Notes for: Elias Bland
From the Cambridge Chronicle 3 Dec 1763: This morning early as violent a storm of wind arose here (which lasted some hours) as has been known in the memory of the oldest man living. Several houses were untiled, and a stack of chimnies in St Andrew's parish thrown down.
At Trumpington, two miles from Cambridge, the gabel-end of a house occupied by Elias Bland, gamekeeper to Jeremiah Pemberton Esq, was blown down, the whole of which fell upon a bed, wherein lay the said Mr Bland, his wife and child, who were all overwhelmed in the ruins; the man was sensible of his unhappy situation, and made what efforts he could to alarm the neighbours, but to no purpose till about seven o'clock in the morning, when it was day-light, some people perceiving what had happened, broke open the door, and having removed the rubbish, found his wife and child dead, and himself much bruised; but he is now in a fair way of doing well. A beam of considerable thickness that went across in a straight line from the head to the foot of the bed, was split by the weight: and Mr Bland imagines that the bricks etc. fell first on the beam, and from thence to the side where his wife and child lay, which killed them immediately, as he only heard his wife say, when the accident happened, "Elias, can't you help me"