Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

Registered UK Charity (No. 115342)

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 166,967 pages of information and 246,678 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Ordnance Factories

From Graces Guide

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.


See Also

Loading...

Sources of Information

  1. BAe Heritage [1]
  2. Hansard 5 August 1942 [2]