3-070-710 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The burnt steamer Solway, lying at Kingstown, Dublin Bay, 1881. 'Fore-Deck, looking aft, where the fire broke out; Side of the Vessel, with broken bridge, under which the dead bodies were found...A terrible disaster, causing the death of twelve persons in a most painful and shocking manner...the cargo consisted of forty tons of castings, a lot of canvas Dundee goods, about 200 casks of rum and other spirits, one hundred tons of sugar, sixty tons of pig iron, confectionery, drapery goods...linen... [and] Singer's sewing machines...a barrel of naphtha oil burst on the fore main deck. The oil ran along the deck to the steerage, where it came in contact with a fire, and in a moment the vessel was in flames...Six of the passengers...were enveloped in flames, and before they could escape their shrieks of terror and agony were silenced in a terrible death...The principal Illustration shows the whole larboard or port side of the vessel, with the bulwarks burnt away from the fore main deck, where the casks of oil had been lashed to them. The place where the fire broke out, just under the broken bridge aft of the fore deck, is shown in the two smaller Illustrations; it was here that the dead bodies were found, horribly burnt and charred'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.