The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-23 00:00:00

THE LANCASTER SEUL FACTORY AT

WOOLWICH.

To any person who would wish to form some approxi-
mate idea of the nature and extent of the preparations
and warlike stores required for carrying on the present
war, we would recommend a visit to the yards, work-
shops, and arsenals of Woolwich. This is the special
department of the Ordnance, and here "bolts," far inure

Eormidable than those of Jove himself, are forged by the
thousands of grimy Vulcans, who sweat at the furnaces
or toil at the myriad lathes which are in operation. Each
subdivision of the enormous works here carried on, and
each pile of warlike stores may be measured by acres.
Here are acres of ground covered by more than thirty
thousand cannon of all bores and sizes ; acres of ammu-
nition waggons, gun carriages, light carts, waggons, and
ambulances; acres traverse" in every direction by power-
ful cranes, where timber is deposited ; acres of shot and
shell in symmetrical piles, and acres of machinery of
all descriptions. There are lathes for boring and
turning the lightest brass field-pieces and the heaviest
armament for a ship's broadside ; there are machines, by
scores, which grasp long coils of lead, pinch off an ex-
actly measured piece, squeeze it into shape, and deliver,
each minute, from 60 to 100 finished Minie bullets.
Here are machines which, at a single blow, divide a
sheet of copper into the forms required for making the
percussion-caps, others which fold them into shape, and
others which prepare them for finally receiving the de-
tonating powder. In the carpenters' shops there are
sawing, planing, mortising, drilling, and boring ma-
chines, which threaten soon to render the trade of the
carpenter a matter of history, and to make manual la-
bour as much a thing of the past as the old " fa,u-
connet " of the middle ages, or the battering-ram of
the ancients. But the glowing furnaces, the forges,
the steam hammers, and those huge, passionless, resist.
less lathes, which cut you off a shaving of metal, and
the drills which force their steel finger through an inch
plate of cold iron with as much ease and unconcern as
though they were dealing with a lump of butter or
cutting a sheet of paper, are the things most cal-
culated to impress the mind of the visitor, and they pro-
duce in him a feeling of something like awe and profound
admiration for human genius, which thus shows itself
able to conquer and subdue nature to its own purposes ;
though that feeling is certainly saddened by the reflec-
tion that all this power and all this genius is expended
in order to provide the nation with the means of devas-
tating, destroying, and laying waste the lives and pro-
perty of our fellow-men.
The latest addition to the many extraordinary opera-
tions carried on at Woolwich is that for the manufacture
of shells for the Lancaster guns, and it is perhaps the
most marvellous instance which the age can furnish of
the successful application of well-directed energy to the
accomplishment of a great purpose. At the latter end
of the month of November, at a time of unusual incle-
mency, the Government decided that a large quantity
of shells for the Lancaster guns should be sent with the
Baltic fleet ; but there was then no machinery in exist-
ence to make them; and no building in which to put
up the machinery when constructed. In this dilemma
the Board of Ordnance sent for Sir Charles Fox, of
the firm of Fox, Henderson, and Co., the great contrac-
tors, and told him what they required, and how urgent
and pressing were the wants. There were no plans of
the building ready, and the only thing decided upon was,
that the building and machinery should cover about
3,000 square yards. The next door the indefatigable
engineer, to the astonishment of the board, who did not
expect to see him again for a week at least, presented
himself with the whole of the working drawings, the de•
tails of the estimates worked nut, and a tender for the
completion of the building within three months. The
fleet was sail for the Baltic in March, and three months
would not, it was thought, afford sufficient time to have
the shells ready. It was necessary to have the building
completed in less time, and the contractor, with an in-
telligent disregard of time, undertook to have everything
ready within one month. Amid rain and storm, frost and
snow, the work rapidly progressed, and, within one month
front the time of commencing operations, the building was
completed and handed over to the authorities. The build-
ing covers 3,000 square yards, the walls are 25 feet in
height, and 16 inches in thickness. It is covered by a
segmental roof of corrugated iron, supported in the centre
by a row of iron columns and girders. But in addition
to the main building, a lathe-house adjoining, and a
chimney some 100 feet in height, were erected, and foun-
dations laid for the furnaces, steam hammers, and heavy
machinery. In the course of some remarks which were
made with respect to this building in the House of Com-
mons, a short time since, it was stated that modificetions
of his plans were prepared by the Royal Engineers, but
that Sir C. Fox refused to permit any interference with
his own designs, stating that if he was to construct the
building in the required time he must remain perfectly
unfettered by any Government control. So startling and
revolutionary an announcement threw the Board of Ord-
nance and the Royal Engineers into a state of no small
alarm. The Board of Ordnance ultimately claimed as a
sine qua non for dispensing with the usual official inspec-
tor, that the contractor should himself guarantee that
the structure would stand for 12 month+ at least after its
erection. The wounded pride of the corps of Royal Engi-
neers was satisfied, they felt confident that the building
would fall in less than six months, and wondered at the
rashness of a man who would guarantee, under heavy
penalties, that it should last twice as 'wig as the period
predicted for its fall. A few days since the period of
trial had elapsed, the six months had passed away, but
the shell factory still remains, a monument to the genius
and enterprise of the contractors. But as a striking
illustration of the mode in which public business is
transacted at the Ordnance, it may be stated that the
written order to erect the building was only delivered to
the contractors on the day before the whole of the work
was finished, and the factory banded over to the posses-
sion of the authorities. The whole of the correspon-
dence between the Board of Ordnance and Sir C. Fox
on the subject was yesterday laid before Parliament, and
the series forms not the least interesting or instructive
of the many documents which appeared, and which tend
to throw light on the management of public depart
ments and the conduct of operations connected with the
war. The correspondence cioses with a report presented
to the Board of Ordnance by Mr. Anderson, the inspec-
tor of machinery at Woolwich, which states, "Several
of tiee leading engineers of the country have expressed to
me their admiration of the structure, and look upon it as
a marvel in having been constructed in such a short
space of time." Mr. Anderson also states that ordinarily
it would have taken eight or nine months to complete
the building.
For a long time past the application of engineering
science to the implements of warfare has been greatly
neglected, and until the commencement of the present
war appeared to be exceedingly unpopular. We remem-
ber that, prior to the opening of the Exhibition, Mr.
Cobden, supported by one or two members of the
Commission, proposed and nearly carried a resolu-
tion for excluding all implements of war from that
great national undertaking. Notwithstanding, how-
ever, the pacific ideas of the commissioners, some
implements of warfare were admitted to that great
" Peace Congress," and one of the least noticed and
most pretentious articles there shown was, perhaps, that
model sent by a working man of an infernal machine
which would discharge 1,000 bullets per minute. The
progress of the present war, however, has shown how
culpable was such an oversight, and with what serious
results this neglect to apply the best principles of engi-
neering science to war has been attended. There is no
use in concealing the fact that it is to the Russians we
owe the knowledge that guns of a larger calibre than
those in ordinary use in our army could be adapted for
field purposes. At the Alma and at Inkerman our nine
and 12-pounder guns were opposed by 32-pounders, and
ae, present we have but a very small proportion of 32-
pounders in our service. Steps are, however, being taken
to increase in this respect the power of our artillery. In
our naval armaments the same deficiency in the weight
of metal does not exist, and a broadside from one of our
largest ships would throw nearly two tons weight of shoe.
The difference in this respect between the marine and field
artillery is most surprising, and highly creditable to the
naval authorities. It is little more than 20 years since
General Paixhan's heavy guns were first introduced into
the navy, and now many of our larger vessels are fitted
with complete batteries of 68-pounders. For siege
batteries, however, no corresponding increase of size has
taken place till within a very recent period. The adop-
tion of Mr. Lancaster's guns was the first attempt made
to introduce heavier metal into the land service, and, al-
though the result does not appear completely to satisfy
the sanguine expectations conceived of them, there is no
doubt that ultimately much greater power and precision
will be attained in siege batteries from their use than
the
Wo
uphriascetern
i ee
tojustify u
before
sinexpecting
Sebastopol t]p
to. the present time
It is curious that whi'e in the present day, our heavi-
esta guns are only rated
GS pounders, from the very
earliest rate of the introdsuction of artillery, shot of a
tmhythignrtehateetritae ofweight E wasaor
dr di nt,i,raitlyt
he
em pclaopyteudr.e W
•fe read
Stir-
ling Castle, his guns projected stones of 300Ibs. weight.
In the I.7th century a b
which threw iron shot everiashs* gun was cast in India,
gun, which still exists at Bofgejatioagtor,
1,6001 b. This monster
place
cast in comma-
1-2)oace by the Emperor
moration of the capture
to they ejlearcie this monster
A country,lun-ge e rw.
we
I shallt woul
d t
harow paper,in
that in this
gun, for Mr. Nasmyth promises to give us a wroughtgun, or the " express
iron gun which shall throw a ball of a ton weight some
called by the army in
four or five miles with unerring accuracy. While
we
wmaie
the realisation of this sanguine hope, we must be content
gains,"eei with hearesults
shells
the r
e Lancaster
pleasantly
the Crimea, in consequence of the peculiar sound which
it makes in passing through the air.
The Lancaster gun was constructed for the purpose
of carrying a
heavy shell to the greatest possible distance,
the shell and with the greatest amount of precision. In order to
obtain this result, the form selected foret is simi-
lar to that of the regulation Minii musbullet, with
the the exception that the body of the shell is slightly
Bink
ellip-
tical, the major axis measuring in. and minor
The increased range is obtained mainly by
weight of metal which can be projected with
same amount of resistance to the atmosphere as that
*thhegreater
only the
presented by a spherical ball of much lees weight.
The rifling of a gun-barrel, as most persons are aware,
consists of circular grooves twining round the interior of
the barrel, the object of which is to impart to the bullet
a rotatory motion on its own axis, and thereby to insure
accuracy of flight. A favourite form of rifle is that
called the two.groove rifle, a kind which was better fitted
than any
other to illustrate the principle by which rota-
tion is imparted to the Lancaster shell. In this rifle,
as its name implies, there are two grooves directly oppo-
site to each other. The conical bullets used with the
two-groove rifle bave
which fit into the groovesrr)oetchtng ribs on either side,
ei
bullet, having
ingWthoenfotlhloew dig-
charge takes place, the
grooves in their half spiral, acquires the necessary rota-
tory motion. If lead shots were employed in great guns
there is no doubt this mode of rifling
would answer as