§ LORD EUSTACE CECILasked the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, Whether he could give the House any further information as to the nature and cause of the terrible accident at Shoeburyness yesterday afternoon?
§ MR. BRANDIt is impossible for me to express adequately in words the sorrow which I feel, and the sorrow which must be universally felt, on account of the loss of valuable lives by the terrible catastrophe which occurred yesterday at Shoeburyness. Departmental experiments were being made by Colonel Lyon with the delay-action percussion fuses. At about 3.30 P.M. they were fixing a fuse in a 6-inch breech-loading live shell, when it exploded, the result being that several of those around were killed or wounded. Colonel Fox-Strang-ways has since died; Colonel Lyon, Superintendent, Royal Laboratory, has also succumbed; Captain Gould-Adams is also dead; Major Bally, E.A., Instructor in Gunnery, is severely wounded; Sergeant-Major Day kin has since died; Gunner Allen was killed; Gunners Underwood, Webb, and M'Annalla were severely wounded. Mr. Lowe, assistant manager of the Royal Laboratories, and also an employé (Mr. Rance), were wounded. The catastrophe is being inquired into by a Court at Shoeburyness, and a Report will be submitted as soon as it has been received. Since I have been in the House a note has been put into my hands, to the effect that the wounded officers and men are doing well.
§ COLONEL NOLANasked, whether the families of the officers and men killed yesterday at Shoeburyness would be treated in the same manner as if these officers and men had been killed in action?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONThe families of the warrant' officers and men would be treated in the same way 1622 as if the men had been killed in action The families of officers killed in the execution of their duty otherwise than in action receive the intermediate scale of pension as laid down in the Royal Warrant.