The following year, by Order in Council No. 15, the admixture of chlorate of potash and sulphur was made illegal.
Previous to this accident, during the same year and in the same works, a serious accident involving the death of one workman and the injury of another, was caused by a barrel of chlorate of potash being delivered and marked nitrate of potash (saltpetre). Its use in a composition containing sulphide of arsenic (orpiment) produced a mixture approximately to that used in some fog signals and designed to fire by percussion. The natural effect was the serious explosion that followed.
The late Sir Vivian D. Majendie, K.C.B., the then Chief Inspector of Explosives, records in his report that “Messrs. Brock are extremely careful to keep chlorate and non-chlorate mixing departments, and even ingredients in separate buildings and under separate control,” and while he considered that “some measure of blame is attributable to them in respect of the defects of their system which rendered possible the presence of a cask of chlorate of potash as “saltpetre” in the saltpetre shed,” he adds: “It is only fair and proper that I should say that our experience of the manner in which Messrs. Brock conduct their large business generally is extremely satisfactory. This factory is in many respects a model; they have always shown themselves ready to discuss with us and adopt any suggestion tending to increase the safety of the workpeople.”
These indications, if such were needed apart from the official prohibition of the use of these two ingredients together, convinced Mr. Arthur Brock that even greater care was necessary in dealing with them. With this object in view, when the works were removed to Sutton, Surrey, the two factories at South Norwood and Harold Wood, Essex, being inadequate to deal with the business, the plan of the new factory was arranged so as entirely to separate that portion of the factory using chlorate of potash from the portion using sulphur. A road running up the factory from the entrance gate divides it into what are virtually two factories, known as the Colour and Bright Sides.
These works, which are easily the largest of the kind in the world, cover an area of nearly 200 acres. They include about 60 magazines, expense magazines, and drying rooms, with a total storage capacity of 1,300,000 lbs. of fireworks and 5 tons of gunpowder; 120 explosive working buildings (mostly double), besides numerous stores, non-explosive working buildings, saw-mills, and wood-working shops. The buildings are connected by over four miles of tram-lines. The average number of employees is 150 men and 200 women. During the late war this number was increased to over 2,000 on the manufacture of munitions.
CHAPTER IX
FIREWORK ACCIDENTS
The record of firework accidents until the date of the Explosives Act, 1875, is very meagre, not in subject matter, as reference to Chapter VI will show, for the history of the industry up to that time appears to have been one catalogue of accidents; the only cause for wonder when one considers the conditions then prevailing is that there were not more. But in detail, the only records are more or less sensational reports of the event, and such explanation of the cause as the reporter could pick up from some bystander.
In some cases where the workers were not killed the explanation was found to be simple; as for instance, the accident at Mortram’s works in 1821. Here a boy who was making stars in a room with several other workers and other composition present, put some of his work to dry before the open fire, and as if this was not a sufficiently reckless proceeding, lit one on the hob, with the consequences that were to be expected.
In most cases, however, the cause seems to have been obscure, and little or no trouble appears to have been taken to discover the cause with a view to prevention of a repetition.