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On This Day in Church History

A real event from the story of the church on each calendar day, told with its setting and what came of it, and quoted word for word from sources published before 1931.

On this day · October 19

Disaster at the Surrey Gardens Music Hall

October 19, 1856 · London, England

The setting

Charles Spurgeon was only 22, and his London church was too small for the crowds who came to hear him. The church voted to rent the new Music Hall in the Royal Surrey Gardens, one of the largest halls in the city.

The story

On Sunday evening, October 19, 1856, about seven thousand people filled the hall. The service began as usual with singing, Scripture and prayer. Just after Spurgeon began to pray, a disturbance broke out, which the church believed was caused by people acting together on purpose. Panic swept the congregation.

People rushed for the doors, especially from the galleries. On the stone steps of the north-west staircase, some fell and were trampled by the crowd behind them. Seven people died and twenty-eight were taken to hospital.

Spurgeon did not know anyone had died. He stayed in the pulpit and did everything he could to calm the people, with considerable success, but the crowd was too shaken for the service to go on.

“The lamentable result was that seven persons lost their lives, and twenty-eight were removed to the hospitals seriously bruised and injured.”

New Park Street church book, October 19, 1856

What happened next

The tragedy weighed heavily on Spurgeon. His autobiography tells how he recovered and went back to preaching, and the church kept meeting at the Music Hall. The crowds kept growing, and the congregation went on to build the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Why it matters: Even a leader with great gifts can be knocked flat by tragedy, and God can still lift him up and carry the work on.

Source: C. H. Spurgeon's Autobiography, vol. 2 (Passmore & Alabaster, 1898), Volume 2, chapter on the Surrey Gardens catastrophe. Public domain.

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