The Stonton Wyville boiler explosion led to manslaughter charges

Back to the inquest into the deaths of the four men killed by the explosion of the boiler of a steam threshing machine at Stonton Wyville in 1862.

The Gimson who gave evidence to the inquest, as the Leicester Guardian for 1 March 1862 reported, was Josiah Gimson from the Leicester engineering family. He described the condition of the engine which made it, or at least the way it was operated, sound dangerous (Josiah was the father of the architect and furniture designer Ernest Gimson, incidentally.)

Having heard his and others' evidence, the inquest jury returned its verdict. The Leicester Advertiser (8 March 1862) described what happened:

The coroner told the jury he should not make many remarks as it was a case entirely for them. They were to consider whether the parties died from the effects the explosion, why it happened and whether it happened from negligence or from accident or from some deficiency in the boiler or want of skill on the of the parties in charge. 

The jury retired and after deliberating two hours returned the following verdict: 

We find that William Woolman George Woolman Thomas Lee and Samuel Ashby killed by the explosion of steam thrashing machine boiler January the 13th 1862 and that the deaths were owing to the culpable negligence of William Bloxam and Henry Butcher. We also beg to suggest that machines of this kind are now use and many eases are managed inexperienced hands the propriety of appointing an inspector to report on their safety – Thomas Burnaby foreman

The coroner told the jury that was a verdict of manslaughter, but the jury said they did not intend to return a verdict of that kind, although all agreed in the words of the verdict. After some time the coroner, finding there was no chance of the jury agreeing, said he would enter the verdict received and leave it for the magistrates to take it up if they thought fit.

They did think fit, and Henry Butcher, the owner of the machine whose boiler exploded was tried for the manslaughter of the four men at Leicester Assizes, which were held in the courtroom at Leicester Castle. This was sited in the castle's medieval great hall, which lies behind the Georgian facade you see in the photo above.

 The Leicester Journal of 25 July 1862 reported his acquittal on these charges.

So that's the end of the Stonton Wyville story, but I wondered how common such accidents with steam threshing machines were. I did a little googling, and what I found was alarming.

Here's a piece written for the Prairie News Room from North Dakota by Steve Hoffbeck:

From the 1880s through the 1920s, steam-engines powered threshing machines. The boiler-men tending these tractors had the serious task of preventing pressure build-ups that could shatter boilerplates into shrapnel and release the fiercely-hot steam.

In the fall of 1889, about fifty men in threshing crews perished in such explosions. Similarly, in 1895, there were 'numerous boiler explosions' in the state, 'in which numerous lives were lost, and many persons [were] maimed and disfigured.'

At times, these tragedies happened because careless or incompetent operators refused to use good sense. Newspaper headlines shrieked: ;Water Is Low, Boiler Lets Go,' telling of a boiler-man who brought catastrophe 'by running his engine short of water to rush the head of steam,' his body 'blown to atoms.' In another boiler-explosion, the deathly headline read: “Blown Into Eternity.”

The deepest blame went to farmers who used 'old and worn' machines. Indeed, the 'gradual deterioration of boilers' was the number-one cause of their failure. Corrosion caused weaknesses in boiler-metal so that the simmering strain of high-pressure steam would find a fatal defect, perhaps a single rivet, leading to explosive rupture. Engineers also faced dangers from worn-out safety valves or inaccurate pressure gauges.

Reformers called for inspectors to examine boilers, believing that the explosions were preventable. And state law eventually did provide for inspections, seeking to halt the 'terrible slaughter.'

Was the situation any better in Britain? I'm sure the British Newspaper Archive will help me find out.