The offices of the Madeley Wood Works were at the Lloyds, but a land-slip, or series of slips rather, which have been going on for years, bringing down rocks and trees from the high ground, have swept away these, and also some houses and orchards near them. In these offices on one occasion an explosion took place, occasioned by recklessness on the part of a youth entrusted with the task of giving out powder for blasting, candles, &c., for the pits. A lad named Brown had filled a horn of powder and was crossing the office to go to play at marbles, when finding the fire did not burn brightly, he stooped to poke out the ashes with the horn under his arm, and some grains igniting, he was blown a black and apparently lifeless mass against the door, whilst the windows went flying as far as the water-engine. Although shorn of his arms above the elbows, and with only two short stumps remaining, “Stumpy Brown,” as the boys still call him, managed to learn to write a good clear hand, became a schoolmaster, a Sunday-school teacher, a preacher, and a capital wood-turner of bedsteads and children’s dolls, which at the present moment are in great request in very many towns in the Midland Counties, where they are well known as “John Brown’s Dolls.” {175} Upon the death of Mr. Anstice he was succeeded by his son John, who, having been brought up under his father, in close proximity to the works, was in every respect well qualified for the task; and to him his partner, Joseph Reynolds, at his death left his shares of the works, and the general residue of his property. John Anstice at once generously transferred to his brother, William Reynolds Anstice, a share in the Madeley Wood concern, but retained the sole management of the works during his life. He entered on no great new enterprise beyond sinking a new pair of pits to the east of the field, an enterprise on which he several times consulted the writer long before the men had headed to prove the mines in that direction. He was a man whose amiable qualities and generous nature won for him general admiration.