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The Death of Alfred James Burgar (1876-1915) in an Explosion at a Munitions Factory

The article below was in the Mitcham Advertiser and Surrey County Reporter on December 17th, 1915, page ?
Reference at the British Library Newspaper library at Colindale is Lon M 29372 [1915]

TWO MEN FATALLY BURNED

DISTRESSING ACCIDENT AT A FIREWORK FACTORY

CROYDON CORONER'S ENQUIRY

The Croydon Borough Coroner (Dr. T. Jackson) conducted an enquiry at the general Hospital on Monday evening into the circumstances attending the death of Alfred Burgar, 39, of 72, Maybury Street, Tooting, and William Fullwood, 38 of Avondale, York Street, Beddington, who died in the Institution from shock following terrible burns sustained while engaged at the works of Messrs. J. Pain and Sons, Pyrotechnists, on the previous Wednesday afternoon. Mr. H. Terrell Peard, who represented the firm, expressed deep regret at the occurrence of the accident, and rendered to the relatives of the unfortunate men fatally injured, the sincere sympathy of Messrs Pain. He was desired to say that in addition to defraying the funeral expenses, the firm would, as far as possible, look after the dependents.

Evidence of identification having been given by a brother-in-law of Burgar and the widow of Fullwood, the Coroner tendered to them the sympathy of himself and the Jury.

The engineer at the works, Alfred Seymour of Letchworth Street, Tooting, gave evidence that it was the duty of the men, when a machine went wrong, to report to him. On the previous Wednesday afternoon witness was engaged with Burgar and Fullwood in the hydraulic press shop in putting a leather onto part of a machine, and while they were standing side by side there was a flash on the other side of the room, about nine feet away. Witness immediately turned and ran out of the door, shouting “look out”. Burgar and Fullwood also ran, but witness was in front and the next he remembered was seeing one of the men who had been assisting him with the leather being helped along, whilst the other was being attended to. Witness was burned a little on the face. Doctors were promptly in attendance, and the injured were taken with all speed and care to the Croydon hospital. Witness was not aware of any special danger at the time of the accident, and precautions had been taken before proceeding to put the leather on the machine. He was aware that the other machine in the room had not had the necessary preparation taken in regard to washing down and he was not aware that it was being repaired.


Henry Noyes, of Sayer Street, New Kent Road, who had been with the firm 33 years spoke of working on a press opposite to the one on which the previous witness and the other men were engaged. He had just finished a certain operation in connection with pumping when he found one of the moulds fixed . He tried to lever it off with a piece of wood from the position in which it was and almost immediately saw a flash. He was thrown out of the door at the back of his press. He tried to move the mould with his hands before using the wood.

John Craig of Fair Green, Mitcham, foreman at Messrs Pains, stated that he had been with the firm 40 years. The engineer and Noyes with Burgar and Fullwood were engaged in work assigned by witness. If anything went wrong to a machine it was the duty of the men attending to it to call the engineer. In damp weather, the moulds on the presses were liable to become stuck. Witness had seen the engineer fetched in similar mishaps in that occurring on Noyes Machine. Formerly he had seen wood used as a lever, but witness thought they had succeeded in stopping all that. The engineer was in the shop when the mishap with mould took place, but Noyes evidently thought it a simple job and got on with it himself. Witness became aware of an accident having occurred through girls screaming, and he went straight to the room where he gave instructions for the injured men to be taken to the office. Witness afterwards examined the room but could not understand how the accident occurred..

Expert evidence was given that the accident occurred through undue friction. The composition being worked was not a very sensitive mixture, and investigation showed that there was no evidence of any foreign matter having got into it.

Doctor Louis Gaston de Blane, senior house surgeon at the hospital, spoke to seeing Burgar and Fullwood on their admission. They were severely burned, Burgar's body was practically charred all over and he died at midnight on Wednesday from shock following his injuries. Fullwood's condition was much the same but he did not look so bad. He developed pneumonia and died on Friday morning.

The Jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

Similar accounts of the accident occur in the following papers

The Croydon Advertiser and Surrey County Reporter (page 9, December 18th 1915)

The Streatham News and Wandsworth Advertiser (page 6, December 17th 1915)

In addition the

The Croydon Times (page 5, December 11th 1915) has a small paragraph stating that
'Two men were killed after an explosion at 2pm in a fireworks manufactory at Mitcham'

The Mitcham Advertiser ( on December 10th) has small paragraph saying that the doctors were Dr Love and Marshall and that the explosion occurred at 1pm. Burgar was identified by his brother-in-law.

Croydon Express (Saturday December 11th 1915) has a short paragraph stating that there was an explosion at Pains' Firework factory in Mitcham and that Alfred Burgar and William Fullwood both died. 

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