2-913-839 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Remains at Gateshead - Site of the Explosion, 1854. View of '...the Ruins of the Bonded Warehouses...with St. Mary's Church in the background: the white smoke shows the effect of the burning sulphur...[the] fire broke out in the worsted manufactory of Messrs. Wilson and Sons...the heat became so intense that it melted the sulphur which had been stored in an adjoining...warehouse. It came out in torrents, like streams of lava; and, as it met the external air, began to blaze: its combustion illumining the river and its shipping, the Tyne...In the immediate neighbourhood...was another bonded warehouse, filled with the most combustible materials - naphtha, nitrate of soda, and potash, as well as immense quantities of tallow and sulphur; and it is also said that a large quantity of gunpowder was contained in it...[the explosion] made Newcastle and Gateshead shake to their foundations'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.