munitions Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The Devil's Porridge Museum

World War Two photo of ICI Powfoot

By Collections blog

A couple (Ron and Morag) recently contacted the Museum and sent us a photo of Morag’s mother who worked at ICI Powfoot during the Second World War. She is pictured in the photograph below (front row, second from left) with other people who also worked in the Factory.

Morag’s mother was Mary Taylor Napier (maiden name Dirom) who worked at ICI Powfoot during the Second World War. She was born on the 11th May 1921 in Templand, Dumfriesshire. She then married on 2nd February 1940 at Dryfesdale, Lockerbie to James Ross Napier (who was on leave from the army). She lived in Lockerbie during World War Two.

After the War, James and Mary moved to Templand in a ‘prefab’ where they had their first child Morag (who gave us this information). Mary and James, with three children and a fourth on the way, emigrated to Australia in 1956 and this is where they lived until Mary passed away on the 16th July 2000 in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia.

The couple would also be very interested to know if anyone knew any of the other people in the photo and see if they can identify them. They don’t really know much more information about the photo or who is in it which is why they would like some more information if anyone can help. Please email: manager@devilsporridge.org.uk if you have any information you would like to share with us. We have a large collection of objects and material relating to the Second World War in our region and are always keen to know more.

Photo on display of ICI Powfoot workers

This display (photographed below) is on the First Floor of the Museum and focuses on the work done at ICI Powfoot.

A few years ago, the Museum researched and published a book called ‘The Solway Military Coast.’ It contains lots of information about World War Two in Dumfries and Galloway and can be purchased from our online shop (and shipped worldwide): https://www.devilsporridge.org.uk/product/the-solway-military-coast-book

Two Australian flags with the words "Australia Day."

The Australian contribution to HM Factory Gretna

By Collections blog

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)

Died 1971 in Tobago

In 1919, he gave his future address as:

Studley Avenue

Kew

Melbourne

Australia

G W R Powell

Gladstone Avenue

Mossman

Sydney

Australia

T M Steele

c/o C S R Co

O’Connell Street

Sydney

Australia

G S Skuthorp

Bullfinch Proprietery

G M

West Australia

L F N Stutterd

“Ashleigh”

Winyard

Tasmania

M B Welch

Boyle Street

Mosman Bay

NSW Australia

R G Walker

209 Ripon Street

South Ballarat

Victoria

Australia

Operating Staff

S B Abbott

71 Sydney Road

Parkville

Melbourne

Australia

N E Beaumont

Australia

F A Eastaugh, ARSM, FIC, AIMM

University Club

Sydney

NSW

Australia

F F Field, AMSM

21 Landsdowne Street

East Melbourne

Victoria

Australia

A F Gourley Australia

E L P Griffiths, BSc, AIC

Chemist’s Branch

Dept of Agriculture

Sydney

NSW

Australia

W J Kelly

32 M’Connell Street

Kensington

Melbourne

Victoria

J McE King

“Lochnager”

Ballast Pint Road

Balmain

NSW

Australia

A J Marsden Australia

A M Munro, MA, AIC, FCS

c/o Bank of Australasia

Melbourne

C W R Powell Chemical Dept

C S R Coy

Sydney

Australia

Danger Building Staff

A L Aspland, BSc

Lower Kalgan River

Albany

West Australia

John Charles Burnham

By Collections blog

John Charles Burnham was responsible for keeping the greatest factory in the world operating smoothly which he accomplished every day he was there as the factory helped Britain win the war by producing the most cordite out of any factory in the whole world. When leaving the Factory Burnham left behind a meticulous record of his work in the form of a Factory Manuel which is now in the National Archives.

The picture above shows Burnham walking behind the two men, one being King George when he visited HM Factory Gretna.

Owens College, Manchester

J C Burnham studied at Owens College in Manchester from 1885 – 89 and graduated in 1888 with a Bachelor of science, in the first class and was elected an Associate of the College in the same year. In 1889 he became an assistant chemist under Kellner at Woolwich, Arsenal and while holding that position also acted for some years as Assistant Chemist to the Special Committee of Explosives, under the Chairmanship of Sir Frederick Abel. In 1894 he proceeded to India, where he was for five years as a chemist in charge of an experimental cordite factory at Kirkke, before he was appointed manager at the Government of India Explosives factory, Nilgiris. His advice was sought by the government on many occasions, and his services were recognised by the award of the C.S.I. In 1915 he was loaned to the Ministry of Munitions and became Director of the Board of Management and Superintendent at HM Factory Gretna, a post which he held until 1921. In the following year he was appointed General Works Manager of British Dyestuffs Corporation, Manchester and retired in 1924.

This is one of the factories which Burnham worked in before being moved to HM Factory Gretna

We’re not sure what Burnham’s role was in the invention of cordite but he did work under Sir Frederick Abel who was one of the people credited as the inventor of cordite. Cordite was the propellant which was made in HM Factory Gretna and that was used in the shells which were made in WW1 and was invented in 1889 by Sir James Dewar and Sir Frederick Augustus Abel and later saw the use as the standard explosive of the British Army.

A look at some of the dangers of working at HM Factory Gretna

By Collections blog

The Devil’s Porridge Museum is primarily focused on sharing the history of HM Factory Gretna, the greatest munitions factory on earth in World War One; it employed 30,000 workers, 12,000 of them women. The Museum is situated near one of the main factory sites (which is still owned by the Ministry of Defence today).

The purpose of the Factory was to produce cordite. One of the main ingredients of cordite is acid and although safety precautions were taken, we know of several accidents that involved contact with acid.

Female workers in the Nitric Acid retorts, the Nitric Acid Store at HM Factory Gretna.

Acid mixing stations at HM Factory Gretna.

Female workers at HM Factory Gretna working in the Acid Mixing Stations – measuring off nitric acid.

We know of the following incidents involving accidents with acid:

In 1917, W G Martin, a charge hand had his “face, head and right arm hurt with acid due to exit valve of pump blowing out.” Because his right eye was destroyed by the accident, he was offered £300 in compensation.

On 4th January, 1918, Jonathan Leah died. He had been injured on September 20th 1917 when he was working on pipes in the Factory. He struck a pipe with a hammer and acid sprayed onto his face. His left eye had to be removed and he died as a result of this injury.

Arthur Gilliam was working on an acid tank when he was overcome by noxious fumes. He died in hospital.

The photograph below shows the Volunteer Rescue Brigade for the Acid Section equipped with protective uniforms and a stretcher. They would have been sent in had there been a major acid leak or incident, fortunately a large scale leak did not occur.

The life and death of Eric de Clermont

By Collections blog

Eastriggs (where The Devil’s Porridge Museum is based) is known as the Commonwealth Village. The majority of its street names are derived from places in the Commonwealth (or Empire) such as Vancouver Road, Delhi Road, Singapore Road etc. The township was built in World War One to house workers at HM Factory Gretna, the greatest munitions factory on earth at that time (the Museum tells the story of this factory and its 30,000 workers). The workers came from around the world and they left their mark behind in their wartime contribution and in the place names of Eastriggs. Here we feature one person from the Factory who worked here in World War One.

Eric de Clermont

Born: 1st November 1880

Died (in Gretna): 5th December 1918

Commonwealth connection: South Africa

Eric’s experiences before World War One

1st November 1880 Eric was born in London.

1899 Eric entered King’s College, Cambridge.

1901 Eric appeared on Census return aged 20, he was listed as a student. At that time, his family were living in Reigate. His father, Otto (48) was listed as a Mechanical Engineer and his sister, Helen (22) as a School Teacher. His cousin, Kenneth Heilgers (19) was also staying with them and he was recorded as an East India merchant on the census.

1902 Eric graduated from King’s College with a BA.

1903 Eric graduated from Camborne School of Mines, Cornwall with a qualification in Ore Dressing for which he was awarded an Honours Grade Second Class.

Some time after 1903 Eric travelled to South Africa to work in mining.

1916 Eric returned to Britain.

Accidents and ill health meant that Eric couldn’t volunteer for the army.

He had been an enthusiastic rugby player, even captaining his team at King’s College Cambridge before an injury.

He lost his eye and contracted miner’s phthisis (a lung disease) whilst he was working in the South African mines.

In 1916, he was nominated for a Commission in a tunnelling company and promised he would be sent quickly to the Front but his injuries and ill health put a stop to that.

Eric’s War work

Eric de Clermont joined the Ministry of Munitions and after his preliminary training at Pitsea near Basildon, he came to HM Factory Gretna in July 1916.

For more information on Pitsea, see: https://www.wattylercountrypark.org.uk/factory

He seems to have been a well known and well liked person as these quotes demonstrate.

“He had a schoolboy’s enthusiasm for everything he undertook, and a schoolboy’s instinct of playing the game.”

“He was full of enthusiasm for his new task, and was one of the first to take over a shift; he soon became a Range Officer, and finally was appointed a Sub-section Officer.”

“He worked his Sub-section up to a pitch of the highest efficiency, and was always devising schemes for increasing output and reducing costs; this he was enabled to do by real hard work, and by the respect and confidence of his subordinates, which he won without difficulty.”

The Death of Eric de Clermont

On November 25th 1918, Eric was taken ill with influenza (the Spanish Flu). He had to be prevented (by force) from going to work at the Factory.

He was said to have been full of high spirits when he entered the influenza hospital.

But after a few days, pneumonia began to develop and he became quieter and finally passed away on December 5th 1918 aged 38.

He was buried at Rigg Cemetery on December 7th 1918.

Eric’s death “…cast a dark shadow over the closing days of the Factory, for with his passing we had lost a man who had gained our affection as colleague and friend. He was an outstanding personality on the Cordite Section, and it is probable that but few of the thousands on the area did not know him, his ingenuous, engaging disposition, and the hundred and one little episodes associated with his name.”

Photograph above: shows Victory Avenue, Gretna which was Eric’s address when he died

“His old tweed jacket; his beatific smile when one of his many little tricks was found out; his intense local patriotism…his garden, which he would weed on a rainy day sitting on a camp-stool under an umbrella – all these, together with the many episodes remembered by those who lived with at Staff-Quarters, Sarkbridge, and at 96 Victory Avenue, remain and endear him to us.”

All quotes from Mossband Farewell magazine (in the Museum’s archive).

To find out more about Eastriggs in World War One a map has been produced: https://www.devilsporridge.org.uk/product/eastriggs-commonwealth-walk-guide

Born in a Munition Workers Hostel in 1919

By Collections blog

A recent visitor to the Museum sent us a photo of their mothers Birth certificate who used to work at the munitions factory at Powfoot during the Second World War. The visitor was researching their family tree when they discovered that one of their mothers three sisters (who her mother never mentioned) also worked in a munitions factory. The visitor’s mother (Margaret or Peggy Sweeney) was born at the end of World War One. Her mother (Bridget Sweeney) worked in one of the hostels for munitions girls in Eastriggs (Newfoundland House). She was a cook as shown in Peggy’s birth certificate (below).

These are photographs of Margaret or Peggy Sweeney as a child and young woman.

The accommodation for the workers at HM Factory Gretna varied as many wooden huts were built to be used as hostels but also a number of brick hostels were made to house more people, these brick hostels lasted for a long time and the majority of them stand today and have been split up into houses after being sold off after the war. The brick hostels had a matron and a cook to make sure that the workers were looked after and fed properly, each hostel was named after a famous figure such as Wellington, Kitchener and Wolfe which were all situated on Victory Avenue in Eastriggs.

The hostels were built very quickly by the Irish Navvies who came to Eastriggs and Gretna to build the Factory site. Even the brick hostels were built very quickly as stated in this account: “I remember when all the navvies were there building….. we were coming on shift one morning and they were starting to build a block and when we came off in the afternoon it was all up, the whole block was built, you know, the hostels, it was all built while we were at work, all built in a day, there were hundreds of men there.” – Mary Ellen Halliday, who started working in the factory in 1916 aged 19.

Hostel being built by navvies

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle visited the Factory and hostels he said this about the way they were laid out “A considerable nucleus of solid brick houses which should be good for a century or more…. radiating out from this centre are long lines of wooden huts to hold the workers, cottages for the married couples, bungalows for groups of girls and hostels which hold as many as seventy in each. This central settlement is where people live – North and South of it is where they work.”

Gretna overhead view WW1

Photos of World War One munitions workers during and after the War

By Collections blog

The Museum was visited recently by a couple who told us about their family’s connections with HM Factory Gretna in World War One. They donated photographs of their family from that time (for our original post about this donation, see: https://www.devilsporridge.org.uk/fascinating-new-hm-factory-gretna-donation

The couple recently made contact with us again to share some photographs of the same people after the War had ended, when they had moved to Beeston in Nottinghamshire.

This photograph shows William and Anne Collins at around the time of their marriage om 1916 (she was a munitions worker at HM Factory Gretna and he was stationed there with the Royal Engineers).

The photograph below shows the same couple in 1973.

This photograph shows Anne when she worked at HM Factory Gretna, she was about 16 years old at the time.

The photograph below shows Anne in 1989 aged 91.

This photograph shows William in World War One. He joined the Royal Engineers in 1914.

The photograph below shows William in 1973. He worked at Wilford Power Station and died in 1981 aged 87 years.

Thanks so much to this couple and to all the people who share their family stories with us.

A plan of the National Filling Factory, Morecambe.

Explosion at World War One Shell Filling Factory

By News

A recent visitor to the Museum sent us this information. She has spent time researching a World War One munitions factory which is local to her: the No13 Filling Factory on White Lund Morecambe.

When she visited, she spoke with Judith, the Museum Manager and told her about the ‘Power House’ near the Filling Factory which was demolished in June this year (despite a local campaign to save it). It is shown, prior to its demolition, in the photograph below.

Our visitor has sent us the photograph above and also the map below. The Power House is in the top left corner close to the entrance, by the railway sidings. Four men won bravery awards (the Edward Medal in Silver) for their bravery in that building 1-3rd October 1917 when there was a large explosion at Morecambe Shell Filling Factory.

Photo copyright King’s Own Regimental Museum. http://www.kingsownmuseum.com/1917-exhibition-025.htm

The Power House was where the steam was generated to run the ‘fireless’ engines. We have an exampled of one such fireless locomotive outside The Devil’s Porridge Museum (see photo below). In this clip, Steve Irwin is talking about the explosion and the important role the fireless engines played in helping save the area from disaster https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02l8dmn

Thanks to this visitor for sharing her research with us and for adding this comment in support of the Museum’s work:

“It’s just a shame that…Morecambe [has] not made the most of their heritage in relation to this site, that is why I am so supportive and in admiration of what you are doing at Eastriggs – very well done!”

Fascinating new HM Factory Gretna donation

By Collections blog

Jake Mitchell, a student at Annan Academy, volunteers at The Devil’s Porridge Museum at the weekend as part of his Duke of Edinburgh award. This weekend, he looked at a recent object donation and wrote this blog for the Museum’s website about it.

This week we were gifted some very interesting objects from a lady whose grandparents both worked at H.M. Factory, Gretna. One of the objects was a Factory Rule Book owned by her Grandfather (his name and address in the Mossband section of the Factory can be seen at the top).

factory rule book

Amongst the general rules is one which states that spitting is banned throughout the Factory! The First Aid rules are quite comprehensive (as might be expected, this was dangerous work!)

Also gifted to the Museum were photographs of the donor’s maternal grandmother and grandfather along with their biographical information.

William Henry Collins was born on 24 September 1894 in Colchester, Essex. He joined the Royal Engineers in 1914 and met Anne Smith in 1916 when he was stationed in Gretna. He married Anne Smith on 7 July 1917 in Southsea. They had 4 girls in Colchester during their marriage. They moved to Beeston, Nottingham where he worked at Wilford Power Station. He died on 26 October 1981 in City Hospital, Nottingham at the age of 87.

Anne Smith was born on 21 December 1898 in Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire. Her mother died in 1909 and she went to live with her father’s parents in Buckie. She met William Collins in Gretna where she was working at the munitions factory. She married William Henry Collins on 7 July 1917. They had four children during their marriage, moving from Colchester to Beeston where she lived until she died on 4 January 1997 at the age of 98.

We are so grateful for this generous donation which helps us to understand more about what happened here in World War One.