3-008-509 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The explosion at Millfield Ironworks: portion of the boiler hurled to a distance of 250 yards, 1862. Engraving from a photograph by W. H. Dodds, photographer, Railway-street, Wolverhampton. 'The works were blown to atoms, huge fragments being strewed in all directions. An immense boiler, raised from its bed, was hurled high in air, and a portion of it, weighing about eight tons, was driven across the works and the West Midland Railway, and now rests, partly imbedded in the ground at a distance of nearly 250 yards from the spot on which it was fixed. The remainder was driven through the forge in three different directions, tearing down the iron pillars which supported the roof and rending the massive timber beams which rested upon them into splinters...The number of dead as at present ascertained is twenty-seven, but it is feared that among the ruins or in the canal other corpses may yet be found'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.