Report To The Right Honourable The Secretary Of State For
The Home Department On The Circumstances attending an
Explosion of Fireworks which occurred at the Factory of
Messrs. John Jennison and Company, at Belle Vue, near
Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, on the 9th July,
1905.

By Major A. Cooper- Key, H.M. INSPECTOR OF EXPLOSIVES.
18th July, 1905.

SIR,
  I have the honour to report that in accordance with your
Order* dated 15th July, 1905, made under Section 66 of the
Explosives Act, 1875, I have enquired into the
circumstances attending an accident which occurred on the
9th July last at the Firework Factory at Belle Vue, near
Manchester, belonging to Messrs. John Jennison and
Company, and by which one man, Herbert Moss, was
severely burnt, and another, George Buckley, slightly.
  The factory at which the accident took place was originally
erected for the manufacture of the fireworks used in
connection with the pleasure grounds belonging to Messrs.
Jennison, and was in existence for some time before the
passing of the Explosives Act. On the passing of that Act in
1875 the occupiers applied for and obtained a Continuing
Certificate, which has since been modified from time to time
by four Amending Licences.
  On the day of the accident, viz., on Sunday the 9th July,
there being rather a press of work and three suitable
workmen being available, the foreman, George Buckley,
started to fill " lances " in the shed numbered 24 on the plan
of the factory attached to the licence. Smocks of
uninflammable blue serge were worn by all four men, and
each of them also wore a pair of over-shoes; in fact, so far
as I could ascertain, all the provisions of the licence were
duly observed. The shed was lightly constructed of wood
with a door at each end opening easily by a push from the
inside. Two benches ran the length of the building, but all
four men were at the time of the accident seated side by
side at the same bench facing the front of the building, which
was completely composed of glass window sashes. A high
wall formed the back of the building, and close in front was
the pond or reservoir round which the majority of the
working buildings of the factory are grouped. The weather at
the time was very hot, and the rays of the sun, although
partly intercepted by a wooden board leaning up against the
window, beat in at the end of the bench with exceptional
severity.
  At about 10.30 a.m., while all four of the men were
engaged with copper funnel and drift in stemming the
composition into little cardboard cylinders to form " lances,"
Moss, who was on the extreme left, called out " look out." At
the same moment his tray of partly filled "lances " burst into
flame, and his three comrades, without hesitation, rushed
from the building through the door at the opposite end, the
two furthest from Moss escaping practically uninjured, while
the foreman, Buckley, was only slightly burnt at the back of
the neck and ears, and was able to resume work next day.
  Moss, however, who had of course encountered the full
effect of the flash, was somewhat seriously burnt on the
hands and arms, his face also being scorched, but he had
the presence of mind to fling himself into the reservoir as
soon as he could escape from the building, although
curiously enough from the position in which he was found he
had apparently run out by the same door as the other three
instead of making use of the nearest exit. He was at once
conveyed to the Manchester Infirmary, and is now, I am glad
to say, on the high road to recovery.
  No explosion whatever took place, but the shed was set
on fire and was allowed to burn itself out. The quantity of
composition in the building amounted to about 30 lbs. in all,
viz., 2 1/2 lbs. on the bench behind the workmen, and about
1 1/2 lbs. in each tray of "lances." The mixture, a blue fire,
consisted of—
Chlorate of potash,  
Oxychloride of copper,  
Resin, Nitrate of potash,  
Red orpiment,
and, according to the statement of a member of the firm,
was the same as had been used for the purpose, without
accident, for 30 years.
  The cause of the accident is clear enough. The four men
were all hard at work at the time stemming the composition
into the lance cases. The operation consisted of scooping up
the mixture in a small copper funnel, inserting the end of the
funnel in the top of one of the cases, of which about two
gross stood in front of each operator, and ramming in the
powder by quick and somewhat vigorous blows of a copper
rod or drift. A composition containing chlorate of potash and
red orpiment (sulphide of arsenic) cannot be otherwise than
extremely sensitive to percussion and friction, and the
abnormal heat of the weather would add to this
sensitiveness, so that no great stretch of imagination is
required to account for the generation of sufficient local
heating to cause ignition. Grit may possibly have been
present, but this is by no means indispensable; a blow
between the two copper implements might well suffice to
raise a thin film of the powder to the ignition point, although,
having regard to the comparative rareness of such
accidents, it is perhaps more probable that a particle of grit
was present than that the accident was solely due to the
impact between the two copper surfaces. Rocket
composition, however, which contains no chlorate, but only
nitrate, of potash, has frequently exploded during the
operation of charging, and not so very long ago two
accidents occurred at two different factories while squibs
and star rains respectively werebeing filled in a very similar
manner to that adopted in the present instance— and
neither of these two natures of firework contain chlorate.
The first of these was supposed to have been caused by the
friction set up by the funnel becoming choked with
composition and the other to the presence of grit.
  The dangers of a mixture containing both chlorate and
sulphur, and the consequent prohibition of such mixtures by
Order in Council, are matters of history and do not call for
discussion. "Lances," however, when finished are primed
with a little wet gunpowder, in such a way th» . the sulphur
of the gunpowder may come in contact with the chlorate
composition, and one accident at least has been traced to
this source. In the present instance, however, the "lances"
were unprimed and, so Mr. Jennison assured me, were
never primed in this shed, so that there is no reason to
suspect the action of sulphuric acid as a possible cause of
the extreme sensitiveness of the powder.
  There are several instructive lessons to" be learnt from
this accident, viz.:—
  1. The value of uninflammable clothing.—Moss
undoubtedly owes his life to the fact that he was wearing an
uninflammable serge smock at the time the flash occurred,
and from the scorched appearance of George Buckley's
smock it is probable that his injuries would also have been
extremely serious had his outermost garment been of the
ordinary kind.
  2. The sleeves of the working dress should not be turned
up in a danger building.—It is very difficult to persuade the
British workman that it is possible to work without turning up
the sleeves, and it is no doubt the natural inclination of
anyone who desires to make a strenuous effort. In a corning
house or other working building of a gunpowder factory
where a spark means annihilation of everything in the
immediate neighbourhood, this matter is not, perhaps, of
great urgency, but in a building where the risk is chiefly one
of fire and not of explosion, and where, therefore, it is
possible that protection from fire may save life, this question
becomes of the first importance. Much depends on the
amount of skin area that is destroyed, and any provision that
can reduce this is an advantage. In the present case Moss
had both his sleeves rolled up and he was thus far more
severely burnt than he would otherwise have been. If the
British Bluejacket, the "handy-man" par excellence, can
achieve apparent impossibilities with his sleeves tightly
fastened round the wrist, why should it be found so difficult
to charge a few fireworks without baring the arms to the
elbow? Undoubtedly it is not easy to work with a loose
flapping sleeve, but if the serge overalls were fitted with tight
wristbands it is possible that the workpeople would be more
able to resist the natural temptation to roll up their sleeves,
and lives might consequently be saved.
  3. Sufficient means of escape.—It is, unhappily, somewhat
rare to find a working building in a firework factory wdth a
door at each end, as was the case here. As a rule a shed is
divided into two compartments with two or four persons in
each, and but one door to each compartment. Had this been
the arrangement in the present instance it is more than
probable that all four persons would have received serious, if
not fatal, injuries. Indeed, it is difficult to see how any of
them could have escaped unhurt when the position of the
inflammable composition is considered. If, therefore, it is
impracticable in existing factories to have more than one
escape door to a compartment it is of the utmost importance
that means should be adopted to prevent that door being
blocked in any way, even for short periods, and that the
workpeople should be so disposed at the bench or table that
they have each and all a free run for their lives should
occasion demand.
4. The extreme sensitiveness of some chlorate mixtures.—
From experiments carried out at my request by Dr. Dupre, it
appears that the composition in question will fire when
rubbed between two wooden surfaces even when the
ingredients are of the best quality—as v.as the case here—
and it is most desirable, therefore, that the smallest possible
quantity should be present in a building in which the
somewhat rough and ready operation of filling " lances" is in
progress, and that no precaution should be neglected by
which injury to the operators may be prevented. These have
already been indicated and need not be further discussed.
  In conclusion I beg to state that in the course of my
Inquiry I received every assistance from Messrs. Jennison &
Co.
  In the Appendix will be found a list of accidents which have
occurred in filling and charging fireworks, or which specially
demonstrate the extreme sensitiveness of some firework
compositions.

I have the honour to be,  
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
A. COOPER-KEY, Major,
H.M. Inspector of Explosives.