3-070-718 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The steerage of the steamer Solway, at Kingstown, after the fire on board, 1881. 'The disaster...took place on the 16th November, by an accidental fire among some casks of oil, or naphtha...Our Artist has contributed a drawing of the steerage, where most of the dead were found, or in the passages leading from it. The barrels of combustible liquid were lashed along the bulwarks on each side of the ship...so that, while the storm was raging, when the barrels were broken from their lashings and smashed, the water at once carried the naptha with it, and it rushed into the steerage through the door shown on the left. There was a fire burning in the little stove in the centre of the compartment: and the moment the naptha came in contact with it, the place became one mass of flame. The people were stifled by the fumes of the burning oil, so that few of them had power to find their way out...The Illustration shows a huge piece of framework that hung suspended between the iron girders, with the burnt and charred beams that had formed the deck and the bridge. This Sketch was made while the men were engaged searching in the ashes that covered the floor for remains of the victims, after the bodies had been removed'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.