HM Factory Gretna was the greatest munitions factory on earth in World War One. It employed 30,000 people (12,000 of them women). It was a worldwide effort as talent was drawn from across the Empire.
Eastriggs, the location of The Devil’s Porridge Museum, is now known as ‘The Commonwealth Village’ because its place names include Singapore Road, The Rand, Delhi Road and Vancouver Road to name but a few. The overseas workers left their mark in their contribution to the war effort and in the place names they left behind.
For Australia Day 2020, we thought we would share some information about the Australians we know about who worked in the Factory in World War One (we don’t know the names of all the Factory workers and we haven’t included the name of every Australian we know of who worked there either).
James Chalmers Hood c.1895-1957
c.1895 James was born in Oban, Scotland. He was educated at Perth Technical College.
He became a cadet at the Explosives and Analytical Branch of the Mines Department in Western Australia.
In 1914 he qualified as an analyst and then came to HM Factory Gretna.
Between 1917 and 1919 he worked at HM Factory Sutton Oak. This factory near Liverpool specialised in the production of poison gas (photographed below).
James then went on to work at Government Chemical Laboratories. First as a chemist, then senior chemist, acting supervising chemist, deputy government analyst from 1946 and director of laboratories from 1955.
Alfred James Occleshaw
1888-1969
19th September 1888: Alfred was born in Melbourne. He was educated at a working man’s college where he achieved a Diploma in Chemistry.
From 1904 to 1916 Alfred worked for the Mount Lyell Chemical Company (photographed below).
Between 1916 and 1918 he was involved in operative training and explosive manufacture at HM Factory Gretna.
In 1919 Alfred went to work for Chance and Hunt, an alkali company in Birmingham.
He returned to Australia in 1920 to work for the Mount Lyell Company research group.
Between 1921 and 1923 Alfred was a buyer for the Electrolytic Zinc Company, Hobart.
In 1923 he retired, and lived out his life in Melbourne.
You can see some of the street names in Eastriggs on the map below. The majority are places in the British Empire/Commonwealth.
In 1919, the following HM Factory Gretna staff left their work in Britain and gave their addresses as listed below:
B E Anderson
c/o Wischer & co
William Street
Melbourne
Australia
J R H Bartlett
c/o/ Dalgetty & Co.
15 Bent Street
Sydney
New South Wales
Australia
W S Bradley
“Leadhills”
Francis Street
Subiaco
W Australia
S Hough
c/o Messrs Lever Brothers Ltd
Balmain
Sydney
Australia
N S W Hudson
c/o/ T J Darling Esq.
Tymble
Sydney
Australia
S Parsons
91 Morehead Street
Redfern
Sydney
Australia
A F Parkin
Born 1892 in Victoria
Lived at 24 the Ridge, Eastriggs during World War One and had two children there (Tom and Gretna who went on to become Gretna Weste, a famous Australian botanist, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretna_Margaret_Weste)
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