2-791-340 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Explosion at the King's Bastion, Portsmouth, on Monday last, October 1844. A fatal accident...As the Artillerymen were re-loading one of the guns...the charge went off, and blew one of them to pieces and the other was so horribly mutilated that he died soon afterwards. The guns upon this bastion are 32-pounders...to fire a royal salute requires each gun to be loaded five times and one six. It is usual to use the worm to clear out the gun, every second charge, and it is supposed some fire had remained in the chamber....Miller was blown into fragments, and Walker had his thigh bioken, his arm blown off into the moat, and his body otherwise disfigured. The remnants of the victims were conveyed instantly to the hospital of the Royal Marine Barracks...An inquest was held on the bodies of the unfortunate men...and the jury returned a verdict of "Accidental death"'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol I.