The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-07-10 00:00:00

TERRIBLE GAS EXPLOSION IN LONDON.

On Monday evening there occured in the neighbour-
hood of Tottenham-court-road, one of the busiest and
most populous thoroughfares in the metropolis, a
disaster of a very terrible and startling character.
About seven o'clock, while some wqrkmen employed
by the Chartered Gas Company were laying new
service pipes along Percy-street and Charlotte-
street, extending from the Bedford Hotel in Totten-
ham-court-road to a distance of many hundred yards,
a tremendous explosion was heard, the road was
blown up in six 'different places, forming as many
separate chasms, and the violence of the concussion
broke the windows and caused other structural
damage to some three or four hundred houses in the
vicinity. This, however, unfortunately was by no
means the full extent of the calamity, for one poor
fellow was by the force of the first explosion blown
into the huge pipe or main and instantly killed, while
one of his companions had both legs broken and
others were rendered insensible by the escape of gas.
The Daily News of Tuesday gives particulars respecting
the accident, from which we make the following extracts :
The first report was a very loud one, and almost
simultaneously another explosion was experienced
near the Tottenham-court-road end of Percy-street.
In the latter instance there were two loud reports, the
roadway being torn up for some distance, the heavy
paving-stones being hurled in various directions, and
the houses on both sides of the street damaged. A more
violent shock however, followed. At the extremity
of Percy-street, merging into Charlotte-street, two
violent explosions occurred, the ground being torn up,
and the road stones being forced over the house-tops,
and almost shattering two houses, besides doing other
damage. Charlotte-street next became in turn the
scene of a similar disaster at the corner of Bennett-
street, where an explosion caused terrible havoc and
endangered life. The close proximity of the police-
station in Tottenham-court-road soon brought up a,
body of constables, and news of the occurrence at-
tracted the fire brigade. A minute survey of the parts
affected brought to light many instances of personal
suffering and great destruction of house property.
How the inmates of the house numbered 6, Percy-
street, occupied by Mr. Simmons, dealer in decorative
works of art, escaped was wonderful. The basement
was completely blown out, the first and second floors
shattered the staircase torn away, and the roof
de,ptroyed. It was the first shock that alarmed
the occupants, and they had no sooner retreated than
the place was almost a wreck. The premises of
Messrs. White and Co., dealers in decorative furni-
ture, No. 5, sustained similar damage, the inmates
escaping. On both sides of the street windows were
broken, and the stone coping of the top of No. 34 was
completely forced away.
In Charlotte-street a busy task of rescuing people
was going on. At No. 3 resided Mrs. Knight, a ward-
robe dealei, advanced in years, who was seated in the
back parlour at the time, and amidst the falling
ceiling and broken glass from the skylight, she
managed to crawl out of the shattered apartment.
The roadway in front of the house had been
blown away, and it was known that Mrs. Knight's
nephew, named George Robert Trite, and a female
servant named Emma Bryant, aged 22, were at tea in
the kitchen, and were then missing. Several people
at once set to work to clear away the debris, Dr. Saul,
who resided opposite, rendering able assistance. At
length the kitchen was entered, and the servant
was found in a corner with a beam across her,
and being insensible and dreadfully injured in
many respects, and the nephew was discovered
lying close to her in a shocking condition.
Both of the sufferers were at once conveyed to the
hospital already named. The work of destruction
told severely on the adjoining house, where the busi-
ness of the Royal Standard Permanent Building
Society is carried on; and the basement of No. 1
next door, used as a bakery, was wrecked. When
Mrs. Knight's nephew was rescued he was only heard
to utter "My legs are broken," when his strength
failed him.

Another account states that no fewer than 400
houses have been more or less damaged, and several
of them have been rendered untenable. In Percy-
street five houses have had their basements and first
floors totally wrecked. In many instances the coping
and roofs have been broken and shattered by the
shower of granite blocks sent into the air by the force
of the explosion. Nearly all the windows along the
1 1113 cf the explosion have been blown in, and
chimney-pots have been thrown down. An eye-
witness says :—"I was walking down Percy-street,
when I felt the ground shaking under my feet. I
immediately saw the centre of the street towards
Charlotte-street rising in the air. A tremendous
report followed, and then there was a shower of
bricks and stones. I felt myself lifted from the
ground, and the next moment I was lying among the
ddbris at the bottom of a deep hole in the roadway.
The gas came in volumes around me, nearly choking
me, and with much difficulty I scrambled out of the
trench. A horse and cart standing near me at the
time were blown a distance of ten feet into the cavity,
the poor animal being shockingly injured, whilst the
cart was smashed to pieces by the falling stones and
bricks. A thick red dust enveloped the street, and I
had no idea of what had caused the explosion. Some
children who were playing in the street at the time
were also thrown into the trench, and some of these I
helped to extricate and carry to their homes, which
were quite near."

Another eye-witness says he was standing at his
door in Charlotte-street when he noticed a cloud of
dust shoot up from Bedford-passage. This was fol-
lowed by a loud report, which rattled down the street
like artillery fire. He observed two or three people
stagger and fall, and the next moment the ground
shook under him, and a portion of the street in front
shot up a hundred feet into the air, breaking his
windows and shattering his roof. The streets in
question are densely populated, and there is a
great deal of traffic over them, and it is difficult to
understand that only some thirty persons received in-
juries. There were, it is said, six distinct explosions.
At the place where the first explosion occurred four
men were dug out dreadfully injured. At the second
spot sixteen men were extricated and conveyed to
Middlesex Hospital.

On Tuesday morning enormous crowds of sight-
seers visited the thoroughfares in the neighbourhood
of the scene of the explosion. The area of damage
is very extensive, and a strong force of police was re-
guired to control the crowds. A large number of houses
in Charlotte-street, Howland-street, Goodge-street, and
Percy-street have been damaged, and some of them will
have to be rebuilt. The centre of shock appears to have
been experienced opposite 31, Charlotte-street, where
half a dozen of the Injured persons were rescued. One
of the sufferers whose leg had to be amputated died in
the hospital. Most of the remaining cases being
treated in the Middlesex Hospital are progressing
satisfactorily, but a shoemaker who, after being
treated, was sent home, rapidly grew worse during
the evening,'and had to be readmitted to the hospital,
where he lay in a precarious condition, suffering from
general shock and severe contusions about the head
and face.

The chief points where damage is visible are at
the crossings of Percy-street, Bennett-street, North-
street, and Howland-street, with Charlotte-street, the
four craters being found near the centres of the road-
way, evidently where- the resistance was likely to
be least. The great sections of the large 'gas main
are lying in all directions near the four craters, and
the houses on the west side of the street opposite
the chasms have been much damaged, and rendered
almost untenantable, Opposite a shoemaker's shop at
31, Charlotte-street, lengths of water main are stand-
ing up on end, lamps and iron posts are blown down,
and great masses of the pavement and the kerbstone
have been projected into the basement.

The Daily News of Wednesday gives the following
additional particulars
The greatest wonder about the extraordinary explosion—
next to the wonder how the accident occurred at all—is the
comparatively small loss of life which it has involved. For
an explosion of gas to have occurred at various points in
a main of a mile and a half in length, crossing a thorotigh-
fare so crowded as Tottenham-court-road, to have created
such havoc to property, to have torn up streets, shattered
houses, and shot paving stones into the air with almost
the force of projectiles from the cannon's mouth, and
only to have killed one man on the spot, seems incredible.
Certainly one of the injured has since succumbed, and
another is in a precarious state, but a total list of three or
four dead would still he surprisingly small. From the list
given it will be seen that the injured lying in hospital
number only seven, and that fewer than a dozen people were
treated as out-patients for contusions and other slight
injuries. Add to these cases an inevitable number of un-
known persons in the locality, who, though their complaints
will be known to few but their own friends, must have been
sufferers from or may yet feel the effects of the shock, and it
will be recognised that in a district which sertainly has
suffered something akin to a serious bombardment, the
fortunes of war have been indeed marvellous.
Those who have seen the wreck caused by the explosion
can readily picture to themselves the panic prevailing in the
district on Monday night after the explosion, the horror at
what had happened, and the fear of what might happen next.
There is a house in Charlotte-street, No. 103, the front wall
of which below the pavement line was blown away. The
centre pier supporting the house was gone, and nothing held
up the wall but the tenacity of the builder's work. Until this
wall was shored up the peril was imminent, but fortunately
the family were from home, and the affrighted servants,
who owed their lives to the fact that they were out of their
kitchen when the accident happened, took care to continue
in a safe quarter of the house. At No. 105, a servant quitted
,
the kitchen to answer a bell. While her pace upstairs was
precipitated by the craah below, her startled mistresses
above were themselves in
the confusion of the moment,
about to rush downstairs under the impression that the
house was falling about their ears. Some distance away, at
No. 3, Charlotte-street, another chasm had opened in the
ground with the serious consequences to Mr. Trite and
the girl Bryant, mentioned in yesterday's Daffy News.
The materials of which the street, the front eellan, and
kitchen walls had been composed were shot pell-mell
into the kitchen, where one of the poor sufferers was pre-
paring an evening meal, with the sad result to the inmates
yesterday described. Mile these unfortunates had to be
dug out of the ruins with all halite to save their lives, a
young man immediately outsitie the kitchen wimicrw is said
to have eiqapetl in the most rsmarkablp way. Ite was re-
ping a ,iSern., And wait, inside the Water taniF at the time.
he ekploafanWEDllo liluiVath all Itsfdtl3, he Mug

liSii

•