The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-03 00:00:00

TUE .NEW SMALL-ARMS FACTORY AT

ENFIELD.

The manufacture of small-arms, recently established by
she Government at Enfield-lock, by means never before

used in this country, and in no other except the United
States, and to a limited extent in Russia, has begun to
assume a character of considerable interest, regarded not
so much in its bearing on the long-pending quarrel between
the Government and the gunmakars at Birmingham in re-
ference to the supply of a military weapon of prime necas-
city, as affording the daily exhibition on a large scale of
the application of machinery to processes of the most deli-
cate kind, until now manipulated only by skilled artisans
of a high class, and as foreshadowing the extent to which
eventually it may be made subservient to other industrial
purposes now dependent on hand labour in every country

.n the world. Though the scheme is as yet only partially

developed it has already attracted the attention of several
of the continental governments. It has been visited three

imes in the course of the present summer by Baron Smola,

holding a high position in the Austrian artillery service ;
again, by General Barreiro, by direction of the King of
Portugal, who, it is said, contemplates its reproduction in
his own dominions ; also by Prince Oscar of Sweden. In
Franca it is regarded with interest by distinguished mili-
tary men; and there are some who believe that the visit
at this time of an American citizen, conspicuously identi.
fled in the United States and in this country with the
manufacture of small-arms, to St. Petersburg has some
reference to the commencement of a similar enterprise in
Russia, where the practical application of machinery to the
construction of some parts of military weapons is not
wholly unknown.
To some it may be necessary to premise that the manu-
factory at Enfield on its present footing—for there has
been for upwards of 40 years the nucleus of a government
establishment for the fabrication of small arms—originated
in the dissatisfaction for some time felt by the Board of
Ordnance at being almost wholly dependent on private
manufacturers for so important a part of the materiel

of war, and in the recommendation, based on the,
feeling, of the Committee of the House of Commons on
small arms which sat in the session of 1854. Before
1804, when the manufactory in its original form was
established at Enfield, the Government depended on the
private trade for their small arms, and when that failed
to provide a sufficient supply recourse was had to the
foreign market. At one time, indeed, the art of making
muskets became extinct in this country. This occurred
in 1802, and Lord Chatham, then Master-General, stated
the circumstances publicly. Mr. John Colgate, who held
an appointment in the Ordnance Department, was sent
to Liege in 1779 to superintend the setting up of 40,000
stand of arms for the service of the British Government.
Major-General Miller was despatched to Liege on a simi•
lar service in 1791, to Hamburg in 1795, and again to
Hamburg in 1800, the store of arms in the Tower being
at that time entirely expended. Again, in 1823, the
names of not less than 20 English artificers had been
ascertained who were-in full employment in the national
armoury establishments of Russia and the United State;
and no doubt very many more might have boon disco-
vered. This was attributable to the encouragement and
inducements to emigrate held out to our skilled artificers
in that branch of trade by foreign nations, backed by
the want of employment in their vocation at home ;
and it was apprehended at that time by men convex•
sant with the subject that unless the fostering care of the
Government was continued in support of its armoury
institutions the art. must again be lost, or so far reduced
that the country would a second time be left to depend
on the casual supplies furnished by individual manufac-
turers. It has always been contended by men who have
advocated the formation of Government armouries that
the views of tradesmen were confined to individual pro-
fit ; when they entered upon a contract their only object
was to bring their workmanship to such a state as to pass
the official examination ; they had no motive, it was
said, to improve, or inducement to perpetuate the art;
when the call for arms by the Government ceased with a
war they turned their industry to other occupations,
and their workmen were driven to seek employment in
foreign countries or left to neglect the art at home. It
was also alleged that a national establishment offered the
most perfect means of making experiments for the im-
provement of the service, and caused the saving of money
in time of war as well as of peace by operating as a check
upon the prices of ptivato manufacturers. But its prin-
cipal object was to keep up among us the art of making
military guns.
It was considerations such as these and others that in•
duced the Government, upon the recommendation of the
committee of 1851, to establish a manufactory of small
arms to a limited extent, under the direction of the Board
of Ordnance; and the experiment is now on its trial at
Enfield. This manufactory, the committee conceived,
would servo as an experiment of the advantages to be de-
rived from the more extensive application of machinery as
s check upon the prices of contractors, and as a resource
in times of emergency. They also recommended that it
should be arranged with a view to its continual working.
While the committee was sitting, a deputation of practical
men, previously sent out by the Board of Ordnance to
make inquiries in the Unitol States of America as to thr
mode of manufacturing small arms there, and having ex-
talsive powers to purchase machinery to be applied to
their fabrication in this country, was pursuing its mission;
and, on the report of the committee, the House of Com-
mons voted a sum not exceeding 1:10,000/. towards the
experiment. Since that time extensive building opera•
tions have been and are still going on at Enfield-lock, and
an immense quantity of valuable machinery has been im-
ported from America, and is now in constant operation
there in various processes connected with the military gun
manufacture. The whole establishment is under the im-
mediate control and supervision of Colonel Dickson, of the
Royal Artillery, assisted by Mr. Gunner, inspector of small
arms; and the first engineer is Mr. Burton, an intelligent
American gentleman, formerly Master Armourer of the
Government small arms factory of the United States at
Harper's Ferry, whose services have been permanently se-
cured by the Government to superintend the setting up and
working of the machinery. At present about 430 men and
boas are employed on the different operations, but when
the works are complete, the numbers will probably be
doubled, of whom three-fourths will be comparatively un•
skilled labourers, it being one of the chief characteristics
of the machinery in use at Enfield that it performs all the
delicate operations which in the art of manufacturing mili-
tary guns, as previously pursued iu this country, have
been executed by skilled artisans trained to their voca-
tion. The whole of the plant when fully laid down acid
brought into operation, it is contemplated, will turn out iu
a perfect state, rea:ly for use, some 50,00) rifles a-year, or
about 1,000 a week ; but this is probably a too sanguine
view of its capabilities. The advantages of producing
muskets by machinery are described by those thoroughly
conversant with the system in the United States as ladug
cheapness in the manufacture; an exact similarity in the
several parts, so that they may be readily interchanged
and replaced ; and, above all, the facility of rapidly pro-
ducing this important military arm, and of increasing or
reducing the supply according to the requirements of tho
time.
The establishment at Enfield is divided into departments,
of which the principal are the smithery, where there are
daily 45 forges at work with their attendant machinery,
and that in which all the various minute processes con-
nect with the manufacture of locks, bayonets, and stocks,
replete with interest, are carried on. It is in this latter
building—an extremely largo one, and well lighted from
the roof—that the greater part of the machinery in use is
in operation; and the whole of the mechanism, as well
there as in the smithery, is driven simultaneously by a
magnificent double engine of 80-horse power. The opera-
tions for rolling and perfecting gun-barrels are performed
in an adjacent building, which is being enlarged and fitted
up with an engine of 25-horse power, for conducting that
department on a scale commensurate with the other
parts of the factory. The barrel-rolling machinery
at present in use, which is not of American in-
vention or manufacture, has been in operation since
1852. In the smithery the bayonets and all the several
parts of the lock apparatus, including oven the small screws
used in its construction, are first forged from bars of steel,
with the greatest rapidity, and with all the aids of a per-
fect system of machinery. Thence they are transferred to
the general building, where they are submitted to an al-
most endless succession of processes of the nicest descrip-
tion, performed again by machinery specially adapted to
each operation, until they attain the requisite degree of
accuracy, finish, and perfection. Into all the various de-
tails of the manufacture we cannot, of course, enter here,
however wonderful and interesting they are as exemplifi-
cations of the amount of mind employed in devising and
practically applying machinery to operations so diversified
and delicate; but, besides the rapidity with which they
aro performed, far exceeding the capacity of any amount
of hand labour, two other results have been attained of
the greatest importance in a trade so peculiar as this,
where a great national emergency might at anytime create
on a sudden an immense demand for the article manu-
factured. The one is, that this machinery, guided by
young men and boys taken from the plough tail, or any
other of the humbler occupations of life, is capable of exe-
cuting work until now performed by skilled operatives
specially trained to it, and by necessity with far more
marvellous accuracy than was ever achieved by hand
labour, however superior. The comphsint has almost inva-
riably been that whenever a crisis arose necessitating the
manufacture of a great quantity of small-arms within a
brief period of time, the process Wll3 delayed to the detri-
ment of the public service, by the want of a sufficient num-
ber of skilled mechanics in the private trade to execute
certain parts of the work in time to meet the demand.
But under this new state of things that inconvenience can
never accrue, unless there was a positive paucity of labour
power in the country—for common unskilled labourers,
not bred to the worlc, and with little or no previous
training, can always be made available for its per-
formance, with the aid of machinery. Little boys,
not more than 14 years of age, for example, are to
be seen charged with the management of two, and
sometimes three, different machines performing simul-
taneously the same operation. Another result on which
much stress is laid is, that every conceivable part of a
musket, from all the small component portions of the lock