New Ministry of Munitions
The Munitions of War Act 1915 prevented the resignation of munitions workers without their employer's consent. It was a recognition that the whole economy would have to be geared for war if the Allies were to prevail on the Western Front. Supplies and factories in British Commonwealth countries, particularly Canada, were reorganised under the Imperial Munitions Board, in order to supply adequate shells and other materiels for the remainder of the war. The Health of Munitions Workers Committee, one of the first investigations into occupational safety and health, was set up in 1916 to improve productivity in factories.
A huge munitions factory, HM Factory, Gretna was built on the English-Scottish border to produce Cordite.
An idle part of a factory in Silvertown was pressed into service to manufacture TNT; this exploded in January 1917, killing 73 and injuring 400 in what is known as the Silvertown explosion.
Read more about this topic: Shell Crisis Of 1915
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“The State has but one face for me: that of the police. To my eyes, all of the State’s ministries have this single face, and I cannot imagine the ministry of culture other than as the police of culture, with its prefect and commissioners.”
—Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985)
“Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them.”
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