On this day in Yorkshire

February 9, 1906

Some thrilling scenes were witnessed at a fire in Grange Street. Hull, about midnight on Wednesday. The occupants of the house, a labourer named Pickering and his wife, were retiring, when a lamp was upset, and very quickly the staicase was in flames.

Pickering shouted to his wife to save herself, while he leaped through the fire into the kitchen, and endeavoured to beat the fire out with a hearthrug, but unsuccessfully.

Mrs Pickering ran into the bedroom, and taking, her child of twelve months out its cot, opened the window, and jumped out into the street. She was bruised and cut, but the baby was uninjured.

Meanwhile an oil miller, named John Simpson, arrived at the scene, and making his way through fire and smoke, entered a back bedroom where three children were sleeping.

They were Arthur (aged 7), Hilda (aged 6) and Philip (aged 3). He carried them to the window of the front bedroom, and lowered them one by one into the street, and then jumped out himself.

The eldest child, Arthur, was badly burnt all over his body, and he and Philip were taken to the Infirmary and detained. The little girl was uninjured.

The fire was extinguished by the neighbours before the arrival of the brigade.