History: Art and About: Outrage – Walking the Greenwich Park Bomb 1894

“Ah! Here it is. Bomb in Greenwich Park. There isn’t much so far. Half-past eleven. Foggy morning. Effects of explosion felt as far as Romney Road & Park Place. Enormous hole in the ground under a tree filled with smashed roots & broken branches. All round fragments of a man’s body blown to pieces. That’s all. The rest’s mere newspaper gup. No doubt a wicked attempt to blow up the Observatory, they say. H’m. That’s hardly credible.” - ‘The Secret Agent’, Joseph Conrad, 1907 Conrad was inspired by a real event: the Greenwich Bomb Outrage of February 15, 1894. Martial Bourdin, a French anarchist, detonated a bomb while approaching the Royal Observatory & died of his injuries. The motive for his attack remains unclear. But that will not stop us speculating as we take in the magnificent surroundings of Greenwich. We will begin at the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, setting the scene and continue to what was the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital where Bourdin’s body was taken. From there we will climb through the park to the gates of the Royal Observatory where Bourdin met his end. On the way we will stop to consider evidence, context and popular culture surrounding this most unusual event.