The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-07 00:00:00

FATAL ACCIDENT AT APOTHECARIES' HALL,
LONDON.

At the urgent request of the East India Company, the
establishment of Apothecaries' Hall had undertaken, con-
trary to their usual practice, the preparation of fulminating
mercury for the percussion caps intended to be used in the
East Indies. With this view, both on Friday and Saturday
morning, Mr. Hennell, the company's chemical operator,
had been preparing about six pounds weight of fulminating
mercury, containing one-third of its weight in water, with a
view to ascertain its actual strength. At ten o'clock, attended
by only one of the labourers, Mr. Hennell was standing be-
fore a large block of wood about three feet high, whose cir-
cumference could not be less than six feet, upon which was
placed a white evaporating dish containing the mercury, the
locality between the distil-house and what is called the gas-
room, where formerly gas was manufactured for the use of
the hall, but which now is used for the purpose of contain-
ing various small bottles filled with essential oils. At this
moment the labourer in attendance left the operator, in order
to look after a furnace fire, where, in the early part of the
day 400 grains of mercury had been drying, and which, it is
supposed, had been taken out by Mr. Hennell, in order to
test the condition in which they were. Scarely, however,
had the labourer left the place before he heard three slight
explosions, between each of them there only elapsed .a few
seeonds, but which was followed by a loud report, the origin
of which, to the present time, appears to be perfectly inex-
plicable, although it is very strongly supposed that the
slighter reports were occasioned by Mr. Hennell striking
a small portion of the preparation with his finger, and
the fatal explosion must have arisen from a particle of the
matter having fallen upon the larger mass. By this accident
we are sorry to say that the exploded preparation struck Mr.
Hennell immediately below the chest, and taking an upward
direction, carried away the right arm and the same side of the
face, together with the whole of the upper portion of the
head, as well as nearly the whole of the viscera, laying open
the entire chest, and exhibiting the action of the heart and
lungs. Some parts of the remains were scattered over the
tops of the buildings, and other portions were actually picked
up by the workmen upon the roofs of the adjoining houses.
The deceased's right arm was found on the roof of Apothe-
caries's Hall, a distance of full forty yards from the scene of
the fatal event, and had, in its progress, indented considera-
bly the leaden gutter pipe. One of his fingers was picked up
in Union-street, a distance of 100 yards, by a person passing
at the time, and must have been forced over the high building
of the hall. The labourers belonging to the hall collected the
scattered fragments, and deposited them in a spot set apart
for their reception. Deplorable, however, as the accident
has been, it is consolatory to know that no other person was
injured but one man, who was knocked down, but who es-
caped without injury. The glass contained in the whole of
the window frames (made of iron) were broken, by which, at
least, 1000 panes were demolished, exhibiting a picture of
destruction seldom witnessed. The block of wood upon which
the dish was placed was so much splintered as to appear as
though it had been struck by a cannon-ball fired from an
eighteen-pounder. The large paving stone upon which the
block stood is likewise shattered into twenty pieces. About
a yard square, in the middle of a wall nearly two feet thick,
is thrown inwards four or five Inches by the force of the ex-
plosion.