Enfield in the Great War

By Stephen Wynn

A historic profile of the London borough of Enfield during World War I and the conflict’s effect on the region and its people.
 
The Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield was famous for producing the Lee Enfield .303 Rifle, the standard issued rifle provided to all infantry soldiers in the British Army during the First World War. The factory was so prestigious that King George V visited it in April, 1915. By the end of the war, its workforce of more than 9,000 had produced more than 2 million rifles. Their gun helped play a big part in winning the war.
 
On July 7, 1917, the town was hit by a German air raid. Local anti-aircraft batteries did their best to thwart the enemy. Sadly, falling shrapnel from British anti-aircraft gunfire killed one woman, making her Enfield’s only resident to be killed in the town throughout the course of the war. A nearby young boy was also struck by some falling shrapnel but survived. After the incident, members of the Government Workers’ Union held a meeting to complain about the lack of a warning about the attack. Meanwhile, that month also saw a baker appear at Enfield Magistrates Court, charged under the Bread Order for selling loaves of bread that were over the permitted weight. For his heinous war time offence, he was fined the princely sum of ten shillings.
 
Through researching local newspapers of the day, along with letters, diaries, photographs, parish magazines, trade journals, contemporary printed pamphlets, and more, author Stephen Wynn details the stories of Enfield during this dramatic era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781473850774

Stephen Wynn

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

Book preview

Introduction

Enfield truly did do its bit for the war effort, with a number of factories in the town having undertaken work for the war effort. The Royal Small Arms Factory, which had been producing muskets, rifles and swords since it opened in 1895, ended up manufacturing one of the most reliable military rifles of all time in the form of the Lee Enfield .303 rifle.

There was also the Eley Cartridge Factory, situated in Angel Road, which played a major role in helping to provide the country with the ammunition it needed to fight a war, and the Ponders End Shell Factory, which made the casings for larger artillery shells, was one of the largest such factories of its kind in the country. What before the war had been the Genotin Blouse Factory, which made civilian type garments, predominantly for women, began making military uniform shirts.

The Bycullah Athenaeum Company was taken over by Klinger, and began producing large quantities of much-needed military uniforms and garments, along with the equally needed garments for the large number of wartime hospitals that were springing up all over the place.

And not forgetting Morson’s Chemical Factory which provided assistance in various areas of the war effort.

The book also looks at some of those ordinary men who, when called upon to serve their king and country, became extraordinary individuals, performing heroic acts of bravery that they could never have dreamt of carrying out, in the most difficult of circumstances, and sometimes at the cost of their own lives.

It also looks at examples of everyday, normal life throughout Enfield, or what actually passed for normality, and compared it with what was happening war-wise at the same time.

CHAPTER ONE

1914 – Starting Out

The war that everybody knew was going to happen, or put another way, the worst kept secret in the world, began on 4 August 1914, when Britain declared war on Germany, because of the latter’s refusal to remove her armies from Belgium. The reason for Britain intervening on Belgium’s behalf, came about as a result of the Treaty of London which had been signed in 1839. Under the terms of the treaty, Britain and the other European powers recognised and guaranteed Belgium’s independence and neutrality. Article 7 of the treaty obliged Belgium to remain neutral in any subsequent armed conflict between any of the other signatories of the treaty. The flip side of this meant those same nations were individually duty bound to guard that same neutrality and go to Belgium’s aid if she were attacked or invaded by another nation.

Since the Germans having invaded Belgian territory, albeit only to get to France, refused to leave, Britain had no alternative as laid down by the terms of the treaty, but to assist Belgium.

Enfield can most definitely claim to having done her bit during the First World War, both on the home front as well as all theatres of war the Allies were fighting in.

The Royal Small Arms Factory, which first opened in 1816 in the London Borough of Enfield in north London, made swords, muskets and military rifles for the British government. Although first manufactured in 1895 by James Paris Lee, a British inventor and arms designer, during the First World War the factory at Enfield was famous for producing the Lee-Enfield rifle, which was eventually the main weapon of choice of all British and Empire forces.

Lee-Enfield .303 Rifle.

A few facts about the Lee-Enfield rifle. It is 3ft 8½in long, and it was sighted up to 2,800 yards, allowing it to fire a bullet at a target some 2 miles away. It fires a .303 calibre bullet which, put into context, means that the barrel of the rifle could take a bullet that was about a ⅓in in diameter. It has a breechloading mechanism combined with a bolt action movement. The magazine, which can hold ten rounds of ammunition, is positioned beneath the stock. Once the trigger is pulled and a round discharged, the empty cartridge cases are ejected by pulling back the bolt action. To engage another round from the magazine, the bolt action has to be moved forward. In doing this the next cartridge is collected from the magazine and pushed into the breech chamber in the barrel of the rifle, ready for it to be fired again. A proficient soldier trained in the use of the weapon, could fire about twenty rounds per minute, or one round every three seconds. Such a rate of fire heats up the barrel of the rifle to burning point, but the soldiers’ hands were protected when handling the weapon by a wooden casing which encloses the barrel almost to the muzzle.

The downside of the Lee-Enfield rifle for soldiers of the First World War was its weight. At nearly 9lbs – more when the bayonet was attached – trying to take aim at a quickly advancing enemy could not have been that easy for a young British soldier, who most probably weighed no more than 9 stone. Add to that, cold, darkness and fear of one’s own imminent death, I doubt that it would have been a straightforward process.

The Royal Small Arms Factory was very much part of the local community. There was a church on the site, a school, as well as an inn. The factory even had its own football team, which helped enormously with the staff’s camaraderie and morale.

At the outbreak of the war there were some 5,000 men working at the Royal Small Arms Factory. By the middle of 1917, those numbers had increased to more than 9,500, men, women and boys. With increasing numbers of men required to fight in the war, more women were employed at the factory, and although they were reasonably well paid, the money they earned was less than men received for doing the same work. But that was normal working practice for the time.

At the height of the war, between 1916 and 1917, the factory was producing in the region of 6,000 rifles every week. Assuming production was round the clock it meant 857 rifles were manufactured per day (36 per hour).

The Royal Small Arms Factory, wasn’t the only place in the Enfield district that was utilised for the war effort. A huge number of factories in the immediate Enfield area were directly engaged in the war effort.

The name Ediswan came about as a result of the amalgamation, in 1883, of the Edison Electric Light Company, which had been established by Thomas Edison in 1878, and the Swan United Electric Light Company, established by Joseph Swan in 1881. The company, initially known as The Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, was at Ponders End, one of three locations later owned by the company. The Ponders End factory replaced the London Jute Works Factory, which had been a major employer in the town between 1866 and 1882. Over time, the factory increased in size, with its building covering more than 11 acres of land. It too employed a large workforce, most of whom were girls from the Enfield area.

The business’s mainstay was the manufacture of incandescent lamp bulbs but it made numerous other products including butter makers, mechanical pianos, appliances for the shipping, as well as the fledgling aviation industry. During the First World War production also turned to making much-needed radio parts.

Sir Joseph William Swan died on 27 May 1914, and Thomas Alva Edison died on 18 October 1931.

The Genotin Blouse Factory, which produced military shirts, and the Bycullah Athenaeum, which was taken over by Klinger, became involved in the manufacture of military clothing, along with hospital garments. This work was ongoing throughout the course of the war, as it is estimated that in total some 5.7 million men (not including Empire soldiers) served in the British Army between 1914 and 1918. Both the Genotin Blouse Factory and Klinger factories would have been working at full capacity almost constantly to keep up with the demand placed upon them.

During the First World War the main production at Morson’s Chemical Factory, located in Wharf Road, Ponders End, was antiseptic field wound dressings for British soldiers. The factory also produced large amounts of opiates, such as morphine and codeine, for pain relief in the treatment of wounded soldiers. Prior to 1916, there had been no restrictions on the possession and use of cocaine, opium, and other psychoactive drugs in Britain. It was only the introduction of the Poisons and Pharmacy Act 1908 that brought in certain restrictions on the possession and sale of these drugs and specified that only a pharmacist was permitted to sell these items, (and only to people he knew, or who had been introduced to him by others that he already knew and had similar dealings with). Other legislation bolstered the 1908 Act, such as the Defence of the Realm Act 1914, which brought with it a multitude of restrictions about what members of the public could and could not do during wartime, and the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920.

There have always been additional rumours, suggestions, or beliefs that work of a much more sinister nature was being carried out at the factory: that of the production of mustard gas. Whilst researching this book I have not found any conclusive evidence that this was actually the case, but then again I haven’t found any to confirm that it wasn’t either!

The first use of chemical weapons in the First World War was carried out by Germany on 22 April 1915, which arguably changed the face of modern warfare. At 5 pm on that late spring afternoon, German troops released 168 tonnes of poisonous chlorine gas, which a gentle breeze blew towards Allied defensive positions near Ypres, Belgium. French and Algerian forces holed up in the trenches didn’t stand a chance as the noxious yellow cloud landed on their positions. Within a matter of minutes, some 15,000 soldiers had become casualties of war, 5,000 of whom were killed, as the inhaled gas ate away their lungs. Disgusted as they were by the barbaric actions of the Germans, prohibited by the Hague Conventions of both 1899 and 1907, less than three months later, on 25 September 1915, at the Battle of Loos, the British army did exactly the same thing. Ironically the use by the British was somewhat of an own goal. Some of the released gas actually blew back across their own positions, whilst some of the gas canisters could not be opened. The Germans quickly responded with an artillery bombardment; some of these shells landed on some of the unused canisters, releasing the gas amongst the British troops.

British Soldiers preparing for a gas attack.

Ironically it was the use of gas masks as a deterrent to the chlorine gas attacks that led to the use of more sophisticated chemicals such as phosgene and the mustard gas purportedly manufactured at the Morson’s Chemical Factory. It was a gas which not only attacked the lungs but also burnt exposed skin.

It is understandable for both moral and security reasons that the British government would not have wanted it widely known they were manufacturing supplies of mustard gas, let alone the exact locations where they were making it. Part of this official secrecy included not using the words ‘mustard gas’. Instead, any official reference to it was referred to as ‘HS’ which was believed to mean ‘Hun Stuff’.

Germany first deployed mustard gas as a weapon in July 1917, just prior to the Third Battle of Ypres, when it was delivered in the form of artillery shells. It was totally different to chlorine. Although not an immediate killer, its main strength was that it did not dissipate that quickly at all. It settled in the soil and could remain there for weeks, still posing a long-term threat to anybody who came into contact with it. It particularly liked exposed skin or sweaty parts of the body. Eyes would be in particular danger from inflammation, as would the throat and the nasal cavities. It caused numerous incapacitating effects, including vomiting, coughing up of mucus from the lungs, as well as headaches, and it was something totally new for the army doctors to deal with.

If mustard gas was manufactured at Morson’s, those who worked there would have also been in danger as exposure to it, even in its liquid state, was still extremely hazardous. In January 1919, a Robert Leslie Beech, who was working at His Majesty’s Factory at Avonmouth, had been contaminated by some of the mustard gas. This occurred in August 1918 and six months later he was still unable to work. In an official report written by a Dr Frank Shuttlebotham, who had treated Mr Beech, he said the following:

I recommend a course of massage and electricity in this case but feel certain there will be some permanent disability. The course of treatment to produce any improvement will be very prolonged.

His report also contained the reference to. ‘HS.’

A staggering fact about mustard gas production, which highlighted just how dangerous it was, showed that during the six-month period that HM Factory Avonmouth was operational it employed a total of 1,100 people, of whom 710 reported sick with mustard gas poisoning. The factory had its own hospital, and in total had to deal with 5,600 such cases; an average of about 45 each day it was in production.

The first use of mustard gas by British forces was during an artillery bombardment, on 30 September 1918, in preparation of the Fourth Army’s infantry attack on the Hindenburg Line. A somewhat strange tactic in the circumstances due to how long the gas stayed on the ground, which British and Allied soldiers