The Gun Cotton and Munitions factories
1861 Thomas Prentice erected a factory on the bank of the River Gipping, near Crosses Mill, to manufacture gun cotton in accord with was termed the Von Lenk process i.e. a long cotton yarn was dipped in a mixture of nitrated cotton that was placed in wire baskets and immersed in running water and left for several weeks.
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After several rebrandings, see below, in 1898 the company began making Cordite on a site to the north of the railway line. This was extended in 1904 to provide for the manufacture of smokeless powders for shotguns, rifles and revolvers.
Products were transported by barge and rail to Ipswich. The Archangel was the New Explosives Company own ocean going barge. transporting explosives to Russia. Though by 1910the road became the preferred method for transport.
On an afternoon in January 1867 Elijah Francis had his left hand blown off at the Gun Cotton Works. He was ramming some mining cartridges, and instead of using a wooden mallet he was using a metal hammer, contrary to orders, when the cartridge burst and inflicted the injury. He was taken home, and Mr. Freeman amputated the arm just below the elbow. He is going on well. The poor fellow has a wife and six children. A lad who was with him when the cartridge burst escaped uninjured.
In 1870 the factory changed its name to the Patent Safety Guncotton Company ltd in acknowledgement of a new process using cotton waste, with Eustace Prentice as managing director.
At the time of the infamous Gun Cotton Explosion of August 11th, 1871 the factory stood in Stowupland, on the bank of the River Gipping. Although workers travel led to work in the factory from Stowupland we were fortunate none of our people were killed or recorded as seriously injured. We know from the census that a David Stockings (age 20) from Saxham Street worked as a labourer at the Gun Cotton factory in 1871, his younger brother Thomas (age 18) worked at the Iron Foundry. 10 years later the family had moved from Saxham Street, and the men are all recorded as working on the land.
FRIDAY 11th AUGUST 1871 – ALL 3 MAGAZINES EXPLODED SIMULTANEOUSLY
Magazines contained explosives as dry compressed discs in total 13 ½ tons. The crater formed was oval in shape 35 yards long, 22 yards wide, and 9 to 10 feet deep.
One hour later a second explosion occurred killing yet more including Edward and William Prentice
13 people died and the noise was heard at a distance of 30 miles, and the shock felt over a radius of 7 miles.
It was put down to mishandling or rough handling or sabotage by contamination.]
After 1871 the factory was rebuilt with a larger and improved plan and renamed Stowmarket Guncotton Ltd
In 1875 ‘The Gun Cotton Works: The company have concluded a contract with the French government for a large quantity of gun cotton, amounting to many thousand pounds worth, During the execution of the order two French officers will be stationed in the town’. (from EADT – Times Past 27/9/1975 )
In 1881 it was renamed The Explosives Company Ltd
In July 1885 it became the New Explosives Company Ltd
And then after the 1915 explosion it was renamed the Necol Industrial Collodions Ltd
During the 1st World War the number of employees increased from 500 to 2000 employees working in continuous shifts and commuting from Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds on special trains.
In 1914, 400 employees went on strike. They were paid 15s 11d for a 54 ½ hr week whilst other explosive workers were paid at least 10s a week more. Over nearly 4 months wages were increased by a farthing an hour.
This photo was reproduced in the EADT in 1980, it shows the Stowmarket Explosive Company’s Ladies Football team of 1914 -18. They are pictured here taking part in a match to support The Suffolk Prisoners of War Fund.
In 1978 this 1917 photo was reproduced in a local newspaper
In his unpublished manuscript “As I Remember It, the Rev Brame gave a potted history of Stowupland’s Explosive Industry, this was one of his digressions when writing about the families bicycles.
” This was the time when we could buy fast-drying enamels, made of the new collodion type of solvent. This came from a development in chemical production from wood pulp, in a munitions factory taken over by the firm of Courtaulds, who made the first artifical silk for underwear and stockings. Nowadays it’s called Rayon, then it monopolised the silk stockings market, until it was knocked off its perch by Dupont Nylon in the 1940s. So there it was, a little factory on the River Gipping, a little way out of the town of Stowmarket, making the most powerful explosive known at the time, TNT, and as sidelines artificial silk and Robbialac, the miracle enamel that would dry in ten minutes at the most…it has taken me nearly as much time to get to the point, that we used Robbialac to paint our bikes, as it took for the paint to dry.”
