On Sunday 2nd October 1859 fifteen girls and young women were interred in one vault in the church of St Mary Whittall Street in the heart of Birmingham’s Gun Quarter. One more was buried there the following day and two other females and one male were buried in other city centre churchyards. They were the victims of an explosion at the Pursall & Phillips Percussion Cap Manufactory directly opposite the church a few days earlier on Tuesday 27th September.

I first became aware of the tragedy when I came across this stunning example of a Victorian Mourning Card in the ephemera collections at the Library of Birmingham. I’ve used it in a talk about death and burial records for a couple of years. But having been invited to do a talk at the Gunmakers Arms in the heart of Birmingham’s gun quarter I decided the Whittall Street explosion would be a good topic, so started to delve deeper into the event. And as I started finding out more about the percussion cap industry and its dangers I became more and more interested in the lives of these girls and young women who chose to work there.

The 1863 Children’s employment commission included the industry in its investigations into working conditions of children partly in response to the Whittall Street explosion. The manufacture of percussion caps only took place in London and Birmingham and it employed approx. 665 workers excluding the Government’s Woolwich Arsenal. And of these nearly 85% (556) were female and 150 of these children and young people.  The author described it as ‘the most dangerous of all general manufactories’. The 1858 Directory of Birmingham shows 6 percussion cap makers – including Pursall & Phillips at 22 Whittall Street. The oldest established businesses were those of Richard Walker and Starkey’s which operated from the 1820s.

The history of Kynoch (a successor company to Pursall & Phillips) commented on how the “newspapers of the time reported with monotonous regularity (and a wealth of gruesome detail) disastrous explosions in tiny, congested factories, packed with explosives, warmed by open fires and illuminated by inefficient oil lamps. Many of the victims – the more fortunate of whom died at once – were children and young women whose small unskilful fingers dabbled the day long in fulminate of mercury and other treacherous compounds”.

At Pursall’s there was a regular workforce of 30-40, but in September 1859 work on a large contract for 18 million percussion caps meant they had recruited additional workers and there were approximately 70 working at the premises on the fateful day – including 5 or 6 girls taken on just that day. Girls and women appear to have been mainly employed because much of the work required manual dexterity whilst working with very small items; and because they could be paid less than men.

Newspaper reports of the distribution of the Relief Fund give details of the weekly wages earned by those who died or were severely injured in the accident. Thus we can see that the youngest such as Julia Grant, aged 10, earned just 2s 6d per week. The majority earned between 6s and 9s per week. The two most highly paid women were Fanny Dollman and Elizabeth Wood.

Fanny Dollman, aged 31 and the oldest victim of the accident earned 14s per week. She had potentially the most dangerous role in the factory, that of priming the caps. Most of the evidence relating to the scene of the initial explosion point to it being in the priming room. At the inquest Mr Pursall was asked about her character and responded that “she bore an excellent character. She was a sober steady woman. She was in our employ five years, and was also in the employ of our predecessors”. Her widowed husband, George Dollman, received the highest payout from the relief fund of £100 to be invested by trustees for the benefit of the children.

Elizabeth Wood, aged 25 earned 10s per week as forewoman of the works. Part of her role was to be responsible for looking after the gunpowder at her own home! She brought in the required amount for the day – 10lbs at about 10am on the morning of the explosion. She had worked for Messrs. Pursall and Phillips for nine months. She was rescued after the blast by her 28 year old Humphrey, also an employee of the firm, who rescued several others before being killed himself by falling masonry. He was the only man to die as a result of the explosion.

Humphrey Wood had earned 22s per week considerably more than any of the female employees. Two other men were listed amongst the beneficiaries of the Relief Fund: Frank Moore, age 23, earning 30s per week and Jonathan Cantrill, aged 39 on 31s. Both of these were injured but not permanently incapacitated. They did however receive the highest payouts from the Fund reflecting their perceived roles as breadwinners and the temporary loss of earnings.

Sifting through the extensive newspaper coverage and combining this with census data and other genealogical sources it’s possible to build up a picture of the lives of many of those affected by the disaster. It is still a work in progress – but here are a few more snippets.

Delving into the records shows that many of the workers were related to each other. Maria Earp, aged 29, was Fanny Dollman’s unmarried sister. Earning 6 s per week and appears to have worked alongside her sister in the priming room undertaking the task of ‘wetting’ which involved adding a varnish into the filled cap to harden and fix the powder. The two sisters supported their ‘aged mother’, also named Maria, who had been widowed since 1841. She had supported her family working as a washerwoman and a hook and eye carder. The trustees of the relief fund paid £60 to trustees for her benefit with the proviso that any funds remaining on her death should be split between Fanny Dollman’s children.

Fanny’s eldest daughter, 13 year old Sarah, also worked at Pursall & Phillips and was amongst the seriously injured during the explosion suffering a lacerated wound to her scalp. Three years later in 1861 the census shows that despite the death of her mother and aunt in the explosion and her own injuries she was still employed in the percussion cap business.

Elizabeth Wood received nearly £90 from the Relief Fund as compensation for her own injuries and the loss of her husband, Humphrey. It specified that she should use part of the proceeds to purchase a mangle which suggests that she was intending to leave the percussion cap trade and become a laundress instead. Within three months of the explosion she married George Dollman, widower of Fanny; on Christmas Day 1859. But by the date of the 1861 census they may have separated. She is listed on the Dollman family entry in Holt Street, Aston, with George and his children by Fanny, but her entry is crossed out. However she appears again on the same census as a lodger in Townwell Fold, Wolverhampton with her occupation still as a cartridge maker.

The Whittall Street explosion was not the only one in Birmingham’s percussion cap industry The Perigo family suffered two fatalities in explosions in the space of three months. On 28th July 1859 William Perigo was killed at E and A Ludlow’s on Legge Street. A gun wadding maker he had only been with the company three weeks, having previously worked for 18 years with Starkey & Co of Great Hampton Row. He left a widow, Catherine and several grown up children including 24 year old Catherine Mary who was one of the casualties of the Pursall & Phillips explosion. A letter published in the Birmingham Post reported that Catherine senior had purchased a house and shop at the top of Wheeler Street (possibly with compensation money after the death of William?) and was going to start a millinery business with her daughter. Sadly this was not to be.

Robert Munns, a gun screwer of nearby Sand Street, heard the explosion and went rushing to the scene as both his daughters, 15 year old Hannah and 11 year old Emily worked at Pursall’s. He entered the building and was able to lead 15 of the girls from the press room to safety including Hannah but was unable to rescue Emily who was working elsewhere in the building. Emily had earned just 2s 6d per week and the relief fund took this into consideration in awarding a total of £25.

Following the 1859 explosion legislation was introduced designed to ensure that the most dangerous processes in the manufacture of percussion caps was moved out of the crowded inner-city streets of the Gun Quarter. The 1863 Children’s Employment Commission looked at the industry and visited the newly rebuilt Pursall’s factory on Hampton Street. The report makes fascinating reading and gives some insight into the lives of the children working in such factories.

The Children’s Commission inspector, Mr J E White, visited all of the percussion cap manufacturers in Birmingham including that of Richard Walker & Co. on Graham Street. Three days after his visit in June 1862 there was an explosion causing nine deaths and forty injuries. Despite strong evidence that the company had flouted the recent legislation regarding the priming of percussion caps to only take place in licensed premises at least 50 yards from any other building, the inquest returned verdicts of accidental death as was the case with the 1858 explosion.

Amongst the victims of this tragedy were Richard and Thomas Simcox Walker, the sons of the founder Richard Walker. Since the death of Richard Senior the company had been run by his widow Charlotte, and her daughters, as well as her sons were involved in the business. It appears that female workers were involved in all aspects of the percussion cap trade from children as young as ten earning a couple of shillings a week, through to forewomen and being in charge of priming and the cartridge making shop and right up to being the proprietors. We tend to think of female munition workers in connection with the First World War but it is evident that some of their grandmothers and great grandmothers had worked in the industry decades before. I haven’t yet found any reference to any political campaigning by these workers unlike either later munition workers or their compatriots in the lucifer match industry. But I’m fascinated now by these girls and women and hope to be able to discover more about their lives in time.

Liz Palmer

Greenhill Genealogy

 

Images reproduced with the permission of the Library of Birmingham.