The jury of the coronial inquiry into the deaths of Frederick Platt, engine-room artificer, John Abbinett, stoker, and Henry Hawkins, leading stoker, on board the first-class torpedo boat No. 47 in May 1887, found - "that the deceased died from the effect of burns received in the stokehole of the boat, and that the origin of the disaster was the neglect to supply the boiler with water, and that through this neglect the crown of the furnace became partially fused, in consequence of which the stays were drawn and a considerable portion of the plate forced down into the furnace. The fatal result is chiefly attributable to the fact that deceased leading stoker, Henry Hawkins, for the purpose of increasing speed by means of an increased draught, ordered the automatic doors of the ash-pit to be fastened back, which doors, had they not been fastened back, would have prevented the escape of the flames from the furnace into the stokehole.'