One of Malta’s worst peacetime disasters took place in 1806. This was when a military gunpowder store explosion in Birgu, across the harbour from Valletta.
In 1806 Malta was a British protectorate. While it still was part of the Kingdom of Sicily the British guaranteed Malta’s safety. The Napoleonic wars had started in 18031 and Britain waged war with Napoleon by land and at sea. The Mediterranean was one of these battlegrounds. Malta’s central location made it vital to British interests.
The gunpowder stores in Birgu was a small room within the fortifications, known as a casemate2. The Knights had built this as a temporary measure. The threat of invasion was low so they didn’t worry about gunpowder inside the city walls. Similar stores were in use in Fort St Angelo and Mdina.
This worried the residents, for obvious reasons. They’d often complained about the risks but nothing had changed. When the British took over in 1800 they tried to find alternative locations. The only alternatives were being used as barracks or hospitals. By 1806, things were still the same.
The disaster
Britain wanted to send ammunition to Sicily to refuel stocks there. The stores in Birgu were full with2 3:
- 370 barrels containing 18 000 kg of gunpowder
- 1 600 shells
- an unknown number of grenades
Early on 18 July 1806 Brigadier Anderson commanded a working party of 13 men to load ships with shells. He used a metal chisel to remove live fuses from the shells. This was against military rules at the time. The metal sparked causing a massive explosion3 at 06:15 am4.
The 13 men died immediately. Three British soldiers from the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment perished. Twenty-three Maltese soldiers of the 2nd Provincial Battalion also died. 200 civilians died and falling masonry injured 100 more3. The explosion reverberated and shocked all the towns in the harbour area.
Headless corpses and random body parts littered the area. Part of the casemate’s roof ended up in the neighbouring city of Isla. One of the dead was a local who was shepherding his goats into the city to sell milk to the locals. He shouted out, “The milkman’s here!” when the explosion hit4.
This caused a massive breach in the fortifications which was never rebuilt. To this day, the walls end about 50 metres from the shoreline. This is the breach caused by the 1806 explosion.
Apart from the city walls, the blast damaged Navy store houses. A large number of civilian houses were either destroyed or damaged. In all 493 people reported property losses which speaks to the density of dwellings in the area2. This doesn’t means 493 buildings; given the population density and the tall buildings it is likely that this means 493 apartments.
After effects
British Admiral Alexander Ball was the civil commissioner at the time.
The Maltese had loved him enough to ask for his help against the French in 1799.
His public works programmes had helped with employment and public health5. This doesn’t mean everyone loved the British and Ball wrote that:
those Maltese who had already become disaffected with the Government, fanned the embers and fermented great agitation by magnifying the casualties and working upon the weakness and credibility of the lower ranks3.
Ball insisted that the government should pay full compensation to victims. The British agreed to pay the poorer people two-thirds the value of their property. The upper classes got half the value of their property3. This negotiation took 5 years which can’t have helped the locals’ attitude towards them.
In 1811, Ball distributed GBP 18 066, 5 shillings and 10 pence to those claiming damages3. This is approximately GBP 1 417 320 in today’s money6. Mr Woodhouse, a wine merchant, received large stores at the former Slaves’ Prison in Valletta as compensation for the large amount of wine lost3.
Today, many people get to Birgu using the street running through what used to be Porto Marina. This is the easiest way to get to the waterfront restaurants there. As you walk down, take a look at one of the streets on your right. It’s called Triq il-Vittmi tal-Porvlista (“Polverista Victims’ Street”).
- Do you know how the British took control of Malta? Antoine Borg; The Unexpected Traveller; 2018-10-08[↩]
- Hospitaller Gunpowder Magazines; Stephen Spiteri; International Journal of Military Architecture and Fortification; 2012-05[↩][↩][↩]
- Malta Garrison 1806; British Army Medical Service; (Retrieved 2018-10-26) [↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Malta bil chzejer tehne u li ghadda min ghaliha: L’euel parti, Volume 1; Pietru Pawl Castagna; 1865[↩][↩]
- The new (old) and improved Msida waterfront; Antoine Borg; The Unexpected Traveller; 2018-07-03[↩]
- UK inflation calculator; In2013Dollars.com; (Retrieved 2018-10-12) [↩]