EXPLOSION

The title is 'Hanes alarus am 26 o golliers a gollasant eu bywydau yn pwll glo Bedwellty, gerllaw Tredegar, Dydd Gwener, Mehefin 16, 1865.' This may be translated as 'The woeful tale of 26 colliers who lost their lives in the Bedwellty coal mine, near Tredegar, Friday, 16 June 1865. 4pp 16mo (15.5 x 9 cm). Paginated [1]-4. Bifolium. Printer's slug at foot of last page. Disbound. A frail survival: aged and worn.

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Heavily creased and worn. A large number of Norton's productions are listed on the front and back pages. Eleven eight-line stanzas. The poem, which does not mention Bradford once, begins: 'On the 21st of August, | In the year nineteen-sixteen, | A great munition works in Yorkshire | Was a busy, lively scene.

One page, 12mo, edges sunned and stained, text slightly obscured but readable. "I regret I was confined to the House yesterday (in fact since Saturday so could not attend the meeting at the [?] Hall in the sad Oaks Colliery affair [worst ever English mining disaster] [.] My two partners were also from Home. Will you add the name of my Company 'John Brown & Co." without LImited for £100[.] If our Directors will not pay the same I will."

The largest man-made explosion before the the development of nuclear weapons, with a force equivalent to nearly 3 kilotons of TNT, occurred when the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc, laden with wartime munitions, collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in the Narrows, a strait connecting the upper Halifax Harbour to Bedford Basin. The explosion devastated the Richmond District of Halifax, killing 2000 and injuring 9000. Each postcard carries the words 'Copyright Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.' next to the caption beneath the image, with 'Novelty Mfg.