FATAL EXPLOSION Of GUNPOWDER.

Evening Post, Issue 131, 11 July 1865, Page 2

FATAL EXPLOSION Of GUNPOWDER.

On Sunday night the inhabitants of Marske, near Redcar, were started by a tremendous explosion. The streets were soon filled by numbers of people anxiously seeking the cause, which was soon apparent, the roof and one side of a cottage, occupied by a miner, named Wiliam Smith, being blown completely off, and the adjoining cottage in the same condition. Smith's house was in flames, but hy the exertions of the inhabitants of the town, who had assembled to the number of about 300, they were soon extinguished. Upon search It was found that a lodger of Sinith's,called Hobert Holmes, was quite dead, and his three children were in such a state as to leave no hopes of their recovery. It appears that the men engaged in the ironstone mines are in the habit of bringing home quarter-barrels of blasting-powder, which is packed damp in order to prevent igaition ; they then dry this as they want it, and take it to work ia tins in small quantities. Holmes had been drying some powder in a bag during the evening, and a little after nine o'clock he left his wife at supper with Smith and hi 3 family, and took the bag of powder and a candle and went up stairs into a room where his three children were sleeping, with the intention of going to bed. In this room, under the bed, there was a cask confining nearly 281b of powder, as well a s a quantity in a tin, and it is supposed Holmes lia<l been pouring some of the powder which he had been drying out of the bag into the tin, and that a spark had fallen amongst it and caused the explosion, which occurred within a few minutes of his going upstairs. The body of Holmes presented a shocking spectacle, being completely burnt to a cinder and quite black, the flesh coming off in handfuls when touched ; the works of his watch, found in his pooket, being completely melted. The children, one a boy of 14 years of age were also frightfully burnt.— Leeds Mercury!