On Friday the 19th of January, 1917 at 6:52 pm a huge explosion ripped a large area of Silvertown from the face of the Earth. The sound was heard and the shock-wave felt all over London and Essex, it was heard over 100 miles away as far as Southampton and Norwich, the fires that followed were seen 30 miles away from as far as Guildford and Maidstone. This is the basic story of that disastrous event, the largest explosion ever to occur anywhere near London..
In 1893, a chemical works was established at Crescent Wharf in Silvertown, Essex, now east London - and part of Newham - by a company named Brunner Mond Ltd. The factory produced mainly soda crystals with a smaller plant producing caustic soda. The caustic soda production was halted in 1912 and that part of the plant was closed and went un-used up to the outbreak of The Great War.
At this point, because of the great demand for munitions by the government's 'Explosives Supply Department' led by Lord Moulton, pressure was put on Brunner Mond's management to place the plant back into production, this time purifying TNT... So despite the reluctance of the company and the high population density surrounding the area, production began in September 1915.
The explosion itself was believed to have been caused by approximately 50 tons of TNT (much of it loaded into nearby railway wagons awaiting transport out of the plant) being set off by a fire in the 'melt-pot' room and a large part of the Brunner Mond factory instantly disappeared, many buildings immediately surrounding the location were immediately demolished. These included: Venestas - a large plywood factory adjacent to Brunner Mond; Silvertown Fire Station - across the road to the munitions plant and several adjacent streets of small houses.
The blast started fires for miles around by large, red hot lumps of flying metal blown from the factory building, badly damaging flour mills in Victoria Dock; St. Barnabas Church and many other buildings. In all, it was estimated 60 to 70 thousand properties received damage costing 2,500,000, a huge amount of money at that time. Seventy three people lost their lives (sixty nine immediately) and over four hundred were injured - this is a small number considering the size of the blast, due mainly to the time of day it took place and the fact it was the end of the 'working week' - the majority of workers had left the factories and for many locals it was time to be at home with their evening meals. Also, at the outbreak of the fire people had been warned to clear the area. Some people, living close by the factory and knowing what it produced, and, on realising that there was a fire, grabbed their children and fled as fast as they could.
A few hours earlier and Brunner Mond's had been full of workers as were the adjacent factories, a few hours later and the upper rooms of the nearby homes (which took the major brunt of the damage) would have been full of sleeping people, so from the point of view of time luck had prevailed for many. It was initially thought that perhaps a bomb from an air raid had been the cause or even that a German spy had sabotaged the plant, but the real cause of the initial fire has never been fully discovered, although educated guessing suggests that the safety aspects of the old factory was really to blame.
Response
Immediate response came from all quarters - ambulance, fire service, police, charities, council, etc. helped the stunned locals in coping with the disaster and many acts of heroism and stories of lucky escapes were reported.
The tragedy was all the larger when one learns the fact that a new factory (Gadbrook) had been specially built in the months immediately following the Silvertown TNT plant restarting, with production well under way by February 1916, on isolated open land with far higher safety standards and production that far outstripped that of Silvertown, this had negated the need to use Brunner Mond, but the officials of the day refused to let Silvertown cease its basically irrelevant production, very much in line with official actions of the day. These facts were, of course, not released publicly at the time.
It is known that a number of men were fighting the fire when the TNT exploded, they included chief chemist and Oxford don, Andreas Angel who was a war-work volunteer, he received a posthumous Edward Medal. Firemen from the nearby station had just arrived to try to deal with the initial fire, knowing full well what danger they were in. They were laying hoses when the explosion happened. The bodies of those that were found were not only associated with Brunner Mond, but also two firemen, a policeman, PLA (river & dock) workers and many working in nearby factories or living nearby that were caught by the blast.
A lot of services went into action immediately following the event, treating injured, feeding and assisting the homeless, searching for victims and later organising assistance with clearing up, re-uniting and re-homing families and of course the burials and longer term assistance with money and health problems that many needed.
On the following day an announcement was released in newspapers 'The Ministry of Munitions regrets to announce that an explosion occurred last evening at a munitions factory in the vicinity of London, It is feared that the explosion was attended by considerable loss of life and damage to property.'
