The result of this state of affairs, as might have been expected, was a continuous series of explosions of a more or less serious nature.
An early press account, dated 1722, relates to “Mr. Goodship of White Alley in Chancery Lane,” and continues, “as he was making some fireworks, the Gunpowder took fire and blew him up, by which means the House was fired, and that adjoining somewhat damaged. More Mischief had been done, but that there was timely help. The Man is so hurt that his life is despaired of.” Another account gives the man’s name as Goodsheaf.
The early part of the nineteenth century provided an extraordinary list of accidents.
In 1810 we find the following account of an accident at Bath:
“On Monday a dreadful accident happened at Bath to Mrs. Invetto, a firework-maker, and a young man her assistant. They were preparing sky-rockets, etc., for the Jubilee, when, by some means, an explosion took place of a considerable quantity of powder, some say upwards of two hundred barrels, which blew the house, and another adjoining, to atoms. The unfortunate woman was miserably burnt and bruised; and no hopes are entertained of her recovery. The poor fellow also lies in a shocking state at the Casualty Hospital at Bath.”
In 1814 two accidents are recorded to Mortram and Clithero. The former took place in the “Westminster Roade, near the Asylum”; a man and two boys were very badly burned, two succumbing to their injuries the same day. Clithero’s establishment was situated in Fleet Street Hill, Bethnal Green. The accident here was caused by fire from the steam engine reaching some fireworks. Three people were badly injured, and much glass was destroyed in the neighbourhood. Clithero appears to have had his works separate from the dwelling-house, an arrangement which appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Mortram’s premises were again destroyed in 1818, fortunately without loss of life.
A serious accident took place in 1815, in which five people lost their lives, the premises, and those on either side, being demolished, and nearly all windows destroyed within two hundred yards. The proprietor of the premises, which were situated at Wilkes Street, Spitalfields, was Lushalan.
In 1821 a third accident occurred at Mortram’s works, the newspaper account of which gives an illuminating glimpse of the extraordinary methods of the period:
“Tuesday morning an accident, which occasioned considerable alarm, and might have been attended with dangerous consequences, took place in the house of M. Mortram, firework-maker, in Westminster Road. It appears that one of the boys employed in making composition stars for rockets had placed a number of them on the fender before the fire to dry, and had set fire to one on the hob, which falling in amongst the others, the whole exploded, by which a little girl was much hurt in the back, and so frightened that she ran to the window of the first floor, but was prevented jumping out. The boy escaped up the area with his jacket on fire. The neighbours were now much alarmed, fearing that the fire might spread to more combustible matter in the house, and so on to the extensive workshops of Madame Hengler, the celebrated pyrotechnic to his Majesty; but, through the activity of the workmen, who ran into the adjoining house with buckets of water, further damage was happily prevented, or the consequences might have been dreadful. An accident of a shocking nature, it will be recollected, occurred about three years since in the same person’s repository, when two men were killed by the explosion.”
In 1825, in Bell’s “Weekly Messenger” of September 4th, appears the following account: