The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-02 00:00:00

Standard-office, One o'clock.

FATAL BOILER EXPLOSION AT
BOLTON, YESTERDAY.

In the last column of our present publication will be
found some notice of the bursting of a boiler at the linen
manufactory of Mr. John Brooks, in Bolton, by which
several lives were ascertained to be lost, and a greater
number of persons supposed to have immediately perished,
besides many seriously and some fatally injured. It is a
relief to state that, lamentable as the event has been, it
has not proved destructive to human life to the extent
at first apprehended.
We have seen a gentleman just arrived from Bolton,who
witnessed the scene shortly after the explosion, and has
furnished us with the following particulars, which, though
necessarily imperfect, may, in the main, be relied upon.
The factory, and extensive premises attached, are si-
tuated close to St. George's Church ; and from 400 to
500, young and old, were employed within. Two engines
were at work, one (as before noticed,) stated to be of 50-
horse power, and the other of about 60. The boilers of
one of them burst about eleven o'clock yesterday fore-
noon, owing, it is said, to the carelessness of the tenter,
and an explosion of the other soon followed, though this
is not certain. These were each in an extensive well-
built out-house, on the north- west side of the factory, and
the destructive effects were instant there and on the con-
tiguous part of the main building. The engine• house was ,
demolished ; the windows of the factory in that direction
blown in; its interior frame work was much shat-
tered, and large masses of building material scattered
far and wide. The boiler of the larger engine was
lifted into the air, and lighted in the street about fifty
yards from its original position. Several of the work-
people were found dead in the ruins, but the precise num-
ber our informant could not ascertain : in the hurry of the
moment, there being various outlets by which they might
be removed. A large and very heavy balk of timber, that
had been fixed over the engine was blown dear over some
adjacent buildings, (which it would otherwise have crushed
in,) and lighted in a back passage or area, sixty or eighty
yards from where it had been fixed, and in a direction
from the factory. The materials of the ruins were chiefly
hurled into a street called Back-street, about fifty yards
from the point of explosion. The gl iss in the windows
of the house on the opposite side was nearly all
blown in by the shock. One woman who was picked out
of the ruins, and who had one of her hands crushed or
blown off, and was otherwise much hurt, died this morn-
ing about three o'clock ; and our informant saw about
twelve other persons carried or led away, greatly injured
or shaken, and some of whom appeared to have little
chance of recovery. One lad was covered up in the ruins
up stairs, and when a spade used in clearing away acci-
dentally touched his head, the little fellow cried out,
" Oh, mother, mother!" and, on getting. out, shook
hin self. and added, " I'm worth two dead folks yet !"
It will he a long time before work can be rasumed in
in the mill, as the machinery and buildings will have to
undergo extensive repairs, in addition to the renewal of
the boilers. One of the large chimneys is also much
shattered that it must be pulled down and rebuilt.