Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey

The process now coming into general use for gun-cotton manufacture is tin. result of important improvements devised by Messrs J. M. and W. T. Thomsen of the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey (British Patent, 8,278, 190.3 D.R. Patent, 172,499, 1904). The following description is taken largely from tint paper by Colonel Sir F. L. Nathan in the Journal oj the Society of Chemical Industry, 27th February 1909. To the Council of the Society and to Sir Frederic Nathan my best thanks are due for their kind permission to use the accompanying illustrations. 

MacNab points out the need for extensive chemical engineering knowledge to enable this process to be effected since there is much associated equipment in the way of pipes, pumps, and valves to control correctly the corrosive liquids. At this time Sir Frederic L. Nathan had been Superintendent at the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey for five years. He was the first of the scientific superintendents and was destined later to participate in the formation of the British Institution of Chemical Engineers. 

Dr Will s apparatus has been modified by Dr Robertson, [A] of the Royal Gunpowder Factory, Waltham Abbey. The form of the apparatus used by him is shown in Fig. 51. 

Figure 6. Royal Gunpowder Factory Waltham Abbey, Essex, examples of excavated earthenware taps and pipes used in the acid factory. Before the development of acid resistant metals, the chemical industry was reliant on suppliers of specialist earthenwares (BB94/7995). Crown copyright.NMR...

Public Record Office (Kew) (afterwards, PRO), MUN7/555, Reduction in Output at Royal Gunpowder Factory Waltham Abbey and Question of Future of Factory , 1918-1919. 

Frederick Abel, the chemist of English War Dept, started experiments and manuf on a small scale of GC in the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey and succeeded in obtaining by 1865 more stable product than that of von Lenk (Ref 11, p 40) (See also below under 1865)... 

In Britain, the manufacture of cordite had commenced in 1889 in the royal gunpowder factory at Waltham Abbey. The acetone, which was critical to the process, was made from the distillate collected from wood that was heated to a high temperature. The best wood for this purpose came from the forests of continental Europe, and it was therefore unavailable to the British after the start of World War i. But in 1915 a chance meeting solved this problem. C.P. Scott of The Manchester Guardian introduced David Lloyd George, the Minister of Munitions, to one Chaim Weizmann. 

The process of manufacture now about to be described is the outcome of a long series of improvements which have been made at intervals upon the methods originally adopted by Alfred Nobel, the pioneer in the commercial production of this substance. The nitrator-separator in its present form was first used at Waltham Abbey in the Royal Gunpowder Factory, and is the subject of the British Patent 15,983 of 1901, taken out by Colonel Sir Frederic L. Nathan, R.A., Mr J. M. Thomson, F.I.C., and Mr Wm. Rintoul, F.I.C. 

In 1890 Sir Frederick AbeFs committee recommended using cordite for the British Services in place of gunpowder as a propellant and in 1891 its production began at the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey —this was a somewhat more rapid development than could be hoped for today. 

Cordite, the smokeless powder adopted by the British Government, is the patent of the late Sir F.A. Abel and Sir James Dewar, and is somewhat similar to blasting gelatine. It is chiefly manufactured at the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey, but also at two or three private factories, including those of the National Explosives Company Limited, the New Explosives Company Limited, the Cotton-Powder Company Limited, Messrs Kynock s, c. As first manufactured it consisted of gun-cotton 37 per cent., nitro-glycerine 58 per cent., and vaseline 5 per cent., but the modified cordite now made consists of 65 per cent, gun-cotton, 30 per cent, of nitro-glycerine, and 5 per cent, of vaseline. The gun-cotton used is composed chiefly of the... 

Before the war, the yearly demand for cordite stood at around 3600 tons (3657.6 tonnes) the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey supplied about one third, and seven trade factories the remainder, most of that went to the Royal Navy. Cordite factories were some of the largest and most complex explosives factories. They required large areas of flat land, a reliable water supply, good transport links, a large workforce, and plant to concentrate sulphuric acid and to manufacture nitric... 

Foreman, Smart. Nitro-glycerine Washing House, South Site, Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Factory, Essex , Industrial Archaeology Review, XXlll (2), (2001), 125-142. 

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