page_title: Royal Arsenal
section_title: First World War
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Arsenal / 20th century: The Royal Ordnance Factories / First World War
caption_attribution_description: English: Women munition workers stacking cartridge cases in the New Case shop at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. Comment&#160;: this appears to show the necked cartridge case for the QF 13 pounder 9 cwt anti-aircraft gun.
context_page_description: The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing, and explosives research for the British armed forces at a site on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England, United Kingdom. It was originally known as the Woolwich Warren, having begun on land previously used as a domestic warren in the grounds of a Tudor house, Tower Place. Much of the initial history of the site is linked with that of the Office of Ordnance, which purchased the Warren in the late 17th century in order to expand an earlier base at Gun Wharf in Woolwich Dockyard. Over the next two centuries, as operations grew and innovations were pursued, the site expanded massively; at the time of the First World War the Arsenal covered 1,285 acres and employed close to 80,000 people. Thereafter its operations were scaled down; it finally closed as a factory in 1967 and the Ministry of Defence moved out in 1994. Today the area, so long a secret enclave, is open to the public and is being redeveloped for housing and community use.
context_section_description: At its peak, during the First World War, the Royal Arsenal extended over some 1,300 acres (530 ha) and employed around 80,000 people. The Royal Arsenal by then comprised the Royal Gun & Carriage Factory (which had amalgamated under Colonel Capel Lofft Holden in 1907), the Royal Laboratory (which in 1922 split to form the Royal Ammunition Factory and the Royal Filling Factory) and separate Naval Ordnance and Army Ordnance Store Departments. Other divisions included the Research and Development Department and various Inspection departments set up in the wake of the Morley Report (including that of the Chief Chemical Inspector, Woolwich, successor to the War Department Chemist). The expansion was such that in 1915 the Government built an estate of 1,298 homes - later (1925) known as the Progress Estate - at Eltham to help accommodate the workforce.
  In addition to the massive expansion of the Royal Ordnance Factories in the Arsenal, and of private munitions companies, other UK Government-owned National Explosives Factories and National Filling Factories were built during the First World War. All the National Factories closed at the end of the War, with only the Royal (munitions) Factories (at Woolwich, Enfield, and Waltham Abbey) remaining open through to the Second World War.
  It appears likely that up to the end of the First World War, the Royal Arsenal was guarded by the Metropolitan Police Force, as they also guarded the Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, in Dorset and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Priddy's Hard, Gosport up to that time. Since then the Royal Arsenal would have been guarded, until its closure, by the War Office Police Force, who became in 1971 the Ministry of Defence Police Force.
caption: Women munition workers stacking cartridge cases in the New Case shop at the Royal Arsenal, 1918
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