“Blast Furnaces by Night” at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery
R. Wallis Palmers
Blast Furnaces by Night, 1889
oil on canvas
Parmers iron and steel works had five blast furnaces, each about 8o feet high, generally worked three at a time. The product was either delivered in a molten state to the steel works for the manufacture of steel, or cast into “pigs” for delivery to the firm’s engine works and foundries, as well as being supplied to many customers across the nation and abroad.
The iron and steel works was an incredibly dangerous environment in which to work, where there were many catastrophic injuries and fatalities. On 23 February 1887, 19 year old steel works’ employee Patrick Finnerty died when he overbalanced himself and fell head first into a tub of molten stag. In August 1914 a blast furnace explosion killed four. These are just two examples of many tragic accidents at the works.
