Well here’s part 1 reporting the explosions in the Goyt Valley at the Powder Mills; it’s not for the faint hearted so read it but beware of nightmares.
Well I have told you now so don’t blame me. This refers mainly to you, Fedup of course.
Stockport Advertiser
27 May 1836
dreadful occurrence.
We are sorry to state that an explosion took place at the Powder Mills, at Fernilee, this morning, about seven o’clock, in the stoving house, by which two unfortunate creatures were in one moment deprived of their existence.
Macclesfield Courier
Saturday 4 June 1836
dreadful accident.
On Thursday week, about six o’clock in the morning, one of the most dreadful accidents which we have ever had to record, occurred at Shallcross, in the County of Derby, about eight miles from Macclesfield.
The powder mills of Messrs Williamson, which contained at the time a ton and a half of gunpowder, blew up with a tremendous explosion.
George Heaps, a married man, with a wife and four children, who was in the mill at the time, was blown a distance of six hundred yards, to his master’s farm at Taxal, in this county, Shallcross being on the border of Cheshire and Derbyshire.
He was, of course, quite dead when found.
Mr Hollins, the coroner for Cheshire, held an inquest on his body the very day that the poor man’s youngest child was baptized.
The persons who went in search of him when very near him observed something, which had not the most resemblance to a human body; but on going up they discovered that it was the miserable object of which they were in search.
The clothes and the hair of his head were completely burnt off him, and the body almost reduced to a cinder. One of his legs had been torn off and has not at present been found.
John Heaps, a single man, and the brother of George, was found in the ruins of the mill, with his clothes and hair burnt off, but still alive.
He died, however, the day following in the greatest agony.
Now I know that we are back in 1836 and quite possibly (well certainly really) a workman’s life didn’t mean too much but did the Stocky Ad and Macc Courier really need to use those phrases?
I mean: “two unfortunate creatures”, “the miserable object”; they were men out to do a day’s work for goodness sake. And just imagine being a miserable object and being blown 600 yards to your Master’s farm at Taxal.
Incidentally I went for a walk around Fernilee Reservoir earlier today and I can report that the water level is well down and was as still as a mirror.
There are some magnificent specimens of toadstools in the wood but I didn’t come across George’s, or anyone else’s for that matter, missing leg.
But I may have another look tomorrow; work commitments permitting, of course.
R. S-S