View of Flood Damage from Ball Street Bridge. Source: SGCT.
During the days following the Great Sheffield Flood bodies were retrieved from the debris left by the receding waters, dug out of the mud and taken to various public houses, prominent buildings and the Sheffield Workhouse. At the Workhouse 124 unclaimed bodies arrived and the Board of Guardians made arrangements for them to be washed, laid out on straw and covered with a white cloth.
The scene was most harrowing. The dead lay in rows in five adjoining rooms. The bereaved hurried from room to room, scanning the countenances of the dead, with tremulous anxiety. Some in their eagerness and excitement passed their friends several times before recognising them. Others identified them at a glance. All appeared deeply distressed. Some of the women wrung their hands and beat their fists together in in-expressible agony at the sight of dear ones who had been so suddenly snatched away. Others knelt beside the corpses of husbands, brothers, or children, kissed their cold faces over and over again, bedewing them with streaming tears, clutching their cold clasped hands and sobbing as if their hearts would break. Others were to be seen cutting off locks, to preserve as precious memorials of those most dear to them. Altogether the scene was heart-rending.
Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 15 March 1864
Burying of the unidentified bodies began on Sunday 13 March when three of the victims were brought to the Cemetery. 13 more bodies were brought on Monday 14 March and 37 on Tuesday 15 March. They were not all interred in one area of the Cemetery, but in separate graves in different parts, the interments being conducted with all the decencies and solemnity of private interments.
You can read more about the Great Sheffield Flood in the Sheffield General Cemetery Trust’s publication Drowned Voices and follow the self-guided trail Drowned Voices – Stories of The Great Sheffield Flood.