{"id":2414,"date":"2016-01-19T14:48:50","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T14:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/?p=2414"},"modified":"2017-10-25T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T08:44:09","slug":"silvertown-explosion-1917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2016\/01\/19\/silvertown-explosion-1917\/","title":{"rendered":"Silvertown Explosion, 1917"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On the evening of January the 19<sup>th<\/sup> 1917, a fire broke out in one of the factory melt pots, effort was made to extinguish the fire however the fire spread and ignited 50 tons of TNT. The explosion killed 73 people and injured more than 400. It is estimated that 900 properties were instantly destroyed after the explosion and 60,000 sustained some damage.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2165\" style=\"width: 110px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/11\/Members-of-the-Schoo_Miss-Hanbury-crop_11160.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2165\" class=\"wp-image-2165 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/11\/Members-of-the-Schoo_Miss-Hanbury-crop_11160-100x300.jpg\" alt=\"Florence Hanbury, 1915\" width=\"100\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/11\/Members-of-the-Schoo_Miss-Hanbury-crop_11160-100x300.jpg 100w, https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2015\/11\/Members-of-the-Schoo_Miss-Hanbury-crop_11160.jpg 111w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2165\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Florence Hanbury, 1915<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">In 1917, the London School of Tropical Medicine was located in the Albert Dock Seamen\u2019s Hospital in the London Docklands and as a result the School was damaged in the explosion. Florence Hanbury, the School\u2019s first library assistant, noted in her diary that, \u2018The Silvertown explosion shattered the windows in the Printing Room, but did not damage the Library\u2019. Hanbury\u2019s description of the damage suggests the School was not greatly affected, yet in Sir Philip Manson-Bahr\u2019s memoir of the School\u2019s history he writes:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2424\" style=\"width: 234px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2424\" class=\"wp-image-2424 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/files\/2016\/01\/rmck.jpg\" alt=\"Robert Mackay, 1912\" width=\"224\" height=\"231\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2424\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Robert Mackay, 1912<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u2018All the windows were broken and the floors were littered with powdered glass. A large number of casualties were carried into the Hospital and School by rescue workers until every available space was full to capacity. Nurses and medical staff alike worked like Trojans and earned universal praise. A squad, led by Major C.H. Barber, I.M.S., who was himself a patient at the time, rushed out to the scene of the disaster and rendered heroic services\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Manson-Bahr also wrote that <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.lshtm.ac.uk\/library\/2015\/11\/09\/robert-mackay-1886-1928\/\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Mackay<\/a>, one of the School\u2019s first laboratory assistant who worked at the school for nearly 30 years, was at the School at the time of the explosion and that\u00a0the accident, \u2018shook him greatly\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, the School did not record any casualties and, due largely in part to time of the explosion, the number of casualties were relatively low as there were few people were working in the area. Two years after the explosion, the School eventually moved to the Seamen\u2019s Hospital in Endsleigh Gardens and later to its current site in Keppel Street in 1929.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Feature image: Courtesy of the Museum of London.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; On the evening of January the 19th 1917, a fire broke out in one&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":480,"featured_media":2417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27649],"tags":[44779,52820,44796,14017,44794,44823,44830,44826],"class_list":["post-2414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-archives","tag-endsleigh-gardens","tag-london-school-of-tropical-medicine","tag-lshtm","tag-royal-albert-dock","tag-seamens-hospital","tag-silvertown","tag-sir-philip-manson-bahr","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Silvertown Explosion, 1917 - Library, Archive &amp; 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