Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - Some newspaper reports from the 1870's

ordinary seaman ; Antonia Pedro, William Peterson, sailmaker ; Henry Clark, ordinary seaman ; Robert Harding, Henry Elliott, John McVeigh, Peter Lyons, able seaman ; Donald McKerrell, carpenter ; John Malone, Petro Antonio, ordinary seaman ; Henry Hay, the cook, being in the galley. Some stores were required, and the second mate, Henry Rose, accompanied by Antonio Pedro, went down the hold to enter the lazarette, Rose carrying a candle in his hand. On getting into the hold, Rose gave Pedro a lucifer match to light the candle with. Pedro struck the match against the sides of the vessel, and in a moment the gas fired, and the deck, deck cabin, forecastle, and fore deck, were blown into the air.

The force of the explosion shook the houses above the dock, rattling their windows, and breaking a few panes of glass. The visitors at the Penarth Hotel were rather alarmed, the house shook, and the doors which were standing open closed with some violence. In a few minutes all the residents of Penarth were in a state of excitement, and hundreds ran towards the dock to learn what had caused the alarm.

The gas had evidently accumulated to a considerable extent at each end of the vessel, and rushed out at the hatchways, as the boats above the central hatchway were broken in pieces, and the stout iron standards on which they were swung are bent. The deck planks are torn into splinters, and the spanker boom of the mainmast thrown across the deck, and at some distance from the place where it was suspended. A large piece of the tarpauling over the hatches was blown on the upper part of the rigging of the Amida, a vessel some distance off, where it now remains. Some of the outer planks of the vessel were also started from the ribs, and fell into the water.

The explosion occurred so unexpectedly that few persons were sufficiently observant to give any account of what took place at the time. One of the crew, William Peterson, a sailmaker, was standing near the wheel. He says "I was blown up, I think, eight or ten feet, and when I came down the spanker boom fell within three or four inches of my head. I can scarcely remember anything beyond hearing a noise as of a gun going off, and finding myself going up rapidly in the air. The spanker boom that fell near me broke the leg of the mate. He must have gone up a great height, as he came down on his head with a heavy thud on the top of the cabin. He was standing near the bridge. The captain was on the bridge. He was blown overboard, some of the pieces of timber striking him on the head while in the water. He was rescued by some of the crew of the Acadia, who jumped into their boat, and pulled towards the place where he went down.