The Royal Arsenal Railways: The Rise and Fall of a Military Railway Network

By Mark Smithers

Mark Smithers has written a number of definitive books and magazine features on the history of locomotive construction and the development of narrow gauge railways. This book looks at the history and development of railways at the Royal Arsenal Woolwich, which evolved from humble roots in the 1820s into three separate railway systems, serving the Gun Factory, Laboratory and Carriage Department. The three systems originally had their own fleet of locomotives and rolling stock and were constructed using three different track gauges: standard gauge, 2ft and 18in. The Arsenal and its railways played a major role in both world wars and continued to hold an important place in gun and propellant manufacture until the late 1950s, when the complex was gradually run down. The Royal Arsenal and its railways were finally closed in 1967, when the last train of material left the site. This book covers the history of the system from its beginnings through to its demise and also details the significant remains of a once mighty network.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473844018

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First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

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Copyright © Mark Smithers 2016

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Contents

Introduction

A Brief History of the Royal Arsenal

The full history of the Royal Arsenal Woolwich began over 300 years ago, at an area on the banks of the Thames that was used as a store in support of the dockyards at Greenwich, Deptford and Woolwich. Records show that an ordnance store was in existence as early as 1565 supplying guns, cannonballs and gun carriages to the ships under construction in the Thames reaches. Built on the land known locally as ‘The Warren’ (from its rabbit warren of small streets and alleys), proof butts were built and cannons were tested by General Blake and his ordnance officers. In 1667 Prince Rupert was instructed to prepare a gun battery on the riverside, facing north in order to provide a defence against the possible threat of the Dutch Fleet approaching London up the river.

Situated between the Gun Wharf and The Warren was a manor house known as Tower House, later known as Tower Place. By 1670 the Crown had decided to expand its operations on the site and in 1671 purchased this house and 31 acres of land from Sir William Pritchard. The spacious grounds were soon to be covered with cannonballs, cannons and gun carriages destined for the ships being built or repaired in the Royal Dockyards. Soon the Great Barn at Greenwich was built in the grounds of The Warren and in 1696 two Royal Laboratories (East and West Pavilions) were constructed to manufacture gunpowder, ammunition and other pyrotechnics. In the same year a Comptroller of Fireworks was appointed to preside over the munitions activities and by then the Carriage Department was in existence. At that time the Crown did not manufacture its own cannon, and purchased or captured weapons of war were often fitted onto new or refurbished gun carriages. There are firm references to the Carriage Department of 1680, and the old carriage-yards appear on plans of The Warren compiled by General Borgard, first commandant at Woolwich Barracks.

Up to 1716, the Crown had always preferred that the founding of brass and iron guns should be carried out by private manufacturers, and much of this work was done by a foundry at Moorfields in the City of London. In that year a serious accident occurred during the remelting of captured French cannon, resulting in the death of seventeen persons, including the foundry owner Mr John Bagley. Following this disaster, the Crown decided to exercise more control over gun-founding and gave approval for a Royal Brass Foundry to be built at The Warren. Designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, this was completed in 1717 and a young Swiss gentleman, Andrew Schalch, was appointed as Master Founder. At the same time other important developments were taking place in this area, including the formation of the first two companies of Royal Artillery. The ‘Great Pile’ buildings were erected between 1717 and 1720, surrounding Artificer’s Court and Basin Court and used as storehouses and workshops. In 1764 a sundial was erected over the main entrance, leading to the name ‘Dial Square’ being given to this part of The Warren. Today it is a very pleasant enclosed green that may be viewed from Beresford Square. During the 1970s the Royal Brass Foundry was extensively renovated and is the Royal Arsenal’s only Grade I listed building. It is said to have been one of the finest cannon foundries in Europe during the eighteenth century.

In 1741, part of Tower Place was taken over for use as a military academy for the instruction of young officers belonging to the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. The original academy remained in use until 1806, when the Royal Military Academy opened on Woolwich Common. It was not until 1805, following a visit by George III, that, at his suggestion, The Warren was officially named the Royal Arsenal. During the period 1776–1856 much new building work was carried out, mostly by convict labour from the prison hulks lying at moorings in the Thames. Their accomplishments included such labour-intensive projects as digging the canal, constructing the lock gates, building the Arsenal wall, the ‘T’ Pier and the Iron Pier.

Iron guns were not made in the Royal Arsenal until 1855, when the Armstrong Gun Factory was built to boost production for the Crimean War. Was it just coincidence ten years later that a rival gun foundry was built on the Greenwich Peninsula (where the Millennium Dome now stands) under the control of a Mr Blakely and Mr Bessemer? This foundry was financed with money from the international opium trade; its objective was to make guns to match those of the Woolwich Arsenal and to sell them abroad. Henry Bessemer, who developed the Bessemer converter for steel manufacture, had become interested in Blakely’s manufacturing process and they became partners. Unfortunately for Blakely, shortly after 1865 the money ran out and he was soon to die in mysterious circumstances while travelling in Peru.

The inherent danger of the Arsenal close to the Crossness Sewage Outfall Works was highlighted in July 1860. The Engineers Department of the Metropolitan Board of Works wrote to the War Office thus: ‘On two occasions during the past month, shot from the new practice ranges at Plumstead Marshes passed over the workmen constructing the Southern Outfall sewer.’ From this letter it took until December 1860 to effect a solution to the problem of stray cannonballs (The Crossness Engine Trust Record, Volume 8, No. 4).

From within the walls of Plumstead Road another legend was also to emerge: Arsenal FC. In late 1886 a gaggle of workers from the Woolwich Arsenal factory decided to form a football team, led by munitions worker David Danskin from Kirkcaldy in Fife. They called themselves Dial Square as a reference to the sundial atop the entrance gates to the factory. Word got around and fifteen men came forward, each prepared to pay sixpence to help start up a club. Danskin added another three shillings himself and the club bought a football.

It was October 1886. Dial Square won their first game against Eastern Wanderers on the Isle of Dogs. This small group of Scots sowed the seed that would grow into one of the most famous names in football. After that first 6–0 result the team met in the Royal Oak pub on Christmas Day 1886, next to Woolwich Arsenal station, trying to decide how to obtain kit. This was resolved by one of the original group who was a Nottingham Forest player; through his contacts they obtained a complete set of red shirts. As they sat in the Royal Oak, the founding fathers chose a new name; they combined the name of the pub with their place of work: Royal Arsenal. It was far grander than ‘Dial Square’ and would be the club’s name until 1891 when Woolwich Arsenal was formally adopted.

As is stated on the official Arsenal FC website: ‘At the time the fifteen men who had pooled their resources to buy a football wanted little more than a means of exercise and, no doubt, the social activity which accomplished it. Little did they know what they had started?’

The many wars and army campaigns all meant massive expansion of the Arsenal’s facilities, which began with The Warren of approximately 42 acres and eventually increased to almost 1,300 acres by the 1900s. The Arsenal imported its own coal by sea to convert into coal gas in its gasworks for furnaces, lighting and mechanical power generation.

For security and policing in the early nineteenth century, the army undertook the role and this was maintained up to 1844 when the Metropolitan Police took over following the theft of some nineteen brass howitzers, a costly haul in those days! The initial 1844 force comprised 1 inspector, 1 sergeant and 9 constables; a small force bearing in mind that the site was now about 800 acres. By 1871 the strength had risen to 3 inspectors, 10 sergeants, 68 constables and 1 detective. This police force was headquartered at the Beresford Gate Building and was maintained until 1927 when the War Department Constabulary took control.

Welfare appeared fairly high on the list of operational priorities. The Royal Arsenal was indeed a city in itself with named streets and some of the earliest housing estates were built for workers in the local Eltham district. They had their own six-bed hospital with surgery and mortuary, staffed by two surgeon majors, one surgeon and wound-dresser. Permission was granted for the hospital to keep a cow on Woolwich Common in order to have a supply of fresh milk; at that time this was used to treat cases of lead poisoning through handling explosives. To feed this many people at work it is claimed that there were over 200 places for eating and kitchens abounded to make more than 100,000 meals per day.

Most of the many workers employed at the Arsenal entered by the Beresford Gate, erected in 1829 in honour of Lord Beresford, Master General of Ordnance. The Arsenal wall surrounding the ‘Secret City’ was completed to Plumstead railway station in 1857, at which time about 10,000 men and boys were employed in the war effort then recently associated with the Crimean War. During the First World War this figure rose to over 72,700 by 30 December 1917, a large proportion of 25,700 being women as their menfolk were absent on active service.

Just imagine what it must have been like walking alongside the perimeter wall at night in 1916: the roar of the forge furnaces, the thump of the huge steam drop-hammers, designed by James Nasmyth, exerting a force of 1,000 tons on red-hot steel ingots, and the hum of thousands of leather belts driving the machine tools from overhead line-shafts.

The skills and crafts that abounded within the Arsenal were almost endless and, while it may be rather long-winded, I have included what I believe to be an accurate list: patternmakers, foundrymen, fettlers, blacksmiths, turners, millers, fitters, welders, inspectors, forgesmiths, slingers, millwrights, wheelwrights, carpenters, cartwrights, painters, electricians, pipe fitters, machine operators, leather-workers, tailors, saddle-makers, tracklayers, crane operators, chemists, engine drivers, engine firemen, stokers, plant operators, gasworks and power generation operatives, draughtsmen, dockers, stevedores and the famous ‘munitionettes’.

During the Second World War the number employed was much reduced owing to the need to disperse the armament factories as protection against air attacks. This cathedral of manufacturing was obviously a place full of the risks and dangers of heavy engineering; accidents were bound to happen. One most shocking example was reported in The Daily News (London for June 19 1903:

A terrible explosion occurred at Woolwich Arsenal yesterday morning, by which sixteen men lost their lives and seventeen were injured. The scene of the explosion was a shed where lyddite shells are filled. The noise attracted large crowds to the Arsenal gates, and among the number were many anxiuos relatives of the workmen when the full extent of the disaster was made known, and the names of the dead and injured posted up, some heart rendering scenes were witnessed. The accident was made the subject of inquiry in the House of Commons and the Secretary of State for was has promised to do all in his power to see that the families of the killed were provided for …

Another, fortunately non-fatal, incident was recorded, having taken place less than four years later:

Great Explosion at Woolwich Arsenal

On Monday, February 11 1907, the Magazine of the Chemical Research Department was blown to pieces at 3.20 a.m. followed by an explosion at the Gas Holder in the Arsenal. Great damage was done to property in the district, 30,000 window panes being shattered and ceilings, roofs wall & c. wrecked. Pieces of iron girder weighing ¾-cwt. were driven with terrific force into the hard ground half a mile distant. The explosion was heard 40 miles away; happily no lives were lost, but many persons suffered from shock.

From 1950 the Arsenal began to shrink visibly as defence work was transferred to private industry and the MOD began to release parts of the Arsenal site for public use. This process began in earnest in 1955 with the sale of 118 acres for a trading estate, and this was followed by the development of Thamesmead new town. The Arsenal officially ceased production on 1 April 1967.

Maps show that at its peak, the Arsenal stretched from the Woolwich Free Ferry to Crossness Point on the south bank of the Thames, over 1,300 acres. On the inside curve of this crescent-shaped boundary the wall stretched for 4.5 miles from the Woolwich ferry, past Plumstead railway station, along the south-east London sewage outfall to Abbey Wood and thereafter via Berber junction to Crossness Point Belvedere, crossing the marshes of Plumstead, Erith and Belvedere. The northern boundary was a riverfront of just over 3 miles and included four major piers, a truly massive industrial complex. Official records show that over 1,100 different buildings, including offices, shops, sheds and huts, once existed in the Royal Arsenal complex. To pinpoint the site’s boundaries today, Warren Lane still exists – left off the main Plumstead road just east of the Waterfront Leisure Centre – and Harrow Manor Way, which was at the extreme eastern end of the Arsenal, is now at the entrance to the Crossness Works of Thames Water Plc.

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the assistance of several individuals and organizations during the compilation of this book. At an organizational level these include in particular the Royal Arsenal Woolwich Historical Society, the Crossness Engines Trust, the National Archives, the London Metropolitan Library, the Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, the Stephenson Locomotive Society, the Greenwich Heritage Centre, the Industrial Railway Society, Chasewater Railway Museum and the Narrow Gauge Railway Society.

Individuals whose contributions deserve commendation include Robin Parkinson and Ian Bull for their valuable assistance with detailed research at the compilation stage, particularly in relation to information concerning the compressed air and internal combustion locomotives; Mike Swift for his loan of research carried out at the Arsenal during the 1960s and 1970s; Ray Fordham, John Alsop, Mike Christensen and David Ronald for their assistance in the sourcing of photographs; Robin Waywell for his help in the provision of information concerning the acquisition and disposal of locomotives and rolling stock; Dawn Whitehead and Anthony Coulls of the National Railway Museum; John Batts; Ray Hooley (Ruston Diesels Archivist); Mike Fell; Tony Hill; Phillip Clarke; the late Ron Redman; Russell Wear; Michael Bradley of the Historical Model Railway Society; Graham Lee, Henry Noon and Hazel Tomlinson of the Hunslet Archive at Statfold Barn: Allan Baker; Jim Greaves, John Tisdale, Don Townsley and Paul Coutanche.

Chapter One

The Formative Years of the Railway System

Transportation within the Arsenal in the early days had been by hand trolley or horse-drawn carts; much is recorded about the use of outside contractors, the costs involved and the rulings of using only artillery horses. The regulations governing the supply of horsed transport in the Royal Arsenal had by 1825 become quite stereotyped. Horses were in future to be supplied by the Woolwich Garrison, and only when unobtainable in requisite numbers was recourse to outside contractors permitted. It is assumed that these horses and their drivers had to be paid by the military, whether they worked or not. However, by the time of the Crimean War, it is possible that artillery horses would have been in short supply. The shadow of the railway as a modern means of transport was soon to become a reality.

The first ‘iron railway’ in the Royal Arsenal ran through the principal storehouses down to the shot-piles. This was approved by the Board on 14 May 1824 at a cost of £459 15s 0d, the sum being included in the Woolwich Estimate for 1825. The expression ‘iron railway’ was rather a euphemism considering the track was nothing more than a kind of tramway – probably cast-iron rails fastened to baulks of timber – over which trucks mounted on metal wheels could be pushed by hand or drawn by horses. Encouraged by the success of his first venture, Lieutenant Colonel Jones, CRE (Commander Royal Engineers) Woolwich District, submitted an additional estimate for extending the line to the guns.

On 30 November 1824, the CRE pointed out that a prerequisite for success was a carriage to travel over the tracks. This was approved on 9 December 1824, with Messrs Hall and Sons of Dartford (later to become J. & E. Hall Ltd) casting two sets of wheels and axles. On 23 March 1825, the Board approved the manufacture of ‘eight carts for the iron railway’ by the Royal Carriage Department. By October 1825 the railway as then planned was practically complete. No further additions were made until 1841 when in September of that year it was agreed that tracks should be laid down in the eastern tower of the Grand Storehouse and in the enclosure to the staircase at a cost of £40 5s 8d. Even this Arsenal railway, built for a common purpose, caused jealousy between the departments, which in 1850 still owned their own lines. Each considered no purpose but its own and refused to co-operate in the slightest degree. Stories abound of one department, on the night shift, even lifting the track laid by an adjacent department.

Meanwhile, railway affairs in the country had not remained static and one of the first lines to be contemplated in the south of England was between East London and Woolwich via Greenwich. The Board of Ordnance was unduly suspicious of this undertaking: instead of appreciating its future possibilities in the cheap and rapid conveyance of government stores, their conservative minds could not visualize any advantage, although they did admit that the town of Woolwich might benefit. Their one cry was that this newfangled means of locomotion might injure their property. On 8 March 1833 the CRE was ordered to keep a strict watch on this new venture – which had been passed unopposed by a Committee of the House of Commons – and make sure that its construction would in no way damage the Royal Arsenal or other Ordnance lands at Woolwich. Two years later the Board, after much correspondence with the Greenwich and Gravesend Railway Company, altered their views and realized that such a railway might confer advantages. They ascertained that their liability would be limited to providing access to the Arsenal by means of a track carried on arches.

It will be appreciated that this so-called Arsenal ‘railway’ completed in 1854–55 was no railway in the modern sense. The word denoted nothing more than a network of iron rails laid down between the wharf, the sawmill and the main storehouses, over which timber and other materials in specially adapted trucks could be moved with less effort than before by men and horses along a cobbled road. It was a self-contained system for internal use only and steam played no part in its performance, yet it did mark a definite stage in the mechanics of haulage, the evolution of which was to culminate in an up-to-date Arsenal railway.

It must have been factors such as these, coupled with the lessons learned from the Crimean War and the opening of the London-Dartford line in 1849, that eventually determined the War Department to lay out a proper Arsenal railway which, linked to the country’s mainline systems, would ensure the rapid transit of wartime stores and munitions. The determination to take this step can hardly be described as hurried and the authorities may well be acquitted of undue haste. The Royal Arsenal’s first internal railway to be linked with the mainline network proper appears to have been completed by 1859 and it is shown on a map dating from the early 1860s. At this juncture it must be emphasized that none of the Arsenal’s departments owned any mechanical means of motive power by this stage and that any mechanized working of rolling stock over Arsenal metals would have been undertaken by the South Eastern Railway’s locomotives.

During the industrial revolution of the 1800s, the embryo of narrow-gauge railways was developed in England by heavy engineering companies. One of the leaders was the Crewe Works of the London & North Western Railway and their Chief Mechanical Engineer, J.M. Ramsbottom, who was far-sighted enough to see the benefits of small railways for materials-handling in a manufacturing environment. He was a man of rare talent, a practical engineer and inventive genius; his introduction of narrow-gauge railway systems to provide internal transport in the works may seem mundane today, but at the time in comparison with methods then in use it was revolutionary. Materials brought into the works in standard-gauge wagons could then be unloaded directly onto narrow-gauge wagons brought alongside them and then taken into the shop where needed, in many cases directly to the place required. His choice of an 18in gauge at Crewe in 1862 was found to allow tight radius bends (14ft 6in radius) most suitable for use within workshops and foundries and at the same time allowing sufficient tonnages (up to 10 tons on two trucks) to be transported within the confines of an engineering works. The first 18in-gauge track was laid in the ‘Old Works’ in May 1862 using 21lb per yard rail and the principle extended during the following years into the ‘Steel Works’ and in ‘handworked’ form only into the ‘Deviation Works’ after significant economies of transport had been found to be achieved. Another hand-worked system of the same gauge was employed at Wolverton Carriage Works where the abundance of wood apparently forced the L&NWR to have second thoughts about using steam as a source of motive power.

Back in Woolwich it was not until 1866, apparently as a consequence of the publication of details of Ramsbottom’s work in Engineering, that orders were given to construct a proper 18in narrow-gauge railway within the Arsenal. This somewhat limited decision was given on the grounds that at the Crewe Works this small-scale set-up had only just proved its practical worth, that more extensive measures were unnecessary, and that the confined space in the shops and narrow alleyways of the Arsenal allowed for no other alternative. The success of the Crewe system led the military authorities to adopt 18in gauge as the size for internal works systems, that of Chatham Dockyard probably being one of the best known. Others included systems at Deptford Meat Market, the Royal Gunpowder Mills, Waltham Abbey, the School of Military Engineering and the eastern defences at Chatham and small hand- or animal-worked systems at some coastal installations in Kent, Sussex and other locations.

On 4 February 1871 the ‘Leeds Mercury’ recorded that on the existing lines of 4ft 8½in gauge wagon loads of materials were drawn to a limited extent by horses. A third rail was being laid to allow a locomotive to be used with suitable narrow gauge wagons for guns, shot, shell etc. to be taken from one workshop to other or moved about the yard. The engine was also arranged to draw or shunt the ordinary main line wagons [as evidenced by the buffers and drawgear fitted to the first 18 inch gauge locomotive ‘Lord Raglan’]. No doubt the fitting of dual-gauge buffers and couplings allowed the engine to be tested to the limit of its capabilities, but the experiment was soon abandoned. Instead, work proceeded on a new narrow-gauge railway using a different pattern of permanent way from the customary rails and sleepers. A series of experiments had been conducted at Chatham Dockyard with an 18in-gauge system constructed from cast-iron tram plates with a running surface, with countersunk grooves cast in the top face in which the wheel flanges would locate. The face between the ‘rails’ had a cast ‘chequer-plate finish’ to prevent the slip of the feet of whatever form of motive power was employed, horse or manpower. The system had even proved itself to be conducive to the employment of steam motive power, for in December 1871 Chatham Dockyard had taken delivery of its first steam locomotive Trafalgar, a sister to Lord Raglan, but not fitted with the ugly upward bufferbeam extensions designed to handle standard-gauge wagons as it would be over five years before Chatham Dockyard had a permanent standard-gauge railway. It was decided to adopt the tram plate system for the 18in-gauge railway at Woolwich and on 10 January 1873 the first section was opened. It extended from the West Wharf to the rear of the Shell Foundry and was considered sufficiently noteworthy to be featured in The Times:

The new line of rails for the rapid transport of stores which has just been laid in the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, was on Friday afternoon opened in the presence of a large number of the principal officers connected with the various departments. The miniature locomotive engine and carriages running upon a miniature rail, with a gauge of only eighteen inches, had quite a novel appearance, and is likely to be of great service. The rail, which at present extends only from the West Wharf to the rear of the Shell Foundry, is composed of iron plates cast in the Royal Laboratory Department, each of the plates being four feet long and weighing about 3½ cwt. The plates are laid on a bed of concrete, being keyed together to preserve their position, and the line appears firm and durable without the aid of sleepers or bolts, such as are used in the construction of ordinary railways. The line was designed and constructed by Major P.H. Scratchley, R.E., Inspector of Works, Royal Arsenal, who, accompanied by Col. Milward, C.B., R.A., Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory Department, Col. G.T. Field, R.A., Superintendent of the Royal Carriage Department, and several other officers, went on the trial trip on Friday afternoon from the laboratory offices to the Shell Foundry, and found it to answer well. The little engine, called the Lord Raglan, worked admirably drawing a string of trucks loaded with about twenty tons of metal, besides a car for passengers, and turning some rather sharp curves with the greatest ease. Should the result of the experiments made on Friday, which were thoroughly successful, be confirmed when the line is brought into constant use, it is understood to be the intention to extend the line throughout the entire Arsenal, and to supersede the transit of heavy goods by the aid of contract horses as far as possible.

Undoubtedly 10 January 1873 was a landmark on the Arsenal’s long road from birth to maturity. Lord Raglan had been born from a breed of small industrial locomotives best known as being developed to meet the needs of the slate-quarrying and coal industries. Together with other engines of the same basic class but with major modifications to its mainframe design, it was in regular use for forty-three years. Issue was, however, taken with regard to the true origin of the tram plate system by means of a letter to The Engineer from a Mr William H. Phipson on 21 January 1873:

Tram Plates at Woolwich Arsenal

Sir – In your last number, I noticed a paragraph (copied from The Times) concerning the new tram plates at Woolwich Arsenal, which is apt to mislead some of your readers. One would infer from it that the tram plates were designed by some of the officials connected with the Arsenal, which was decidedly not the case. They were designed some years back by Mr Edwin Bernays, resident civil engineer at Chatham Dockyard and Extension Works under whose able management they have been laid down at the latter dockyard. They proved such a success with the admirable little locomotive Trafalgar, and the use of bogie trucks, that a short time since drawings and metal templates were sent to Woolwich to assist the officials at the Arsenal to lay down a similar line. I must apologise for trespassing on your valuable space, but I think that it is only right to award the credit of a design to whom it is really due.

The Royal Arsenal Railways (RAR) version of the ‘tram plate’ system is clearly shown in the photographs of the East Turnery, No. 1 Forge and Blacksmiths Shop. Manufacture of the plates was undertaken by the Royal Laboratory foundry, each plate being 4 feet long and weighing about 3.5cwt. The plates were laid in a bed of concrete and keyed together to retain alignment without the use of sleepers (a refinement not adopted on the Chatham Dockyard system in its mature form) so that, being flush with ground level, they formed an ideal shop floor and provided excellent road crossing surfaces. Sections of cast-iron tramway plate from the Arsenal have been saved including straight panels, curves, a turn-out and even a diminutive turntable; these are currently to be found at the Royal Gunpowder Mills in Essex.

This photograph was used in a series of contemporary postcards and shows the blacksmith’s shop (C23) with workers posing for the photographer c.1914. Other points to notice are the hearths, the steam hammer, and the cast-iron 18in-gauge tram plates set into the floor, allowing the passage of rolling stock through the shop. (Greenwich Heritage Centre)

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