FATAL EXPLOSION FROM FIREWORKS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1709, 26 January 1874, Page 4

FATAL EXPLOSION FROM FIREWORKS.

(fkom the home news.) j Early onthe rooming of November 4 a terrible and fatal 'explosion of fireworks occurred at Lambeth, by which eight lives ■were lost. The scene of the accident was a six-roomed house in Broad street, Lambeth, occupied byMrFenwick, a firework manufacturer, who occupied the two parlours, the first floor being tenanted by a Mr Lewis, his wife and two children, and the top attic and kitchen by a Mr Wood, his wife and three children, and his mother. It appears that Fen wick, unknown to his neighbors, carried on business as a firework-maker in the house, and had in it a store of gunpowder and other explosive materials. He was pursuing his usual occupation when the explosion occurred. It blew out the front parlour window, hurled Fenwick's lifeless body through the opening, cracked the •walls, blew up the ceiling, killed Mrs Fen--wick, and set fire to the house. The neighbours r«3hed from their dwellings to the spot. Fenwick's body lay in the ] roadway, his clothes having been burnt \ off. Threugh the opening in tho front parlour the dead body of Mrs Fenwick could be seen lying against the wall. The house was on fire, the flames rising high above the roof, while at the windows of the second floor, Mrs Wood with her two grandchildren were seen shrieking for help. Below them, at the first-floor vrindow, were Mrs Lewis and her two children crying for assistance. Nothing could at that moment be done for them, and the people in the street called loudly to them to jump out of the windows into the outstretched arms of many a willing bystander. They seemed aftraid to approach too near the window in consequence of the spoke and flames, and in the next instant the whole interior of the house seemed to give way, carrying the six people down "with it. In the meantime the engine arrived with a large body of police, and the efforts of the fireman were mainly directed to the saving of the adjourning houses, for the explosion had so shaken the burnt house itself, which was constructed for the most part of timber, that it 3 destruction had been accomplished by the time the engines arrived. The fire was quickly subdued, and then the task of searching for the bodies was proceeded with, when the remains of eight- persons were collected, placed in shells, and conveyed to the mortuary, there to await the coroner's inquiry. Mrs Wood, jnn., and her child had a narrow escape. They were sitting in the kitchen at the moment of the explosion, and had just time to get out of the place into the back-yard before the roof fell in. How she managed to get out of the window with her child is a mystery, for she was •in bad health. The fire brigade men discovered; some firework cases, the remains of a 101 b. keg of gunpowder, the bottom of another keg upon which were the exploded remnants of " fizzing powder " — i.e., a composition of sulphur, charcoal, "steel fillings, &c. ; a press for making rockets, tubes, and funnels for filling the cases, and a charred piece of wood, to which were fastened nine moveable figures evidently representing the Oxford or Cambridge eight with their coxswain. There can be no doubt that Fenwick was at work making fireworks, when by overcompression or by a spark from the fire flying into the gunpowder, the explosion happened. Fenwick, who has lust his life by the above calamity, was a wellknown manufacturer of fireworks, and has for years past carried on a very lucrative trade at Regent street, Lambeth, which house he appears to have quitted in |] 871. His part of the pyrotechnic manufacture, was chiefly confined to the "theatre trade," i.e., the making of colored fires to be used at the wings in transformation scenes, demons' revels, &c. Major Majendie, the Government inspector of fireworks and am muni- i tion factories, has visited the scene of the disaster, with the view of prosecuting inquiries into -the matter. Portions of the charred fizzing powder, bright stars, &c, found in the ruins were selected for chemical analysis, and orders were given at the Home Office for photographic views of the ruins, with a view to showing the action of the gunpowder. With regard to the explosion • itself, it seems to have been caused by a spark from the fire. Among the articles found in the debris were two iron tray 3, in the larger of which were the remains of some bright stars. Fenwick's son is employed at a firework factory i*i Vauxhallwalk, and he is of opinion tha^.Je smaller tray contained a quantity of green fire, which was placed near the fire in the grate . (possibly on the hob), to dry, . and that this, the most dangerous of all the coloured fires, ignited first. This theory is a very plausible one, as the small tray was found nearly close to the fireplace, whereas the larger tray, the remains of the powder keg, and oilier pyrotechnic paraphernalia, were discovered in the centre of the room. ■ The whole, of the stuff had evidently exploded, for Captain Shaw placed some of that found in a tray upon a fire, but no explosion followed. It is a moot point whether or not Fenwick and hie wife were in his bed at the time of the accident, for the former was quite naked when hurled lifeless thorough the shattered windowframe into the street. It is, however, a well-known fact that gunpowder will blow every atom of clothing from the body without dismembering the body itself. It seems that Mrs Wood and her two grandchildren were in a room on the first floor at the time of the explosion, and that they atone were precipitated into the blazing ruins beneath; in falling through the shattered flooring the poor woman's.leg caught . in one of, the main rafters and was torn of at the knee. Mrs Lewis and her two children were discovered on the first floor in a corner of the room, the poor creature lying across a rafter, holding the burnt remains of her two children in her own calcined arms. 1 The full force of the concussion travelled towards the back yard, wrecking the two ,back rooms, throwing dowii the walls, and ruining the adjacent property ; and, although the force forwards was sufficient fto'snlash the front windows, blow out the frame, and send Fenwick flying into the street, it is a singular fact that the lamp ; immediately in front of the house, and within ; three feet of the room where the ex : plosion occurred, escaped uninjured, save the cracking of two panes of glass. The correct list of the dead are as follows : — Ralph Fenwick, aged 44 ; Jessie Fenwick, 32 ; Drusell Lewis, 48, and her two children ; Alice, aged nine, and Sarah aged : three ; Phillis Wood, 72, : and her "two grandchildren; Anne Wood, five,, and

Alfred Wood, two years and a half . Those saved were the fathers of the children — Lewis, a lighterman, and Wood, a slater, who were both out at.work at the time ; also the latter's wife and\ youngest child. 1 It' may perhaps be as- well to add that, in spite of legislative prohibitions and penalties, Bethnal-green and Bow teem with illegal firework factories, carried on upon a small scale, any one of which may be at any moment the scene of a similar explosion, involving an equal, or even greater destruction of human life. An inquest on the bodies was held, the verdict returned being one of accidental death "