In July 1906 Sawley’s Harrington Bridge was being rebuilt. Traffic was using a temporary bridge whilst the damaged centre section of the old bridge was being replaced by a new central pillar and a steel deck.
On Tuesday 10th July a 7-year-old boy – Redvers Buller Barton – was fishing for minnows in the Trent. It was either the school holidays or late afternoon after school and several children were playing in the area. Redvers decided cross a plank to reach a boat moored under the bridge (probably the temporary bridge) to make better use of his net. But, leaning over the side, the boat tipped up and he fell in.
Another boy, Thomas Noon (aged 9), saw him and called for help. Horatio Allport (aged 11) of Cross Street ran to the spot, crossed the plank to the boat, grabbed an oar and tried to reach the boy, but he’d drifted too far downstream and soon disappeared.
The police were called and dragged the river, finding the body on Wednesday night. He was taken to the Harrington Arms and the next afternoon an inquest was chaired by Mr Whiston, the local coroner. The jury found that he’d accidentally drowned.
Redvers’ family were only in Sawley for a year or so. His father, Joseph, was a steam crane driver, originally from Middlesborough, so it’s very likely he was employed on the Harrington Bridge project. The mother was from Crosby and Redvers had been born in Liverpool in 1900. Whilst in Sawley the family lived on Wilne Road, where another son (Arthur) had been born just a few weeks earlier. They moved away soon after the accident and had 5 more children before the mother died in 1914.
Of the other boys involved in the incident – Thomas Noon doesn’t seem to have been a ‘local’ either. His father may have been a railway labourer. Horatio Allport, who’d tried to rescue him, became a Midland Railway clerk but was killed in the Battle of Loos in 1915.
