Sheffield Daily Telegraph – Wednesday 30 December 1908

Denaby Burning Victims.
 A Sad Sequence

Christmas  at Denaby has not passed without sadness.

In the Fullerton Hospital there is practically a children’s ward, where four little patients have been received, suffering from terrible burning injuries. Three of them are Mary Knock (four years of age), daughter of a miner, of 24, Barmboro’ Street, who was badly burned in the Fair Ground on Christmas Day; Emily Meredith (11 months), 14, Doncaster Road, who was burnt whilst in her perambulator and another child, who is just recovering from a similar shocking injury. On Sunday, shortly after admittance, Gertrude Alderson (four years), daughter of Arthur Alderson, miner, of 24, Wadsworth Street, succumbed to her injuries.

At the inquest, held in the institution, yesterday, by Mr. J. Kenyon Parker, the evidence showed that the mother of the deceased had occasion to leave the house for about five minutes on a visit to a neighbour.

She was summoned by her son, who came to say that his sister had got on fire. When she got back the child was insensible on the floor. A man named Frederick Smith had extinguished the flames. The child was shockingly burnt. In answer to the Coroner, the mother said she had not been able to afford a fireguard, her husband having been unable to follow his employment of late. He was now, she added, receiving compensation, and they would get a guard.

A verdict of “Accidentally burnt” was returned.