WONDERS OF WOOLWICH ARSENAL.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 226, 15 June 1915, Page 3

WONDERS OF WOOLWICH ARSENAL.

WHERE THE GREAT GUMS COME FROM. When “Good Queen Boss,’’ in 1580, decided to establish, a store of arms and armour at the Old Tower House, a mansion in Woolwich Warren, adjoining the then boggy and unhealthy marshes of Plumstead, she little thought that by so doing she was founding Britain’s greatest arsenal, which 330 years later would be giving employment to 30,000 men, earning over £IOO,OOO a week for making munitions of war for the greatest conflict the world has ever seen. • That small armoury at the Tower House, however, was the origin of the Woolwich Arsenal we know to-day, which covers 600 acres, and where guns of all sizes, every form of military fraggon, shot, shell, torpedoes, cartridges, bullets, war signals, life-saving rockets, and high explosives are manyfaeturered.

Even in the bygone days, however, Woolwich figured largely in military history. It was Prince Rupert who protected the Warren with batteries in Charles 11. ’s reign, and other fortifications, which have now disappeared, were added by that King’s successor. The Dutch several times threatened the dockyards at Woolwich and at Chatham, while at the end of the seventeenth century two French privateers were captured oil Woolwich. It is obvious that the secrets of the arsenal arc most jealously guarded, particularly at the present time. Indeed, the Government, since the war broke out, have adopted the precaution of recalling all text-books about the arsenal, although in peace times, when the average number of men employed there is about 14,000, visitors of British nationality, desirous of seeing the arsenal, may do so by obtaining an order from the War Office.

It might be mentioned, however, that among the most effective guns manufactured at Woolwich are the famous fiin. howitzers of which the French speak so highly, while one of the latest time-saving ideas is to dip military wag gons bodily in huge tanks of paint and hang them up to dry. Oldest Military School.

Woolwich arsenal is really divided into three great departments, called respectively the Royal Gun Factories, the Royal Carriage Department, and the Royal Laboratory, It is in the latter that every kind of experiment is made with explosives, and where officers and men learn their use and effectiveness, while in the-gun factories, which arc filled with machinery of the best and most modern kind, guns of all sizes aia? manufactured for the Army anl tested over the extensive practice ranges which were formally the Plumstead marshes.

Apart from the actual workshops, there are various important miltary establishments at Woolwich. There is the Artillery College, for instance, which gives special training to officers of the Royal Artillery in order to fit thorn for appointments in the manufacturing departments of the arsenal. Then there is the Eoj'al Military Academy, the oldest military school in the kingdom, where men destined for the Royal En-

tillery or Royal Engineers begin thentraining. The Royal Dockyard at Woolwich was closed nearly 50 years ago, but it continues to bo used as a military store depot, and it is interesting to note that it was the first, and for a very long time the principal, dockyard in the kingdom. The Great Harry was built there in 1562, the Royal George in 1751, the Galatea in 1859, and more than 200 other ships. And the curious may spend an interesting hour in the Rotunda Museum, which contains the finest collection of military antiquities and . models in the Avorld.