Faversham explosives industry - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Faversham explosives industry: Faversham

Faversham

Faversham is a market town and civil parish in the Swale borough of Kent, England. The parish of Faversham grew up around an ancient sea port on Faversham Creek and was the birthplace of the explosives industry in England.-History:...

, in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, England, has claims to be the cradle of the UK's explosives industry: it was also to become one of its main centres. The first gunpowder

Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

plant in the UK was established in the 16th century, possibly at the instigation of Faversham Abbey

Faversham Abbey

Faversham Abbey was a Cluny style monastery immediately to the north-east of the town of Faversham in the county of Kent in England.It was founded by King Stephen and his queen Matilda of Boulogne in 1148. A party of monks from Bermondsey Abbey provided the nucleus and the first abbot.The Abbey was...

. With their estates and endowments

Financial endowment

A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....

monasteries were keen to invest in promising technology.

The Faversham was well-placed for the industry. It had a stream which could be dammed at intervals to provide power for watermill

Watermill

A watermill is a structure that uses a water wheel or turbine to drive a mechanical process such as flour, lumber or textile production, or metal shaping .- History :...

s. On its outskirts were low-lying areas ideal for the culture of alder

Alder

Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...

and willow

Willow

Willows, sallows, and osiers form the genus Salix, around 400 species of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere...

to provide charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

— one of the three key gunpowder ingredients. The stream fed into a tidal Creek where sulphur

Sulfur

Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...

, another key ingredient, could be imported, and the finished product loaded for dispatch to Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

-side magazines. The port was also near the Continent where in warfare demand for gunpowder was brisk.

The first gunpowder factories

The first factories were small, near the town, and alongside the stream, between the London to Dover

Dover

Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...

road (now the A2 road

A2 road (Great Britain)

The A2 is a major road in southern England, connecting London with the English Channel port of Dover in Kent. This route has always been of importance as a connection between the British capital of London and sea trade routes to Continental Europe...

) and the head of the creek. By the early 18th century these had coalesced into a single plant, later to be known as the Home Works, as it was the town’s first.

At this time the British government was buying its supplies from the private sector; but the quality was often poor, and in 1759 it decided it needed its own plant. Rather than build a new one, it nationalised the Home Works, upgrading all the machinery. From this phase dates the Chart Gunpowder Mill, the oldest of its kind in the world . This was rescued from the jaws of the bulldozer, and then restored, by the Faversham Society in 1966. (It is now open to the public on weekend and bank holiday afternoons from April till the end of October.)

Nearby is Stonebridge Pond, today a picturesque beauty spot at the head of the creek. It served to power some of the works’ watermills, slender remains of which survive. It still features a network of narrow-gauge canals along which powder was punted from process to process.

Expansion

In the 1680s a second factory was started by Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

asylum-seekers alongside another stream about 2 km west of the town . This had its own access to the sea via Oare

Oare Marshes

The Oare Marshes on the north coast of Kent to the north west of Faversham bordering The Swale. They include an internationally important nature reserve known especially as a site for migratory birds.-Location:...

Creek and so became known as the Oare Works, though it was wholly in the parish of Davington

Davington

Davington is a suburb of Faversham in Kent, England.The population of Davington parish is approaching 6,000. Davington Priory is a local government ward within the Faversham Town Council and Swale Borough Council areas...

. It became a leading supplier to the East India Company

British East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

and it could be argued that without its product English would not have become the lingua franca of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Gunpowder from Faversham was not just used in warfare. It played a key part in the Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, by enabling routes to be blasted for canals and railways.

The third and last gunpowder factory to open was the Marsh Works , built by the British government 1 km northwest of the town to augment output at its Home Works and opened in 1787. This also had access to the sea via Oare Creek.

Closure

All three gunpowder factories shut in 1934. ICI

Imperial Chemical Industries

Imperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...

, then the owners, sensed that war might break out with Germany, and realised that Faversham would then become vulnerable to air attacks or possibly invasion. They transferred production, together with key staff and machinery, to Ardeer

Ardeer, Scotland

Ardeer lies at the head of the Ardeer peninsula, now part of Stevenston, North Ayrshire, and was a dominant global supplier of explosives to the mining and quarrying industries and a major player in the design and development of products for the chemical and defence industries during the 20th...

in Ayrshire

Ayrshire

Ayrshire is a registration county, and former administrative county in south-west Scotland, United Kingdom, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine. The town of Troon on the coast has hosted the British Open Golf Championship twice in the...

, Scotland.

The sites today

The Marsh Works then became a site for mineral extraction, as it remains today, and almost all its buildings were destroyed. Except for Chart Mill, Stonebridge Pond, and a few other buildings, most of the Home Works site was redeveloped for housing in the 1960s.

The Oare Works is now an attractive country park, open to the public free of charge all year round. Remains of process houses have been carefully conserved. From an informative visitor centre, signed trails radiate in various directions. An early 20th century electric-powered gunpowder mill which was transferred to Ardeer in 1934 has been repatriated and is on display. The 18th-century works bell has also been repatriated and is on display at Faversham's Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre.

With their streams, watermills and forest trees planted to minimise blast damage in the event of an accident, all traditional gunpowder factories were places of beauty, even during their working lives, and this one is no exception.

Guncotton

Gunpowder is a low explosive, best used as a propellant. Guncotton, the first high explosive, more useful for its destructive powers, was invented by Dr Christian Schonbein, of the University of Basel

University of Basel

The University of Basel is located in Basel, Switzerland, and is considered to be one of leading universities in the country...

, in 1846. Under licence from him it was first manufactured at Faversham’s Marsh Works in 1847. The manufacturing process was not yet fully understood. On 14 July 1847 a serious explosion killed 18 staff, only 10 of whose bodies could be identified. Due to this, the factory owners shut the plant.

Guncotton was not made again in Faversham till 1873, when the Cotton Powder Company, independent of the gunpowder factories, opened a factory on a remote new site. Near Uplees

Uplees

Uplees is a hamlet north of Faversham in southeast England. It was a key part of the Faversham explosives industry during World War I, with the Cotton Powder Company importing raw materials via the deepwater channel of the Swale, and the associated Explosives Loading Company exporting completed...

, about 4 km northwest of the town centre but still within the parish, this was alongside the Swale

Swale

Swale is a local government district with borough status in Kent, England. Its council is based in Sittingbourne. The borough is named after the narrow channel called The Swale, a channel that separates the mainland of Kent from the Isle of Sheppey, and which occupies the central part of the...

, the deep-water channel that divides mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey

Isle of Sheppey

The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England in the Thames Estuary, some to the east of London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale...

. Deliveries of raw materials — cotton waste and sulphuric and nitric acids — could readily be made, and the product readily dispatched by water.

With a buoyant market the factory rapidly expanded, producing also each new high explosive as it was formulated. Adjoining it on the west in 1913 an associate venture, the Explosives Loading Company, built a plant to fill bombs and shells

Shell (projectile)

A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...

. Both plants were high-tech state-of-the-art, with a power station, hydraulic mains, and internal telephone and tramway systems. Together they occupied an area of 500 acres (2 km²) — almost as large as that of the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

World War I

When the First World War started in 1914, the two factories were requisitioned by the Admiralty

Admiralty

The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

and armed guards were mounted. Production facilities were further expanded and many new staff recruited from Faversham and elsewhere in East Kent. Road access for the workers was poor, so the Admiralty built a metre-gauge railway, the Davington Light Railway

Davington Light Railway

The Davington Light Railway was a narrow gauge railway built to serve the armaments factories near Davington, in Kent, England. It ran between Davington and Uplees.-History:...

, to transport them from a terminus at Davington

Davington

, near the Home Works, to Uplees

Uplees

.

On Sunday 2 April 1916, a store of TNT and ammonium nitrate (used to "stretch" the TNT) exploded. More than 100 staff were killed in this explosion and in other sympathetic ones that followed. It was a Sunday, so no women were at work. Fuller details of this great explosion, the worst in the history of the British explosives industry.

The owners of both Swale

Swale

-side factories had foreseen that they would become superfluous at the end of the First World War, and they closed promptly and permanently in 1919. The Davington light railway track was lifted, and its three steam locomotives found new homes in South America, where at least one is thought to survive.

The Great Explosion at Faversham

At 14:20 on Sunday 2 April 1916, a huge explosion ripped through the gunpowder mill at Uplees, near Faversham, when 200 tons of TNT ignited. 105 people died in the explosion, and many were buried in a mass grave at Faversham Cemetery.

The weather might have contributed to the origins of the fire that followed on the morning of Sunday 2 April 1916. The previous month had been wet but had ended with a short dry spell so that by that Sunday the weather was "glorious" ... but provided perfect conditions for heat-generated combustion.

The munitions factory was in a remote spot in the middle of the open marshes of North Kent, next to the Thames coastline, which explains why the great explosion at about noon on 2 April was heard across the Thames estuary as far away as Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

, Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth

Great Yarmouth, often known to locals as Yarmouth, is a coastal town in Norfolk, England. It is at the mouth of the River Yare, east of Norwich.It has been a seaside resort since 1760, and is the gateway from the Norfolk Broads to the sea...

and Southend-on-Sea

Southend-on-Sea

Southend-on-Sea is a unitary authority area, town, and seaside resort in Essex, England. The district has Borough status, and comprises the towns of Chalkwell, Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea, North Shoebury, Prittlewell, Shoeburyness, Southchurch, Thorpe Bay, and Westcliff-on-Sea. The district is situated...

, where domestic windows were blown out and two large plate-glass shop windows shattered.

The East Kent Gazette of Sittingbourne

Sittingbourne

Sittingbourne is an industrial town about eight miles east of Gillingham in England, beside the Roman Watling Street off a creek in the Swale, a channel separating the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent...

reported the explosion on 29 April. Although recognising the need for some censorship, it referred to the reply given in Parliament to the question as "mystifying and ambiguous" and called for the fullest precautions to be implemented to "prevent another calamity of the kind" occurring again.

Although not the first such disaster of this kind to have happened at Faversham’s historic munitions works, the April 1916 blast is recorded as "the worst ever in the history of the UK explosives industry", and yet the full picture is still somewhat confused. The reason for the fire is uncertain. And considering the quantity of explosive chemical stored at the works — with one report indicating that a further 3,000 tons remained in nearby sheds unaffected — it is remarkable, and a tribute to those who struggled against the fire that so much of the nation's munitions were prevented from contributing further to the catastrophe.

The Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener, had in 1914 written to the management of the CPC, and it is presumed the ELC, instructing the workforce on "the importance of the government work upon which they (were) engaged". "I should like all engaged by your company to know that it is fully recognised that they, in carrying out the great work of supplying munitions of war, are doing their duty for their King and Country, equally with those who have joined the Army for active service in the field", Kitchener said.

The Abbey works

This was not quite the end of high explosives manufacture in Faversham, however. In 1924 a new venture, the Mining Explosives Company, opened a factory on the east side of Faversham Creek, not far from the site of Faversham Abbey — hence its Abbey Works name.

Its Mexico telegraphic address led to it being known as The Mexico by local people. After a fatal accident in 1939 the proprietors decided to abandon the manufacture of high explosives and instead make an explosive-substitute based on a large reusable steel cartridge filled with carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

. The premises still needed to be licensed under the 1875 Explosives Act, as gunpowder was used in the detonator.

Under the name Long Airdox, production continues today. Unusually, the company is owned by its main customers. Its appearance is still that of a traditional high explosive factories, with no big buildings but many small ones widely spaced for safety. It boasts one of the UK's few surviving manumotive railways.

External links

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