words of its most famous resident. The Dolby family lived between the main village and the railway station, in a small cottage. This area is now lined with houses on both sides of the road, but was formerly much less populous.
The Dolbys were a large family. William and Mary married in the village in 1848, and had thirteen children – two girls and eleven boys. In 1876, twelve of these children were still living. The oldest six children had moved out, either to get married or work in service. Elizabeth was the eldest child (and only daughter) still at home. She had turned fifteen in April, but was not yet in service. Instead, she helped her mother with her abundance of brothers: William (13), James (9), John (8), Mark (7) and Frederick (5).
The weather that summer was hot, relentlessly hot. But, it broke on the night of 23rd July, a Sunday. Storms rolled in, and caused horrific damage across the Lincolnshire, Rutland and the fens. Countless livestock animals were killed, barns burned, trees were felled. A boat was hit by lightning, knocking all three of the crew out for hours. A railway stoker was killed at Horncastle, and a woman’s arm was broken in the same town. Two men in Walpole St Peter were struck by lightning, but only experienced their eyebrows being burned off.
In Helpston, the Dolbys went to bed as usual. William went to bed early, but heard Elizabeth go to bed at 9:30pm – she would have presumably been engaged in tidying while her brothers were settled. William and Mary Dolby slept in one room. Elizabeth and her brothers slept in another. On this evening, only Frederick and Mark were home – the others perhaps staying with one of their newly married older brothers in the village.
In the early hours of the morning, the storm woke William Dolby up. There was a tremendous smell of sulphur, and he could not move, feeling pinned to the bed by the sheer oppression in the house. Once the feeling had passed, he rushed to the children’s bedroom. Mary’s actions are not mentioned, but it’s likely she went with him.
The room was badly damaged. The mortar on the walls was destroyed around the windows, and on the wall on the other side of the bed. A scythe resting against the wall was destroyed, and one of the ceiling beams had been badly damaged.
William’s instinct was to get his children out of the house. The boys had woken up, and were unharmed. Elizabeth seemed to be asleep. William picked her up to wake her.
She was dead.
A message was sent to Dr Stafforth at Market Deeping. He recieved the message at 4:30am, but did not arrive in Helpston until after 10am. Elizabeth had been struck by lightning. Her hair was singed, and her chest bruised.
The lightning had hit the house, most likely through the roof. It had destroyed a beam, and rebounded, striking the walls either side of the beam. It had hit a scythe – the only metal in the room – and hit Elizabeth in the chest, killing her, but leaving her two little brothers entirely unharmed.
The jury at the inquest donated their fees to William Dolby. He went home to repair his house, and his wounded life. The Dolbys remained in Helpston. William died in 1886, and his wife died in 1897.
Lightning is a capricious phenomena, a strange and lethal force. But when it strikes, there is nobody to blame. An act of nature, an act of God.
For another weird fenland lightning death, see my dear friend Claire Richardson’s post.
SOURCES: Peterborough Standard, 29th July 1876, p.6, Edinburgh Evening News, 29th July 1876, p.3.
* The men of the marsh were not easily perturbed. My mother delighted in telling us how my grandfather would light fireworks on Bonfire Night, and morosely go back to the ones that didn’t go off, picking them up and checking them before relighting them.
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Sophie Michell 