3-028-619 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Effects of the gunpowder explosion at Bryn-Mawr, 1870. 'The explosion of gunpowder in the warehouse of Messrs. Watkins, grocers, at Brynmawr, South Wales, on the evening of Friday week, occasioned the loss of several lives. The boy, Evan Evans, who had gone with a lighted candle to fetch some powder for a customer in the shop, was blown to pieces; and one or two persons in the street were struck by falling stones or beams of the house, and killed at once, or so injured as to cause their death. There were four or five casks of powder, each containing about 100 lb.; and the extent of damage to buildings, as shown in our Illustration, is reckoned at the value of £3000. Two chapels, which stand close to the premises of Messrs. Watkins, had their roofs, doors, and windows in great part destroyed; the Rose and Crown public-house, on the other side, and the houses in the rear, also suffered a good deal. The shock of the explosion was felt two miles around, and the noise was heard six miles off beyond the hills'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.