3-052-368 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches of the Tay Bridge Disaster, by our special artists, 1880. 'Illustrations of the terrible disaster that happened on Sunday evening, the 28th December (1879), by the fall of the lofty and slender railway bridge, with a passing train, at the estuary of the Tay just below Dundee. The loss of lives is now reckoned at seventy-five, not one person in the train having the slightest chance of escape...Fox - diver to the Dundee Harbour Commissioners; Harley - one of the divers; diver's knife; Specials going to the scene of the Disaster; Helmet; Divers going out to the scene...Two of our Special Artists have been continually employed for some days in visiting different points of the locality, accompanying the steam-boats, and watching the labours of the divers and trawlers. In the rough weather of the first few days, it was an arduous and almost perilous service. There is some interest in the portraits of John Fox and Peter Harley, two of the leading divers, sketched by Mr. W. A. Donnelly, and the figure of another diver, Edward Simpson, attired in his waterproof case and helmet, sitting in the boat from which he made his exploring descents, as shown in one of that Artist's Sketches taken on Thursday, the 1st January'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.