The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-06-07 00:00:00

FRIGHTFUL STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENT.

A most lamentable and fatal accident occurred on
Thursday on board the Times screw steamer, one of the
vessels belonging to the Dublin and Liverpool Steam-
packet Company, and commanded by Captain James
Collis. She left the North-wall, Dublin, for Liverpool,
at six o'clock, p.m., having on board 330 deck passengers,
chiefly emigrants, and seven cabin passengers. She also
carried, as part of her cargo, a number of cattle. When
nearly opposite the Pigeon-house, at about seven o'clock,
a partial explosion of one of her boilers took place, causing
a rent, through which there was an immediate and destruc-
tive escape of steam. A scene of the greatest confusion
and terror ensued. A number of the passengers who
crowded the deck were instantly overwhelmed and fright-
fully scalded by the steam ; and those who escaped its
destructive effects were in the greatest alarm for their
lives. The condensed steam and boiling water shot up
from the midship hatch and the window of the engine-
room, and descended on the deck passengers who were
gathered in the waist of the vessel. Scarcely anything
could be imagined more appalling than the sight which
the deck presented—men, women, and children, rushing
to every side for shelter from the scalding steam ; others
—many of them women—screaming in agony ; the terri-
fied cries of their friends, and of numbers who were in
search of, and apprehensive for, the safety of their friends,
added to the bellowing of the cattle and the bleating of
the sheep and lambs, with which the vessel was laden,
rendered the whole a scene of horror almost without
parallel.

On the vessel being stopped, the boats were lowered,
and the sufferers conveyed ashore. Nothing could be
more frightful than the appearance some of the poor
creatures presented as they were taken from the boats.
On examination, it was found that thirty.three persons
were injured, many of them severely, and that two, a boy
about four, and a girl about three years old, were dead.
Inspector Finnemore had stretchers brought for the
conveyance of those who could not be taken on cars to
the different hospitals in the city. Some of the passen-
gers who had escaped uninjured were sent by a float up
the river and landed at the wharf ; and those who had
received partial injuries, which did not render it necessary
to send them to hospital, were treated with the greatest
humanity by numbers of citizens, who exhibited the
utmost amount of sympathy for them. None of the
cabin passengers were injured. The second engineer was
severely, the first engineer slightly scalded.
As soon as the accident became known to Mr. Middle-
ton, the agent of the company, he immediately despatched
the Mona steam-tug to the vessel in order to afford any
assistance that might be required, and directions were
given that no expense should be spared that might be
necessary to procure proper treatment for the passengers
who were injured.

The engineer, William Galway, gives the following
account of the accident :—" At about half-past six the
vessel was going at about nine miles an hour against the
tide, which was then flowing—the pressure of steam on
the boiler at the time being ten pounds to the square inch
less than it was calculated to bear. When the vessel had
proceeded down the river to the point nearly opposite the
Pigeon-house, he was going up the ladder from the engine-
room, after having left the machinery in charge of Patrick
APlntyre tthe assistant engineer), when the explosion
took place. He immediately rushed down, seized the
safety-valve and stopped the engines, and in doing so was
severely scalded on the hands. He also states that at the
time the vessel started the water in the boilers was fifteen
inches above the level of the action of the flame from the
furnaces. In accounting for the cause of the accident he
states, that in one of the landings, or compartments of the
boiler, a portion of the rivets bad been frayed, and when
the pressure was put on, the part that was thus indurated
gave way. The pumping gear for supplying the engines
with water was in perfect order, and at work at the time
of the accident."