Royal Arsenal - World War II

World War II

The build-up to World War II started in the late 1930s / early 1940s. Abel's old Chemical Laboratory was by now too small and new Chemical Laboratories were built in 1937 on Frog Island, on a former loop in the Ordnance Canal.

Staff from the Royal Arsenal helped design, and in some cases managed the construction of, many of the new second World War Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) and ROF Filling Factories. Much of its former ordnance production was moved to these new sites as the Royal Arsenal was considered vulnerable to aerial bombing from mainland Europe. The original plan was to replace the Royal Arsenal's Filling Factory with one at ROF Chorley and one at ROF Bridgend. It was then realised that many more ROFs would be needed. Just over 40 ROFs were opened by the end of World War II, nearly half of them Filling Factories, together with a similar number of factories built and run by private companies, such as ICI's Nobels Explosives (although these explosive factories were not called ROFs). Even so, some 30,000 people worked at the Royal Arsenal during World War II.

The Royal Arsenal was caught up in The Blitz; the staff of the Chemical Inspectorate, working with explosives, were evacuated in early September 1940. Shortly afterwards one of the Frog Island buildings was destroyed by bombing and another damaged. The laboratories were partially re-occupied in 1945 and fully re-occupied by 1949. Masters (1995) reports 103 people killed and 770 injured, during many raids, by bombs, V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets.

During the quiet period after the end of World War II, the Royal Arsenal built railway wagons for export. Armament production then increased during the Korean War.

From 1947 the British atomic weapons programme, called HER or High Explosive Research, was based at Fort Halstead in Kent (ARDE), and also at Woolwich. The first British atomic device was tested in 1952; Operation Hurricane. In 1951 the AWRE moved to AWRE Aldermaston in Berkshire.