Ordnance Factories
1889 The grouping of the various ordnance factories was renamed Royal Ordnance Factories
1934 to 1939 Many new Royal Ordnance Factories were built to enhance the capacity of the Royal Arsenal, Royal Gunpowder Factory and the Royal Small Arms Factory which, being close to London, were susceptible to being bombed[1].
1936 The factories were transferred to the Director General of Munitions Production.
1939 responsibility for the Ordnance Factories was transferred to the Ministry of Supply. There, at first, it was a directorate under the director-general of munitions production. Later it became itself a directorate general under the controller general of munitions production.
1942 There were 42 Royal Ordnance factories at this time, of which 24 were engineering, 8 made explosives, and 10 were engaged in filling ordnance (these numbers seem to have been confused by the MP reporting these statistics). The factories employed 300,000 people and were responsible for producing two-thirds of guns made in the UK and a similar proportion of the ammunition[2].
Post-War: many of the factories were closed, although some were reopened for the Korean war.