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Munitionette
Munitionettes were British women employed in munitions factories during the time of the First World War. History Early in the war, the United Kingdom's munitions industry found itself having difficulty producing the amount of weapons and ammunition needed by the country's armed forces. In response to the crisis, known as the Shell Crisis of 1915, the British government passed the Munitions of War Act 1915 to increase government oversight and regulation of the industry. The newly created Ministry of Munitions regulated wages, hours and employment conditions in munitions factories. It also forced the factories to admit more women as employees, because so many of the nation's men were engaged in fighting in the war and male labour was in short supply. Historian Angela Woollacott has estimated that approximately one million women were working in munitions industries by mid 1918. She suggests that a greater number of women worked in munitions than in the Voluntary Aid Detachment, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gretna Girls
The Gretna Girls was a collective nickname given to women munition workers at HM Factory Gretna in World War One. Women came from all over the United Kingdom to work at the factory, but many were drawn from the surrounding areas of Scotland and Northern England. Working in munitions The Gretna Girls were a small part of the one million women who worked in munitions during World War One. The makeup of The Gretna Girls reflected the countrywide trends for munitions workers: the majority were working class young women. However, as Chris Brader points out, unusually for Government factories, munition workers at Gretna came from an even younger demographic—a large proportion was under eighteen years of age. There were no creche facilities at Gretna, unlike other munition factories. The highest number of women employed at the factory was 11,576 in 1917, but this figure dropped to 6,285 by October 1918. Impact on the local area The influx of workers to the factory led to the bui ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Munitions Of War Act 1915
The Munitions of War Act 1915 was a British Act of Parliament passed on 2 July 1915 during the First World War. It was designed to maximize munitions output and brought private companies supplying the armed forces under the tight control of the newly created Ministry of Munitions, under David Lloyd George. The policy, according to J. A. R. Marriott, was that: : No private interest was to be permitted to obstruct the service, or imperil the safety, of the State. Trade Union regulations must be suspended; employers' profits must be limited, skilled men must fight, if not in the trenches, in the factories; man-power must be economized by the dilution of labour and the employment of women; private factories must pass under the control of the State, and new national factories be set up. Results justified the new policy: the output was prodigious; the goods were at last delivered. The law imposed very strong regulations on wages, hours and employment conditions. It was a penal offence fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shell Crisis Of 1915
The Shell Crisis of 1915 was a shortage of artillery shells on the front lines in the First World War that led to a political crisis in the United Kingdom. Previous military experience led to an over-reliance on shrapnel to attack infantry in the open, which was negated by the resort to trench warfare, for which high-explosive shells were better suited. At the start of the war there was a revolution in doctrine: instead of the idea that artillery was a useful support for infantry attacks, the new doctrine held that heavy guns alone would control the battlefield. Because of the stable lines on the Western Front, it was easy to build railway lines that delivered all the shells the factories could produce. The 'shell scandal' emerged in 1915 because the high rate of fire over a long period was not anticipated and the stock of shells became depleted. The inciting incident was the disastrous Battle of Aubers, which reportedly had been stymied by a lack of shells. The shortage was wid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell
The National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell, was a World War I United Kingdom Government-owned explosives Filling Factory. Its formal title was National Filling Factory No. 6. It was located near Chilwell, at that time a village, in Nottinghamshire on the main road from Nottingham to Ashby de la Zouch. During the Great War it filled some 19 million shells with high explosives. Foundation of the Shell Filling Factory The factory was created as a result of the Shell Crisis of 1915. At the beginning of World War I shells were filled with Lyddite, but this needed imported raw materials, and so trinitrotoluene (TNT) was adopted. TNT was expensive to make and was in short supply, so Amatol, a mixture of various proportions of TNT and Ammonium nitrate, was adopted instead. On 20 August 1915 Godfrey Chetwynd, 8th Viscount Chetwynd, was given the task of designing, building and superintending the running of a factory to fill large-calibre shells with Amatol. He requisitioned the servic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rebecca West
Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books for ''The Times'', the '' New York Herald Tribune'', ''The Sunday Telegraph'' and ''The New Republic'', and she was a correspondent for '' The Bookman''. Her major works include '' Black Lamb and Grey Falcon'' (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; ''A Train of Powder'' (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in ''The New Yorker''; ''The Meaning of Treason'' (first published as a magazine article in 1945 and then expanded to the book in 1947), later ''The New Meaning of Treason'' (1964), a study of the trial of the British fascist William Joyce and others; ''The Return of the Soldier'' (1918), a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, ''The Fountain Overflows' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trinitrotoluene
Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagent in chemical synthesis, but it is best known as an explosive material with convenient handling properties. The explosive yield of TNT is considered to be the standard comparative convention of bombs and asteroid impacts. In chemistry, TNT is used to generate charge transfer salts. History TNT was first prepared in 1863 by German chemist Julius Wilbrand and originally used as a yellow dye. Its potential as an explosive was not recognized for three decades, mainly because it was too difficult to detonate because it was less sensitive than alternatives. Its explosive properties were first discovered in 1891 by another German chemist, Carl Häussermann. TNT can be safely poured when liquid into shell cases, and is so insensitive that i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nitric Acid
Nitric acid is the inorganic compound with the formula . It is a highly corrosive mineral acid. The compound is colorless, but older samples tend to be yellow cast due to decomposition into oxides of nitrogen. Most commercially available nitric acid has a concentration of 68% in water. When the solution contains more than 86% , it is referred to as ''fuming nitric acid''. Depending on the amount of nitrogen dioxide present, fuming nitric acid is further characterized as red fuming nitric acid at concentrations above 86%, or white fuming nitric acid at concentrations above 95%. Nitric acid is the primary reagent used for nitration – the addition of a nitro group, typically to an organic molecule. While some resulting nitro compounds are shock- and thermally-sensitive explosives, a few are stable enough to be used in munitions and demolition, while others are still more stable and used as pigments in inks and dyes. Nitric acid is also commonly used as a strong oxidizing agen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silvertown Explosion
The Silvertown explosion occurred in Silvertown in West Ham, Essex (now part of the London Borough of Newham, in Greater London) on Friday, 19 January 1917 at 6:52 pm. The blast occurred at a munitions factory that was manufacturing explosives for Britain's First World War military effort. Approximately of trinitrotoluene (TNT) exploded, killing 73 people and injuring 400 more, as well as causing substantial damage in the local area. This was not the first, last, largest, or the most deadly explosion at a munitions facility in Britain during the war; an explosion at Faversham involving of TNT killed 105 in 1916, and the National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell, exploded in 1918, killing 137. Operations The factory was built in 1893 on the south side (River Thames side) of North Woolwich Road (now the A1020, nearly opposite Mill Road) by Brunner Mond, a forerunner of Imperial Chemical Industries, to produce soda crystals and caustic soda. Production of caustic soda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Explosives
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An explosive charge is a measured quantity of explosive material, which may either be composed solely of one ingredient or be a mixture containing at least two substances. The potential energy stored in an explosive material may, for example, be * chemical energy, such as nitroglycerin or grain dust * pressurized gas, such as a gas cylinder, aerosol can, or BLEVE * nuclear energy, such as in the fissile isotopes uranium-235 and plutonium-239 Explosive materials may be categorized by the speed at which they expand. Materials that detonate (the front of the chemical reaction moves faster through the material than the speed of sound) are said to be "high explosives" and materials that deflagrate are said to be "low explosives". Explosives may al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
