The Victoria Hall disaster occurred on 16 June 1883 at the Victoria Hall in Sunderland, England, when the distribution of free toys caused a crowd crush resulting in 183 children (aged between 3 and 14 years old) to be crushed to death due to compressive asphyxia.

[citation needed] At the show's end, an announcement was made that children with certain numbered tickets would be presented with a prize upon exit.

[3] At the bottom of the staircase, the door opened inward and had been bolted to leave a gap only wide enough for one child to pass at a time.

Caretaker Frederick Graham tried in vain to disentangle the pile-up, then ran up another staircase and diverted approximately 600 children to safety by another exit.

The memorial of a grieving mother holding a dead child was later moved to Bishopwearmouth Cemetery, where it gradually fell into disrepair and was vandalised.

[12] The disaster inspired a poem by Scottish poet William McGonagall entitled "The Sunderland Calamity".