In 1871 Andrew Curnow, aged 20, born in Camborne Cornwall, miner, was with his parents Barripper, Camborne.
In 1891 Andrew Curnow, aged 39, born in Camborne Cornwall, tin miner, and wife Ellen Curnow, aged 36, born in Gwithian Cornwall, were living in Riviere House, Connor Down, Gwinear, With them were daughters Edith (11) of Gwithian, scholar, and Bessie (2) of Gwinear.
In 1901 Andrew Curnow, aged 50, born in Camborne Cornwall, tin miner, and wife Ellen Curnow, aged 35, born in Gwinear Cornwall, were living in Connor Downs, Gwinear, Cornwall. With them were daughters (unmarried): Edith (20) and Bessie (12).
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Andrew Bowden Curnow of Connor Downs died aged 53 years (burial record).
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TERRIBLE EXPLOSION AT GWITHIAN
DYNAMITE SHED WRECKED.
FOUR LIVES LOST.
(Article abridged)
The good people of West Cornwall and scarcely ceased wishing each other "A Happy New Year," ere the whole district was over-shadowed by a great disaster. The year had not entered upon the meridian of its fifth day before the ordinary hum-drum routine of commerce and business was brought to a standstill by an ominous occurrence. On Tuesday, about an hour before noon, people who were in the vicinity of Gwithian, where the National Explosives Company's Dynamite Works are situated, and others at a distance with their faces towards that spot, saw a huge tongue of flame suddenly leap into the air, and then, as if by magic, there burst forth from its upper limits a cloud of murky vapour, which spread itself out across the heavens and darkened the whole neighbourhood. With this paralysing vision came a terrible and terrifying shaking of the earth. It was as if the very foundations of the Globe were shuddering at the sight, or as if all material things had lost their balance, and were staggering to their fall. Away in the far distance the detonation reverberated, across land and sea, and over an area of some fifteen miles, people felt the tremour of the earth, turned pale at the sensation, and wondered at the cause.... Doors burst open or were slammed too, windows were blown out of their frames, crockery danced upon the shelves, and other domestic articles in the houses gyrated and capered as if demoniacally possessed. The din and clatter of the breaking glass and the moving things, the tremor of the earth, the unnatural rumble as of an earthquake, spread or a time terror wherever they were experienced....
When the officials were unceremoniously made aware that a catastrophe had occurred by the roar of the explosion, the breaking of glass, the vibration of the earth, and the falling of the debris, they set the work-people employed at the works a splendid example. The latter number about six or seven hundred, and the managers, proceeding at once to the scene of the disaster, quietly and soberly, mounted the sand-hills, which hide the "danger" area, which reposes in a hollow containing a mass of mounds of sand covered with the long sharp grass which grows in patches on the sand-dunes, it was seen amidst the dust and smoke that a couple of huts had totally disappeared. One hut, in which three men had been engaged, was for washing and filtering the nitro-glycerine, and the other was the precipitating house. These two houses were connected by a conduit, consisting of a leaden pipe sheathed in a wooden case, which carried the nitro-glycerine from the filtering to the precipitating department. This explained the disappearance of both huts, but added to the mystery of the explosion in that it made it impossible to say in which hut it had its origin....
It was found in a very short space of time that the fatalities were four in number. These were Andrew Curnow, a man of about 45 years of age.* He was married, and lived at Connor Downs, and has two daughters. The second was William Cliffe, a youth of about 20, who was single, and lived with his parents at Gwithian. The next was Walter Luxmore, aged about 28, who lived at Copperhouse, and leaves a wife and young child. The fourth was Simon Jory, who was about 27 years old, single, and lived at Hayle....
Royal Cornwall Gazette, Thursday, 7 Jan 1904, p. 4.
* Other reports give Andrew Curnow's age as about 50.
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