A terrible and fatal powder-mill explosion happened at Waltham on
Thursday, on the Powder-mill River, a branch of the Lea, where stand a series of Government-buildings for the manufacture of gunpowder. One of these was a corning-house, composed of two parts, separated by a traverse or buttress of solid material, twenty feet thick; in the first part there were, as near as can be ascertained, about 2,300 pounds of gunpowder, and in the second about 2,000 pounds. At a distance of about 170 yards from the southernmost of these stood the granu- lating-house, similar to the one just spoken of, with two parts se- parated by a buttress. In one part of the corning-house seven men were at work. Mr. Sadd, the master-worker, had just entered the building ; and whether a bit of grit had got into the ma- chinery, or the men had hastened the machinery on the approach of Mr. Sadd, who was rather severe, or from whatever cause, at five mi- nutes before three o'clock in the afternoon, the building blew up, with a loud explosion ; not one of the men escaping death. In a few moments the second part of the building blew up with another explosion—a mi- nute more, and one part of the granulating-house blew up—and in a few more moments, a fourth explosion destroyed the second part of that. Of the seven men, five were carried to a great distance across the river, the body of one rising to such a height as to make an indent- ation some inches deep in the ground where it fell ; heads were blown off, legs broken, and one body was ripped up ! Sadd was found a hun- dred and thirty yards from the building. One of the men had been half a century in the works. Others had a marvellous escape. When the first explosion took place, Mr. Austin, the superintendent of the machinery, was in the granulating-house, with two men, superintending some repairs. The men ran out directly. Mr. Austin rushed after them, and the building in which he stood blew up ; something, probably a beam, giving him a severe blow.
Two other buildings, distant six hundred feet, were set on fire ; and the alarm of course was considerable. But the flames were promptly extinguished. The total damage is estimated at 10,000/.
The explosion was heard and felt at a great distance round. The windows of buildings in the neighbourhood were broken. Five women, who were collecting wood at a distance of more than a quarter of a mile from the mills, were thrown down, and for a moment deprived of sight by the explosion, and the accompanying glare. Mrs. Bates (an old woman whose husband was injured by an explosion forty years ago) was similarly affected at her cottage half a mile off. The Times says that the report was even heard in Hyde Park ; and it was supposed to be the guns fired to celebrated the birth of the expected Royal infant.
Previous page
