Various Photographers, late 19th, early 20th century

BRITISH LANDSCAPE ALBUM, INCLUDING IMAGES OF THE 1874 EXPLOSION ON REGENT'S CANAL, late 19th, early 20th century. A group of albumen and silver prints (over 100), image sizes from 55 x 75mm (smaller) to 145 x 210mm (larger), the majority mounted to pages recto and verso, some loose. Subjects primarily British landscapes including Oxford Colleges, York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Exeter Cathedral, Margate, Yorkshire, etc, with some views of European cities, and interestingly a set of three images depicting the aftermath of the Regent's Canal Explosion, 1874. Photographers include James Valentine, George Washington Wilson, Frith's Series, Davis's Series, among others.

A Royal Museums Greenwich archive post titled 'Disaster on the Regent's Canal':
"On the morning of Friday 2 October 1874, a steam tug was pulling a train of six barges along the Regent’s Canal. Among the train were the barges Tilbury and Jane. The Tilbury was carrying a mixed load including sugar, coffee, nuts, petroleum and gunpowder – the last of these was destined for a quarry in the Midlands. The Jane also had a quantity of gunpowder on board.

A few minutes before 5 a.m., as the barges were passing under Macclesfield Bridge, the gunpowder ignited, causing an enormous explosion, blowing up the bridge and reducing its bricks to rubble. A contemporary photograph shows a heap of bricks joining the two banks of the canal and the displaced cast-iron columns projecting out of the canal itself.
The four people on board the Tilbury – three men and a boy – were killed in the blast, and the barge itself was blown to pieces. One of the other barges in the train also sank. Thick smoke ascended from the fire which ensued.

The blast had severed a gas main and a water main. Several houses in the vicinity of the canal suffered damage to their roofs and walls and several hundred other houses up to a mile away to the east and west sustained broken windows and damage to furniture. Milder damage occurred to houses to the north and south.

As it happened, the blast had occurred in a section of the canal which ran through a cutting and this had conducted the air east and west. Had the explosion been on a stretch of canal which ran level with the surroundings, the damage would have been even worse.

The noise of the explosion was heard all over London and as far as ten or twelve miles distant. Animals housed in that part of the zoo nearest the canal were frightened. The Illustrated London News noted that ‘The elands and antelopes, the giraffes, the elephants, and a rhinoceros, showed great excitement.’ Mercifully, no dangerous animals were set free, but the wire of one of the aviaries was damaged and some small birds escaped."