Yorkshire Almanac An explosion injures half the shift and kills four at the Leeds Steel Works, Hunslet

11 January 1900: An explosion injures half the shift and kills four at the Leeds Steel Works, Hunslet

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Times. 1900/01/12. Fatal Explosion at Leeds. London. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

An explosion occurred about 7:30 yesterday morning at the Leeds Steel Works, Hunslet … where several hundred men are employed. The accident was attended by the injury, more or less severe, of 23 men out of a shift of 50, and four of the sufferers died on the way to the infirmary or in the course of the day. There are three furnaces at the works, and they face the railway. The explosion occurred suddenly and without any warning at No. 3, which had been for some time, it is stated, working unsatisfactorily. The force of the explosion, which is attributed in part to an accumulation of gas, carried away the bell and the copper close to the upper part of the furnace, and blew out a large proportion of coke and molten metal. One or two of the men were hurled a distance of about 65ft. Dr. Hardcastle was soon on the spot and attended to the sufferers, some of whom were sent home, while 12 of the more seriously injured were conveyed in ambulances and cabs to the City Infirmary. Jesse Barrett, of 11, Woodville-place, Hunslet, was instantly killed, being hurled into the air by the explosion. He leaves a widow and four children. Others were shockingly burnt. The accident caused a great sensation in the neighbourhood. The severe cases were retained in the infirmary, the rest being sent to their homes. The night foreman, Mr. Bullas, was among those most injured. A large gang of men were engaged to clear the adjacent railway, which runs through the works. At the foot of the furnace was the engine-house, which, together with the engine, was totally demolished by the huge pieces of iron and steel which fell upon them. The engineman had a narrow escape with his life, and so had an engine-driver. One of the injured men was found under a hot-water pipe and narrowly escaped being scalded to death. The following is a complete list of the dead and the seriously injured detained in the infirmary:-Dead.-Jesse Barrett (20), married; John O’Grady (23), single; William Henry Kirby (23), single; William Cawthorne (33), married. Seriously injured.-William Henry Nettleton (35) (the engine-driver), single; Jeremiah Bullas (43), married.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Leeds Library & Information Services says that there was another fatal explosion 13 years later:

View looks onto the 25 acre site of Leeds Steel Works at Hunslet. This site opened in 1889 and was at one time Britain’s largest producer of steel tram tracks. The site included seven smokestacks and four blast furnaces as well as five miles of train tracks. In 1913 a boiler exploded, tragically killing nine men. The firm closed in 1935.(Leeds Library and Information Services n.d.)

John Lockwood, on the same page:

My uncle, Jack Guy, grew up living in the Grove Pub in Hunslet, run by his parents. The man in charge of demolishing Leeds Steel Works visited the pub and recruited him to help. He told me that at the bottom of one of the furnaces there was a disc of waste metal too big to cut up so they dug a pit beneath it, supported by timbers and then burnt away the timbers. He always wondered if it was discovered later when the land was built on.

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Comment

Leeds Library & Information Services says that there was another fatal explosion 13 years later:

View looks onto the 25 acre site of Leeds Steel Works at Hunslet. This site opened in 1889 and was at one time Britain’s largest producer of steel tram tracks. The site included seven smokestacks and four blast furnaces as well as five miles of train tracks. In 1913 a boiler exploded, tragically killing nine men. The firm closed in 1935.(Leeds Library and Information Services n.d.)

John Lockwood, on the same page:

My uncle, Jack Guy, grew up living in the Grove Pub in Hunslet, run by his parents. The man in charge of demolishing Leeds Steel Works visited the pub and recruited him to help. He told me that at the bottom of one of the furnaces there was a disc of waste metal too big to cut up so they dug a pit beneath it, supported by timbers and then burnt away the timbers. He always wondered if it was discovered later when the land was built on.

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12 January 1825: Safety failings kill 24 in an explosion at Gosforth Pit, Middleton (Leeds), owner Charles Brandling MP, manager John Blenkinsop

11 March 1864: An inhabitant of Bacon Island survives the Great Sheffield Flood

13 February 1796: Marshall and the Benyons’ linen factory at Leeds burns down with the loss of eight lives

20 September 1819: Flags and fasces at a procession from Briggate to Hunslet Moor to protest the Peterloo Massacre

20 March 1848: Showman Pablo Fanque tells an inquest how he overfilled a poorly propped Leeds circus, which collapsed, killing his wife

25 June 1808: Dr Campbell, lodging above a chandler’s on Leeds Kirkgate, advertises the results of his treatment of anorexia, Napoleonic wounds, and all other known illnesses

9 April 1938: Huge crowds witness air-raid demonstrations on Holbeck and Woodhouse Moors, Leeds

3 June 1917: A mob wrecks and loots Jewish shops and houses in east-central Leeds

24 October 1877: Six years after the inauguration of its horse trams, the Leeds Tramways Company tests a steam car by Kitson and Co. of Hunslet

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Comment

This trial followed a long period of more or less successful implementations by other builders elsewhere: the article says that “For some time steam cars similar to this have been used on street tramway lines in Russia and in Germany” (really?), while Daniel Kinnear Clark cites schemes starting in 1859 in the United States, and says that Leonard J. Todd of Leith appears in 1871 to have been the first to build a relatively steam-, smoke-, and noise-free car, like the Kitsons’ (Clark 1894). DKC shows a late 1880s Kitson engine, but doesn’t mention this experiment or its somewhat mixed sequel:

Regular steam car services were not operated, however, until two years later, and then only on routes then being operated by horse cars. Steam trams were not very successful as the heavy engines caused much damage to the very light rails and so were replaced by horse trams again on several routes (Garside 1981).

Re “could travel at a much higher rate of speed than is possible with horses”: speeds were kept low by regulation and/or legislation (Leeds Mercury 1877/03/08).

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