The 1845 Clown Disaster | Tales From the Bottle

Seventy-nine people were killed during a stunt by a clown in 1845. The tragedy is most notable for the bizarre and hilarious act the clown was performing at the time.

“Cooke’s Royal Circus was in Great Yarmouth, and as part of a promotion, it was advertised that a clown, named Arthur Nelson, would sail up the River Bure in a washtub pulled by four geese on 2 May 1845. The trick, first devised by Dicky Usher in 1809, was achieved by having the tub attached to a rowboat by an underwater line. A large crowd assembled in the vicinity from around 5 pm to view the feat which started with the flood tide. Several thousand people viewed the clown from the river banks and at least 300 in a crowd 4–5 deep on the southern footway of the bridge. The crowd concentrated at the south-eastern corner of the bridge, though the bridge was far from full as the carriageway was still passable to carts.
At around 5.40 pm, one of the eyebars in the southern suspension chain failed; members of the crowd witnessed this, but no action seemed to have been taken to evacuate the bridge. The second eyebar in that portion of the chain took up the full load for around five minutes before it too failed. The south side of the deck fell into the river, though the north end remained suspended by the surviving chain, and the majority of the crowd were tipped into the water, which at this point was 7 feet (2.1 m) deep. Children, who formed much of the front rank of the crowd, were crushed against the parapet railing by those behind them. One child was saved from being swept away by her mother holding onto her clothes with her teeth. A horse and cart was at the point of crossing when the collapse happened and was saved from falling into the river by the horse backing up in fright.
Boats soon arrived on the scene to rescue the victims. The wounded and dead were taken to nearby houses and pubs (including the Norwich Arms, the Admiral Collingwood and the Swan). The Union House hotel supplied blankets for the wounded, and Lacons Brewery made quantities of hot water available for hot baths to revive the survivors. Some 75 bodies were recovered on the day of the accident, though some remained trapped in the wreckage of the bridge – one man was rescued alive sometime later after being freed with a crowbar. In all, 79 people were killed in the disaster, of whom 59 were children. Most of the dead were under 13 years of age, and the youngest victim was two years old. The news was conveyed by electric telegraph and was known in Norwich within 5 minutes of the accident. Messages were passed by this means to family members of those killed, injured, or missing.”

More on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarmouth_suspension_bridge

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