The Ashton-under-Lyne munitions explosion occurred on 13 June 1917 when the Hooley Hill Rubber and Chemical Works caught fire and exploded.
On 28 October 1914 the company was asked to build a plant capable of producing around five tons of TNT per week and after further negotiations a contract was signed on 26 November 1914.
Its substantial brick walls and heavy concrete floors were deemed suitable to be adapted as a chemical plant but its location in the middle of a built up area with housing, schools, textile mills and two gasometers was far from ideal.
A government report had recommended dispensing with smaller, less economic producers of explosives such as the Hooley Hill Rubber and Chemical Company.
Despite a frantic effort led by Dreyfus to bring the reaction under control, the contents of the vessel boiled over and set fire to the wooden staging around it.
Two gasometers in a nearby street were ripped open by the blast, sending a massive fireball hundreds of feet into the air.
Amongst the dead were 23 employees of the Hooley Hill Rubber and Chemical Works, and eleven adults and nine children from the surrounding area.