Judith Hewitt, Manager of The Devil’s Porridge Museum
Introducing her subject, the speaker described how HM Factory Gretna stretched from Dornock in the west to Longtown in the east, spanning the border between England and Scotland. It produced 50% of the cordite needed for the war effort and was organised on an unprecedented industrial scale.
At the end of the war, there was a prevailing view that there was no need to continue munitions production at Gretna after ‘the War to end Wars’. There was a counter-view that the technical expertise developed needed to be maintained, in case Britain was found unprepared in the event of a second world war.
The American, Kenneth Bingham Quinan, was the key figure behind the success of Gretna and is described as having been responsible for ‘the renaissance of the chemical Industry’. Through his genius and energy in organising munitions production on a national scale, he transformed the course of the war. He was involved in the production of over 300 technical manuals, with the purpose of preserving the operational knowledge gained during the First World War.
The Devil’s Porridge Museum collection holds a typed but anonymous document entitled Women in work at HM Factory, Gretna based on the observation of ‘one who worked with them and watched them with a critical and sympathetic eye during the greater part of the war period’. It is important in giving technical details of what women did.
Technical and engineering roles were largely undertaken by men, but the majority of labouring jobs were done by women. Few women had the technical qualifications for the engineering jobs and the writer observed that few women aspired to more responsible posts. But one exception to this would be the women who served in the factory’s police force. Most women were involved in the manufacture of cordite, but it was also recognised that a large number of the women employees did valuable ‘war work’ in providing ancillary and support services, including work in the centralised kitchen, which made 20,000 meals daily, or in the centralised bakery which baked 400–500 dozen loaves per day, or the laundry which dealt with 40,000 household or canteen items per day. Other work areas included the central stores for the issue of clothing and footwear; the manufacture of packing crates and boxes; assisting in the engineering workshops (but under the supervision of male engineers); working in the power station and driving the electric tractors on the site’s internal railway system.
On the negative side, the account records that the women were not perfect timekeepers and that factory managers complained that some were unaware of the value of the plant’s equipment and subjected delicate and intricate machinery to ill-treatment. It was also recognised that some women also had to deal with the family responsibilities of children, siblings and parents which men did not have.
Although the anonymous writer observed that women generally had to be shown how to do their various jobs, nevertheless their work was essential to the war effort, and he or she felt the women were content in the work and benefited personally from it.
D.F.D.