Hi Karen, Thursday, November 29, 2001, 6:40:08 PM, you wrote: KL> Hi KL> Does anyone have any info on the gunpowder explosion on /by KL> Regents Park in 1874. One of my relatives Joseph Bloor (1853-1916) KL> received a ducking and blackened face but I know very little about KL> it. I would appreciate any info anyone has or where I could get KL> further info from I found this in the book referred to at the top of the extract, there is also an illustration which I have scanned in and posted to my website here: http://www.yobunny.freeservers.com/canals/regents-pk.htm Source: British Canals, by Charles Hadfield. Published by Phoenix House, 1950 Pages 68-69, and illustration on pages 56-7 In 1874 the Illustrated London News carried an account of the famous Regent's Park explosion. The following is an extract: "An extraordinary accident, which happened yesterday week at five o'clock in the morning, cost the loss of several lives, much damage to houses and furniture, and a vast alarm to the north-western suburbs of London. This was the blowing up of a barge laden with petroleum and gunpowder for blasting, which was one of a train drawn by a steam-tug along the Regent's Canal... . The train of six light barges, of which the first was a steamer, left the wharf in the City-road about three o'clock that morning. Next after the steamer, the Ready, was the fly-boat Jane, whose steerer or captain was named Boswell. Next to her was the Dee, the steerer tdwards; and next came the unfortunate Tilbury, whose steerer was Charles Baxton, of Loughborough, in Leicestershire. The Jane "had a little gunpowder on board". The Tilbury's lading is thus described by the official report: "The cargo consisted chiefly of sugar and other miscellaneous articles, such as nuts, straw-boards, coffee, and some two or three barrels of petroleum, and about five tons of gun-powder." . . . Three or four minutes before five o'clock, this train of barges was passing under the bridge at North Gate, Regent's Park.... On board the ill-fated Tilbury were the steersman, Charles Baxton, who was about thirty-five years of age; William Taylor, a labourer, of twenty-five; another man and a boy. The Tilbury was directly under the bridge when by some means yet unexplained, the powder caught fire and the whole was blown up. The men on board this barge were killed, and the barge was shattered to pieces, while one of the other barges was sunk. A column of thick smoke and a grea t blaze of fire followed the explosion. The bridge was entirely destroyed; several of the neighbouring houses were half-ruined, their roofs and walls being greatly injured; and in hundreds of other houses, a mile east or west of the place, the windows were broken, and many fragile articles of furniture.. . . The noise and shock were perceived in every quarter of London, and in many instances ten or twelve miles away, both on the north and the south side of the Thames.... Women and children rushed out of the houses, screaming for help, some in their night-dresses, others wrapped in blankets, and were not easily pacified by those of cooler mind whom they met. People soon hastened up from every quarter of town. The police, the Fire Brigade, and a detachment of Horse Guards (Blue) from Albany Barracks, presently arrived and kept order, while the task of saving what remained and searching for the lost was actively begun." -- Cheers, Anne mailto:Anne.Nichols@ukgateway.net ListOwner: Docwra, Dockery, Garton, Hampson, Schofield Message Board Admin: Docwra, Dockery, Dockerill, Dockrey, Dockrill, Garton, Hampson Webmistress: http://stop.at/canalcaholic