Category Archives: Collectables

One Door Closes and Another Door Opens

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More of a wish list than an actual “How to” selection of gardening books

Last night I slept fitfully and slept in late. Julia went to Stamford with my sister this afternoon and I went back to bed again, waking some time after they got home. Julia claims I spoke to her when she stuck her head round the bedroom drawer but I did not remember.

After the quizzes on TV I started typing and reading and generally frittering my remaining hours away. I have just looked up to check how long I have to do this post before midnight and found that three quarters of an hour have dissolved as I answered comments and checked some photos. It is actually 18 minutes past midnight so I have failed to post on Monday despite all my talk of good intentions.

The editor I was emailing last night has decided not to use the poem, which is fair enough. It’s my job to write things that are publishable and she has plenty to do without me taking her time up. I did suggest an edit that involved removing the first six lines and going with the rest, but this didn’t appear to be acceptable. It’s a shame, as i like being published, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. As I said in my cheery note thanking her for her decision – after a quick edit it will be part of my February submissions. One door closes etc . . .

Books, books, books . . .

Eight minutes gone, 233 words written. It’s funny how I can write faster when I’m relaxed. Given the time pressure of a deadline I start to choke. This is probably a lesson I could apply to poetry. It always used to seem easier in the early days, when my target was to submit on the first day of the submission window rather than the last.

At the moment, I have enough returned poems to make up two submissions for February already. The target is nine for this month. I have  a few others in mind but they are for a magazine that has never yet taken one of my pieces. Sometimes, particularly when I am listing possible  targets, I list magazines that I regard as “hostile” to make sure I keep testing myself. Other times, particularly when I am feeling lazy, or am at the end of the month, I drop them from the list.

It’s a bit like the verse forms that I don’t do. A number of journals take what they call linked forms, which are haiku or tanka, or both, made into a longer poem. Often they are done by people writing in partnership, though it’s possible for them to be done by a single writer. I keep thinking of expanding my range, but it all takes time and effort and enthusiasm, and I’m not feeling that I have much to spare.

Books by Paul Hollywood

I have 88 submission targets for this year., ten more than last year, but I have to be as good this year as i was last year.  And that’s where the pressure starts . . .

Humans are strange creatures. Even when things are going along nicely I have to add extra layers to the general worries. Quite apart from the normal am I good enough? and when will the bubble burst? worries, I have to add to them by setting targets.

Finally, talking of pressure and deadlines, do you remember me joking about how much time I had before my presentation at the Numismatic Society – 12 months, 11 months, plenty of time to start in the New Year . . .

Well it’s 2 months and 10 days away and I still only have a few vague ideas about what I’m doing. I was planning on writing a rough script today but seem to have slept through it instead. Time, I think, for a sense of urgency to appear, ready for next month’s panic.

Yes, I read a lot of low-brow books…

The Price of Silver, the Price of History

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This is what is known as a 1914 Trio with clasp, or sometimes (inaccurately) as a Mons Star Trio, because Mons was the most famous British battle of 1914. The Star was issued to British troops who landed in France and Belgium between 5 August  and 22 November 1914. This included men of the Indian Army and the Canadian forces, men and women of the medical services and the poet Rupert Brooke who fought as part of the Royal Naval Division. Approximately 378,000 medals were issued. 145,000 of them had the clasp, as seen in this photograph. This indicated that the wearer had been within range of the enemy and was part of what the Kaiser supposedly referred to as  “Britain’s contemptible little Army”

The recipient was Pte Edward Broomhead of the Army Service Corps, who landed in France on 26 August 1914. He was a foreman bricklayer from Nottingham, who joined up a the age of 39, was rushed out to France within days, contracted rheumatic fever from working in the cold and wet, was invalided out, re-enlisted for Home Service, was invalided out again, and died of influenza in 1918, leaving a wife and five children.

In truth, the Kaiser probably didn’t say that. It is more likely to have been the invention of British propagandists who desperately needed to enthuse Britain to fight a German Army ten times its size. In 1925 these men banded together to form an organisation known as the Old Contemptible Association.

The price of silver is currently £87.19 per ounce. It will be different in ten minutes, but that will do for now. That means that the silver medal in the middle of this group is worth more now than the entire group was worth a couple of months ago.

The British War Medal (BWM) awarded for service in 1914-18 weighs one ounce and is struck from Sterling Silver, which is 92.5% pure. The 7.5% copper is to make it harder wearing. Sterling silver was the silver used in British coins until 1919, when the costs of WW1 compelled us to reduce our coinage to 50% silver. That was reduced to zero in 1946, after another expensive war, when we converted to cupro-nickel.

British War Medal 1914-18 (Obverse)

That means that one ounce of Sterling Silver is worth 92.5% of £87.19. That’s £80.65 for the amount of silver in a BWM.

When I was at school they used to cost £1 or £1.50 each  and there were plenty about – 6.5 million being issued.  When I was living in Preston in 1980 the Hunt Brothers of Texas tried to corner the market in silver but failed and lost a lot of money. However, the price of BWMs went up sharply and as collectors are interested in history rather than bullion, many were melted for bullion. It wasn’t just the common WW1 medals going into the pot, many older and rarer medals were scrapped too, as were a number of gallantry decorations, rare coins and sports awards. People were just buying for bullion without any appreciation of the history behind the articles they were scrapping.  The same thing happened again in 2011 when prices shot up. They were round £15-£20 retail for many years, which seems fair compared to inflation. At a silver value of £80.65 I fear that more will be melted.

Silver is needed for many industrial processes and currently supply is lagging behind the demand for solar power, batteries, electronics and computer chips It will be interesting to see what happens to Mexico once the USA realises that its southern neighbour is the largest producer of silver in the world. What are the chances of another late night raid on a Presidential Palace?

Of course, it’s not rarity or gallantry that concerns me here, most British campaign medals are named, so any medal that is destroyed is a loss of history because each one has the potential for a story to be found. Private Broomhead never did anything famous, he didn’t lead any charges or have any gallantry medals pinned on him by a grateful King, he just went to France, became ill and, weakened by his war service, died. It’s still a history that deserves preserving.

British War Medal 1914-18 (Reverse). Note that the horse, symbolising man’s control of technology, is treading on a shield with a German eagle whilst a skull reminds if death. Symbolism in 1918 was a lot more in your face than it is now.

The single medal pictured, was issued to the next of kin of Pioneer Harry Gow of the Royal Engineers. It is his sole entitlement. The BWM was awarded by the Army to personnel who left the UK. To get the Victory Medal (the gilt one with the Angel and the rainbow ribbon) you had to serve in a war zone. For soldiers, the sea was not considered a war zone so when the troopship Transylvania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-69 on May 4 1917 this became his only medal, and probably, apart from his grave marker, the only proof he ever lived. He was 19 years old and had not had much time to leave anything behind, apart from his grieving parents who had the inscription Gone from us but not Forgotten Never Shall His Memory Fade carved on his memorial stone.

Over the years I have traced stories of domestic violence, babies born out of wedlock, amputations, ill health, criminal careers and, quite often, normal family lives. I recently researched a man who, after being wounded in 1914, transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, served in he Army between the wars, retired in the late 30s, and spent WW2 as a Colonel in the Home Guard. I was a life of service and adventure which ended abruptly in the 1950s when he and his wife were charged by a rhino whilst walking on their farm in Kenya. He was gored and died in hospital, having succeeded in diverting the animal from his wife by hitting it with his walking stick.

 

 

Festival of Britain Medallion 1951

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Festival of Britain Medallion 1951 – Yes – it is Soap!

 

The word medallion is used in several contexts, including architecture and food, so trying to define it can be confusing. Generally, in numismatic terms, it is a large piece of metal used to commemorate something. However, does it have to be metal? I have a glass medallion from Pilkington’s Glass. It is 65mm in diameter and commemorates the Royal Visit of 1961 and the information in the box lid refers to it as a “glass medal”. Without that description I would have thought it was a paperweight or a coaster. But if they say it is a medal, that’s good enough for me.

Another unusual material used to make medallions is soap. This, again, is made more complicated by the tendency to use the term medallion as a description far a small decorative soap. However, I have seen at least four things which I consider to be medallions made from soap – two George VI Coronation medallions, a Preston Guild set of three soaps (I was the underbidder on that) and the one illustrated here – the Festival of Britain. I know that a bust of George VI was made in soap and that there was another soap made in 1951. However, that was described and marketed as soap and was uniface, with the Festival logo on one side.

The medallion pictured here is 67mm in diameter. It was probably ivory-coloured when it was produced but has grown darker over the years, particularly the obverse. The reverse, I think, was protected from the air by resting on the bottom of the box but the obverse has darkened due to contact with the air.

The obverse has the familiar 1951 Festival of Britain logo on it, and the reverse has a design featuring the Great Exhibition of 1851, and even has details of clouds in the sky.

My mother bought this when she went to the Festival with her sister in 1951, and my sister still has it. I first saw it in the 1960s, and remember that it was still heavily scented. My example came from an antique fair about thirty years ago and even now retains traces of the original scent.

I have seen the soap medallions in both red or blue boxes. The inside of the lid says “Made in England/by/RICHARD WHEEN & SONS LTD/London SE8/Makers of fine soaps/since 1769” They are signed “WHEEN LONDON” below the logo.

This was first published on the Facebook page of the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire 01.01.25. As such I tend to limit he length and, with writing one every week, don’t have time to spend on editing, which is why it may be  a little rough around the edges.

A Lost Week!

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Golden key (actually silver-gilt, used by Sir Arthur Blake KBE at the opening of the Nottingham savings Bank branch on St Ann’s Well Road, Nottingham, November 23, 1926

I just looked at the date on my last post and received a shock. I knew it had been a while, but was amazed to find it was a whole seven days. So, what have I been doing?

Not much.

From the point of view of colour rendition this shows I stll have a lot to learn. Taken only seconds apart under the same light

I have become addicted to writing articles about junk. I have now done four for the research page of the Peterborough Military History Group, a couple more for the newsletter and nineteen posts for the Numismatic Society of Nottinghamshire Facebook page. I’m never sure if these really count as “acceptances” as they are short and they are submitted to people I know.  On the other hand, poems are short too. I became obsessed with “The Golden Key” as I started writing it. I’ve had it about 30 years and never really got on with it, so it was about time. I can’t set a link directly to it but it’s currently at the top if yo use the link above.

Even better if you can leave a “Like”. It’s part of my crusade to strike back against traditional coins. There’s a place for kings and stuff in numismatics, but for every King there are thousands of commoners and they all have stories too.

Sir Arthur Blake KBE JP – a photograph taken later in life – courtesy of the national portrait gallery.

Talking about acceptances – I had a rejection this morning. It means that my record for April is 100% rejections. Not one single acceptance. It’s a strange month, as there was only one journal open for submissions, and that was only open until 15th April, which is why I can tell you, by the 24th, that I have a 100% rejection record. I’m sure I’ll get over it.

That’s it for now. I will have some cracking photos for you over the next few days as we have been going through some old boxes. However, for now,

 

The Tail End of the Day

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It’s almost midnight and it’s still raining. I looked in amazement at the weather map tonight and saw a seemingly endless band of rain over the Midlands. Fifty miles south of here they had the equivalent of the whole month’s rainfall in one day. My grandmother used to blame bad weather on Russian satellites and, with all that happens these days I’m beginning to wonder if that could be true. I’m quite prepared to blame the Russians for anything from bad weather to electoral fraud and anything in between.

My day has mainly been taken up with researching the Lidgett family of Lincoln and the City of Lincoln tribute Medals that bear their name. There were three Lidgetts, all family and all called Thomas. There was also Charles, who died young after being worn out by dysentery on military service. The trick lay in sorting out which Lidgett was which, as several other showed up in the area and needed checking. I also checked up the medal itself, but there is very little on it in the papers. I know I have seen an article on it, and have a copy of it, but I can’t lay my hands on it. They had a homecoming banquet for about 4,000 men in an aircraft hanger but I can’t find details. It’s annoying. I really should keep better notes.

I’ve also been checking up on Horace Stewart, who wrote his name inside the lid of the box the un-named medal came in. Born in Lincolnshire, 1899, son of a gamekeeper. Served in Northamptonshire Regiment and the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment (Sherwood Foresters). Qualified for a pension after the war for something I can’t decypher. Lived in Shropshire, Wale and Stevenage in the years after the war but ended up back in Lincoln, where he world as a Male Nurse (Mental) as the 1939 List tells us. Active in local politics, he died in 1982. It’s a short version of a life story that obviously has a lot more to it than I can find.

Julia, meanwhile, has been more practical and more gainfully employed. I came down to find a bowl of dried apricots soaking in something, and realised it was Christmas cake day. It has been baked and cooled and is now maturing. I now have to live with the knowledge that we have cake in the house and I am not allowed to touch it.

 

 

 

From the Ashes of Disaster

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So, I hear you ask, how was it? As if the title didn’t give enough of a clue.

The slide show was good. I spent a lot of time on it. Part of this was the time I spent relearning the system because I only use it once every two years, and forget how it works. Another portion of time was spent in the script, because it took me months to sort out what I wanted to say. After that, the text and photography was, as always, tedious and seemed to take forever.

However, at about 4pm on Monday (a couple of hours before the talk), I was 90% ready. I’m never 100% ready, and I bet most people aren’t. I had a well-crafted slideshow, the commentary was running round in my head (I don’t use notes, just have a lot of information and use the slides as prompts to bring it out at the right time).

The first presentations I ever did were about the Sealed Knot. Sometimes I would use an old-fashioned show, the sort that actually used photographic slides. They were expensive to produce, there was a delay between taking the pictures and seeing the results, you could load projector magazines back to front or wrong way round, bulbs blew, I even saw a slide melt once (fortunately not one of mine) . . .

Miniature Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM)group to L H Childs – a member of the Northamptonshire Regiment in WW2. The recommendation for his DCM shows that he waded across a canal and tackled two German machine gun nests. Then did it a second time. A newspaper report shows that he was wounded after the war whilst disarming German troops in Italy.

I did talks for history societies, schools, the WI and Scouts. They had varying levels of equipment so i gradually developed what is essentially my current style – I’d take enough items to fill a table, I’d pick something up and talk about it, pass it round or make someone try it on. Whatever I say about modern technology, I do love digital photography, and am quite keen on PowerPoint (or the free ODF equivalent in my case). You can do so much more.

Anyway, back to Monday afternoon.

By the wonders of modern delivery technology, Amazon had delivered a box of USB drives to my door in under 24 hours. I didn’t want his masterpiece of numismatic storytelling to go to waste on my cluttered old drive. I even loaded a second one as I am very much a belt and braces type of presenter, and only the best is good enough for my gem of presentation.

Are you following me? Or have you already deduced the full horror of the precipice I am about to fall off?

Oh yes, despite the care and attention I had taken, the hours of blood, toil, sweat and tears that had gone into my presentation, it wouldn’t show up on the screen in the meeting room. It wouldn’t show up on the screen next door either. But someone else had a USB drive with him and it did show his. It just wouldn’t read mine. Mine, once I got home, functioned perfectly well on my computer. Investigations are ongoing.

There was some muttered discussion about whether any of the others had an old presentation with them as a replacement . . .

Miniature DCM group to Frederick Cowham, once a member of the Royal Artillery, later a prison governor. He won it for mending telephone lines under fire – we didn’t hav e much radio communication in 1914-18 so many medals were given out for telephone-related incidents.

However, cometh the hour, as they say, cometh the man. And that man, after arranging his display cases in the amended order necessary and stood up to deliver the talk. There were no slides, no photos and no prompts, just a man and an audience. And that man, having lived and breathed this presentation for the last panic-stricken week, saw no reason to worry. I missed some things out and didn’t deliver it with the polish I would have liked, but an hour later (it rambled a bit more than the slideshow), it was all done.

Despite everything, people seemed to enjoy it. I was able to pass exhibits round in my new display cases so people all had a look, and I was congratulated several times on the content of the talk, and my ability to stand up and give it without a script or visual prompts.

So, all in all, despite the technological disaster, it went quite well and I was able to carry it off despite everything. If anything, I am now, if anything, a bit too pleased with myself for having kept calm and carried on.

Miniature Medals of Pte Charles Winch, Leicestershire Regiment, with related school attendende medal and picture of his full size medals, which were sold in the same sale. After fighting in the battle of Talana and defending Ladysmith, he was recalled for service in WW1, but did not go overseas. Note the presence of the extra bar “Natal” on the miniatures – this sort of thing, though the fact that the medals have swapped sides is a wild deviation from the main group, even by the standards of strange things that miniature medals get up to.

For a good read, follow this link to the lady in question.

 

 

 

 

Almost Done!

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These two pictures are the miniature medals of Major J L Partington MBE, MC and his Brazilian ID card from a trip he made in 1952. Miniature medals are worn for events like formal dinners I will do a longer write up on them in a later post.

Major Partington was an engineer by profession and went to work in Argentina before the Great War. He returned to fight, joined the Royal Engineers and was decorated for spending all day under shell fire rescuing trains and equipment. He then went back to Argentina, married and had two sons, who were both killed in the RAF, one one in 1941 and one in 1942. I often think, when people are talking about how hard life is, we don’t really have a clue these days compared to the generations that lived through the wars.

Today was the day I hit Peak Panic with the presentation. I only have until Monday, and as I’m working tomorrow, I’m short of time. I’m also short on research and have no chance of preparing all the materials I was going to put together.

On the other hand, I have now learned most of what I need to know about putting a presentation together (I forget how to make a slide show after each time I do one) and by late afternoon I had the majority of it in place, It’s nothing like as good as I wanted. On the other hand (leaving false modesty apart) it’s far from the worst one we’re going to have this winter.

I have plenty of slides, plenty of stories, know my material and have a relaxed manner of delivery. I’ve enjoyed doing it and I’m going to enjoy it. I’ve also bought some great display stands off the internet and the collection is going to look good.

I also bought some bookstands. One of the medal recipients wrote a book about his wartime experiences and another features in a chapter of  book by someone else, so I will have two books on display – I always find myself being impressed by that sort of thing,and hope other people are too.

The header picture is the book by the medal recipient – Night Fighter by Lewis Brandon. I first read it when i was about twelve and it made a big impression on me. It was fifty years later that I was able to buy the miniatures, and it’s very unusual to be able to put this much detail with a group of medals.

He was an actor before the war, a pioneering radar operator during the war and a publican and hotelier after the war (amongst other things) and the book, which only covers his life until 1945) makes a good read.

Anyway, whatever happens, I won’t be telling people that it’s fallen short of my intentions, so they need never know. That’s something I was taught in sales – the customer doesn’t actually know how badly prepared or nervous you are, so hide it and get on with the job in hand.

Miniature Medals of Lt Col Wall

Lt Colonel Wall was decorated by the British and Dutch Governments. He was a pre-war railway manager and used his expertise by supplying troops with food and equipment in three campaigns.

In the winter of 1944-45 the Germans cut off supplies of food and fuel to a substantial portion of the Netherlands as a reprisal for actions of the Dutch Resistance. It was a bad winter and at least 30,000 people died of cold and hunger. Many of the survivors, including a child called Edda van Heemstra, had to eat tulip bulbs to survive and suffered from bad health all their lives.

She became a UN ambassador and worked to relieve famine out of gratitude for the international given to her country at the end of the war. Wall’s part in the relief effort was recognised by the award of the Order of Orange-Nassau (the impressive medal on the end of the group).

By the time van Heemstra worked for the UN, she had resumed the use of her English name,  which had been a problem during the occupation. That is why she is better known as Audrey Hepburn.

Some thoughts on Rammle

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I just had to edit a post from a few days ago. I’d written 2012 instead of 2021. I know I leave typos in, but I now wonder if I’ve put some wrong dates in. If I have, nobody has mentioned it.

A couple of months ago, I had a move round in the dining room. In looking for some things I disturbed a neat pile of boxes on my table (and a few others that were carefully stacked next to my typing table. They were tidy, I promise you. I churned things round, as I was in a hurry, and made a promise to myself I would tidy it next day. I didn’t get round to it. But I have noticed that the mess has grown and spread. It now looks like a subterranean volcano of rammle has built up under the house before venting itself in my dining room. It’s like Narnia in reverse.

I had to look rammle up. I use it in speech but you rarely see it in writing as it’s a dialect word and not much used by the university educated prats who write most of our news. Look up rammel and you get a German page followed by a British politician, then Erwin Rommel. Look up rammle and it asks you if you meant ramble. I didn’t.

Working on the knife sharpening theory I am now going to work on the rubbish pile and sort it out over the rest of the week (interspersing it with my similarly paced writing of my presentation for next Monday).

Service records show that the recipient of these medals (known as a 1914-15 trio and Italian Bronze Medal of Military Valour didn’t go to Italy during the war, just France. This wasn’t uncommon, as the alllies used to send batches of medals to each other for award to troops, almost as a superior sort of souvenir. I’m not sure what he did to merit a medal, but his records also show that he was admitted to hospital with  VD just days after reaching France. I suspect his embarkation leave had been spent in the traditional way and had come home to roost.

The medals in the header photo belonged to Superintendent Tacey of the City of Nottingham police. His service records indicate rapid promotion and a mention in despatches for his hard work during the war. He did go to Italy for a while. They will both be featured in my presentation on Monday. Not long now . . .

Monday Morning Blues

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Boy Scout Gallantry Medal – Gilt Cross – Details of recipient.

Got up, moped around, made a cup of tea. It really wasn’t a great start to the day. I can’t shake off a feeling of generally feeling under the weather. That’s in addition to the similar feeling that my life is becoming uncontrollably chaotic, and that I am doomed. Do you remember that cartoon where Winnie the pooh is followed round by a raincloud? It’s like that, and even that charming picture is somewhat marred by the fact that I have, over the years, ceased to resemble the heroic figure of a Greek god and have come, more and more, to resemble a lumpy child’s toy with questionable stuffing. Life can be cruel.

Then, I seemed to wake up. Well, to be accurate, I did actually wake up, as I’d fallen asleep whilst watching Extreme Fishing with Robson Green and eating cheese on toast. After brushing off the crumbs, I felt seized by the desire to take control of my life. I made a blood test appointment, a vaccination appointment, renewed a membership and claimed a gift voucher that I’d won. Yes, I agree that the words “hive of industry” may not be required in this paragraph, but compared to the last week or two this is an impressive amount of things ticked off my list. I then did a couple more things i’d been meaning to do. That vague description covers something medical, involving discomfort. I’m currently typing with blurred vision as my eyes are still watering.

I’ve just had another article published on the coin society Facebook page. It’s not much of an achievement, as there are only two of us doing stuff for it, but it’s keeping my writing going. Here is the link. It helps keep numbers up if people click on the link, and encourages the editor, so if you can visit, it would be appreciated.  It’s the one about the Boy Scout Gallantry Cross, which is also pictured here.

Boy Scout Gallantry Medal – Gilt Cross

Chilwell – a Nottingham Story

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My apologies. I started yesterday morning with the intention of stitching together two short articles on Chilwell and adding a few more notes to remove some of the numismatic bias. It isn’t quite as seamless as I had intended, and as an added bonus, I seem to have introduced quite a few variations into the text with unexpected changes of font, colour and boldness. I’m not sure how I have managed to do this, but I think it is now, mostly, corrected.

Further apologies if you have come from my first post of the day, as you will already know all the information contained in that first paragraph. As we get older we ramble and repeat ourselves. Well, I do.

The word Chilwell probably doesn’t mean much to people outside Nottingham. Today, what remains is known as Chetwynd Barracks, but it has been there since 1915 with a variety of identities.

The outbreak of the Great War in 1914 changed British life forever, including numismatics. Wars need three things – men, money and munitions. During the first weekend of the war men queued to join the services, oblivious to the reality of the coming war, and over a million joined up by the end of the year. Then the money changed. The August Bank Holiday was extended to stop people withdrawing gold from the banks, as it was needed by the Government to finance the war. It took just six days to pass the Currency and Bank Notes Act, 1914 and design and print new notes. When the banks reopened on Friday 7th August, stocks of £1 notes were available to replace sovereigns. Ten Shilling notes became available the following week.

At the end of the war, there was a better known consequence, as the purity of the silver coinage dropped from .925 (Sterling Silver) to .500 in 1920. 

Finally – munitions. The armies on the Western Front fired approximately 1.5 billion shells. The British share of this required them to build 170 National Factories, including 27 which specialised in filling shells with explosives. This was very different to the single shell-filling factory we had in 1914 (Woolwich Arsenal). This expansion included Shell Filling Factory Number Six at Chilwell. During the war, the factory produced over 19 million shells, using over 120,000 tons of high explosive.

It was built without much central control. Lord Chetwynd, on the instructions of Lloyd George (who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer and head of the munitions committee), used his industrial know-how to build a factory. He told the government that he would not accept any interference and went about building a factory and developing a shell-filling system. Chetwynd was an interesting character who spent his youth touring the USA, working as a deputy sheriff in Texas, a bronco buster and a cornet player, before coming back to the UK where he became a director of Vickers Armstrong and the Wolseley Motor Car Company. He was one of a number of aggressive businessmen brought into munitions production by Lloyd George and it seemed to work well as a system.

The plan of the factory was drawn up on 7 September 1915, ground was broken on 13 September. By 8 January 1916 the first shells had been filled and by 22 January a batch had been transported to Shoeburyness for test firing. They performed well and by March the factory began in full scale production. By April they were producing 7,000 shells a week. This was done using a large number of women workers. Women had been working in factories and mills for years so I’m always surprised to see it written about as if it were a new idea, but I suppose it was the idea of using large numbers of women and trusting them to do skilled jobs that was the novelty. Over 800,000 women were eventually employed making munitions.

During the war 30-40,000 restrictive Trade Union practices were suspended, about 75% of them being practices which had restricted the use of women to do certain jobs, particularly complex jobs like working machines, which were clearly beyond the comprehension of women. Strangely, a hundred years later, this still seems to be the view of many car mechanics. These restrictions were reinstated in 1919. Although women could now vote (as long as they were 30) they were no longer allowed to do complex things like work machinery. Unless that machinery was a loom or a sewing machine, which has always struck me as being quite complex.

Factory check

The 38mm brass check illustrated was used as an ID disc for factory staff. The disc bears the crowned double C device on one side and a number on the other. The device was taken from the Chetwynd family coat of arms. The reverse has the wording THE PROPERTY OF THE NATIONAL SHELL FILLING FACTORY No 6 around the edges and CHILWELL in the centre with a stamped number.

The additional stamping – THE VC FACTORY 1915 1918 – is a reference to events on the night of 1 July 1918 when eight tons of TNT exploded. There was some fear of sabotage at the time, and also a feeling that the hot weather might have contributed to the instability of the mixture. However, the official enquiry decided that the most likely cause was a relaxation of safety standards to enable higher production rates.

The explosion was heard 30 miles away, and could have been a lot worse – the works manager, Arthur Bristowe, took burning TNT from the line and prevented a further 15 tons exploding. He was awarded the Edward Medal for his actions, one of the highest civilian gallantry awards available at the time. However, 132 people were killed in the blast and around 250 more were injured. Despite this, the day shift turned up for work as usual next morning and production restarted. Within a month the factory was reported to have set a new production record. In Parliament, Frederick Kellaway MP suggested that it might be appropriate to follow foreign practice and award a decoration to the factory. This was not followed up officially, but the factory workers took matters into their own hands and many surviving discs are stamped with the VC inscription.

Factory check – this one with the VC Factory overstamp. At the end of the war Lord Chetwynd allowed the staff to keep them as a memento. 

This was one of several explosions that took place at the factory, though the previous ones had killed only three people in total. It was also only one of several notable explosions in shell factories during the war – the other main ones being at Faversham (105 fatalities in 1916) and Silvertown (73 fatalities in 1917).

In all, around 600 people were killed in munitions explosions though many others died. A report from the munitions factory at Gretna indicates that 145 people died during the war, 115 men and 30 women, many being from industrial accidents rather than explosions. Many more died after the war from long term health conditions associated with the use of dangerous chemicals. There seems to be no figure for that, but I have seen a figure of 400 people dying as a result of exposure to TNT. This used to turn the skin yellow, which is why munitions workers were often known as “Canary Girls”.

All things eventually come to an end, and as the Great War drew to a close the need for shells decreased. The National Shell Filling Factory at Chilwell closed, and the story of “The VC Factory” passed into history.

However, the army retained the site, and built a depot for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) on the site, responsible for supplies of weapons, armoured vehicles, ammunition, clothing, laundry, mobile baths and photography, amongst other things. Chilwell dealt with general and surplus stores, and, with the re-armament that preceded the Second World War, was redeveloped in 1937, when it became one of five Central Ordnance Depots (COD) and specialised in building armoured vehicles.

The blue enamel tank badge with the “V for Victory” motif dates from WW2.

Chilwell Tank Fund Badge. Not exactly sure what it was for but the Victory V marks it down as WW2 in date. (Just researching it now – seems it was from a fund raising effort in 1941).

At its wartime peak in WW2 Chilwell COD employed 5,000 military and 7,500 civilian personnel. Eventually, after numerous reorganisations to mirror Britain’s decreasing army, the RAOC left Chilwell in 1982, and the depot closed on 31 March 1982. This is commemorated by the final medal, which has the badge of the RAOC on one side and a “VC Factory” design on the other.

The RAOC eventually disappeared completely when it was absorbed into the newly formed Royal Logistic Corps in 1993. Chilwell became Chetwynd Barracks in 1995, named after Viscount Chetwynd, and if everything goes to plan the barracks will be sold in 2026 for redevelopment as housing.

The final medallion.