Royal Ordnance Factory Leeds, first opened as a munitions factory in December 1915 and opened as an ROF in January 1936, was one of a number of Royal Ordnance Factories created at the start of the Second World War . I remember lads coming home from Dunkirk, I helped WRVS to feed and sew stripes on their clothes. ROF Aycliffe; Filling Factory No. 1940 1949. During WW1 Greenwood & Batley are known to have produced in excess of 705 million .303 Mk 7 cartridges. The Badcock Armoury closed. WRA = Winchester Repeating Arms - New Haven, Connecticut. Post-War: many of the factories were closed, although some were reopened for the Korean war. ROF Brackla; Filling Factory No. 915.78 GBX Go to investor center Data is from the London Stock Exchange and may be delayed by 15 minutes or more. 1972 Cambridge Theatre/Cinema destroyed by fire. 1858 Page Bank Colliery disaster 10 miners killed. The BBC is not responsible for the content of any external sites A Pretoria West Metal Pressings Pty., Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA. The end of World War II, however, saw this industrial activity greatly curtailed and hard times returned, although without the severity of the earlier pre-war years. It began production of .303 Ammunition in 1941 initially with the headstamp code of two arrows replacing these in 1942 with the code SR. RNRA Rhodesia National Rifle Association. 1913 Queen Mary visits the town. The last .303 ball cartridges manufactured at Radway Green in 1973 were loaded with nitro-cellulose powder and not cordite, cordite having last been used for the .303 cartridge in the 1960s. He was in a parachute regiment when Italy capitulated. 1942 1942 1943 1944 Tikkakoski Arsenal - Finland Tikkakoski was the first private arms manufacturer in Finland. RG Royal Ordnance Factory, Radway Green, Cheshire, UNITED KINGDOM. U = Utah Ordnance Plant - Salt Lake City, Utah. Town Hall refurbished. Known to have produced nitro-cellulose loaded .303 cartridges in: 180 gr jacketed soft point sporting ammunition, 150 gr jacketed soft point sporting ammunition. It may be of some interest to learn that during the First World War more than 7,000 million Mk 7 ball cartridges were produced by British factories alone. Known to have produced Ilmavoimat Konekivaarin Patruuna Kal 7.70 machine gun cartridges, which are interchangeable with the .303 cartridge in: W or WRA Winchester Repeating Arms Co., New Haven, Conn., UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. UT = Utah Ordnance Plant - Salt Lake City, Utah. 1989 Byers Green Village Hall extended and refurbished. This company was first formed in 1862 and manufactured percussion caps. Tracer, armour piercing and incendiary cartridges were adopted by the British Government during 1915, explosive bullets having been approved for service in 1916. Even by 1938 the situation had improved little. This of course was not the total number of .303 rifles produced in the UK during WW2, as the SMLE Rifle No 1 was still being manufactured, BSA alone producing nearly a quarter of a million No 1 Mk III and III* rifles. 1899 Control of the factories was returned to the Ordnance Department. Later, Binchester became one of the vills of the Earl of Northumberland who held it until 1420 when it passed to the Nevilles who finally forfeited it with other lands in 1569. CAC Colonial Ammunition Co., Melbourne, AUSTRALIA. Royal Ordnance Factory. These houses were, unusually, semi-detached and arranged in a chequerboard layout, very much in contrast to the dreary terraces that were then the standard. Over the next 2 years about 40000 was invested in re-equipping the factory[3]. In 1935 the .303 O Mark 1 Observing round was introduced for use in machine guns. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Used the same annulus colour coding as United Kingdom for ammunition supplied under contract to the British Government during both the First and Second World Wars. Spennymoor Circus and Novely Hippodrome opened. .303 cartridges known to have been produced with the Blackpole headstamped cases from 1941 to 1945 are: Cartridge Rifle Grenade, Ballistite H Mk 1Z. 2003 Spennymoor Cemetery Memorial Garden officially opened. ROF Blackpole; SAA Factory No. The run-down of the mining industry, however, was nevertheless a serious blow. those of the BBC. This factory manufactured cartridges for use by the British Army in India as well as the Indian Army. Used code U from 1939 1961 and SAM thereafter. MEXICO Fabrica National de Munitions, Mexico City, MEXICO. Following experimentation to increase the effectiveness of the ball cartridge the British Government adopted a 215 grain cupro-nickle jacketed hollow pointed bullet in 1897 as the Cartridge S.A. Ball .303 inch Cordite Mark III. This is a list of Royal Ordnance Factories . 1987 Middlestone Moor Community Centre extended. When cap annulus colours were first introduced in 1918 the Ball Mk VIIz had the annulus coloured black while the Ball Mk VII had the entire cap area coloured purple. Although these days of rapid industrialisation and rapid growth of population were days of ignorance and squalor, they also saw the 19th century drive for education and religion. Beretta Group owns now the Tikka arms brand. My sister lived in Billingham which was badly bombed, the sky was full of barrage balloons to protect the ICI factory. The land on which Spennymoor now stands was once a vast expanse of moorland covered with thorn and whin bushes (Spenny Moor). Known to have produced nitro-cellulose loaded 7.7 x 56 M917 ball ammunition, which is interchangeable with the .303 cartridge, AF Small Arms Factory, Footscray, AUSTRALIA. World War II had diverse effects upon the town. 1807 Small arms manufacture moved to the Royal Manufactory of Small Arms at Lewisham. Known to have produced nitro-cellulose loaded .303 cartridges in: Cartridge Rifle Grenade, H Mk 7Z, M11 and M12, FNM Fabrica Nacional de Municoes e Armas Legeiras, Moscavide, PORTUGAL. Known to have produced .303 cartridges in: KF or K Indian Government Ammunition Factory Kirkee (or Kirkee Arsenal), near Poona, INDIA. manufacturing in Britain. El Alamein. List of sites of Royal Ordnance Factories. 1985 There were 12 Royal Ordnance Factories still in operation. 2005 BAe Land Systems Munitions and Ordnance employs about 1650 people at sites including the former RO sites at Birtley, Bishopton, Bridgwater, Chorley, Glascoed, Radway Green and Shrivenham. Three closed in 1924 and the strike saw another two fail. this was examining and weighing capsules to be used in Burma for killing mosquitoes and fleas. This distinction was abandoned in May 1920 and thereafter all ball rounds had the purple annulus. Spennymoor Leisure Pool opened cost 1.6m. ROF Blackburn. manufacturing in Britain. The name Binchester is the usual Saxon corruption or adaptation of the Roman site name. Early site history and production [ edit] First World War [ edit] We were chosen because we had produced the most cases in a certain time and had been neither late or absent. Johnson, who made a fortune out of it. asked the Minister of War Transport (1) whether he will provide omnibus facilities to enable girls to travel from Ferryhill and Merrington to the Royal Ordnance factory at Spennymoor in time to commence work at 7.30 a.m., and an omnibus service back to Ferryhill at 5 p.m.; 1940 German H.E. Royal Arsenal Factory No 1. I worked at the Royal Ordnance factory at Spennymoor. We sometimes danced and had concerts given by our work mates. Download. 1921 Royal Ordnance took over the National Filling Factories. US Lend Lease production for the UK was 1,196,706 No 4 rifles whereas the total British wartime production of this rifle was 2,021,913. The Spennymoor ammunition was filled at the Royal Ordnance Factory, Aycliffe, Durham. public. It began production of .303 ammunition in 1941 initially with the headstamp code of two arrows replacing these in 1942 with the code SR. They had a filling factory at Abbey Wood and later during the 1939-45 war a filling factory at Farnham. Other methods include colouring of part or the whole of the cartridge case. The cases were made by BSA for Maxim machine guns in the 1890s. In 1918 this factory was capable of producing at the rate of about 10 million rounds per month. SR = Royal Ordnance Factory - Spennymoor, United Kingdom. 1930 New Tivoli cinema opened at a cost of 15,000. This producer is now known as Metallwerk Elisenhutte GmbH Nassau. Amongst the many hundreds of guns produced during his administration, which were at least 50% more powerful than the guns they superseded, not a single failure or accident of any kind occurred. UT = Utah Ordnance Plant - Salt Lake City, Utah. The town was founded over 160 years ago. Object details Category Weapons and ammunition Related period Second World War (production), Second World War (association) Creator Royal Ordnance Factory Spennymoor (GB & Durham) Production date In WWI the Ministry of Munitions took over responsibility for manufacture of explosives (see H. M. Explosive Factories) and for filling of munitions (see National Filling Factories and National Projectile Factories, etc). For any other comments, please Contact Us. I worked at the Royal Ordnance factory (ROF) at Spennymoor. Small Arms Ammunition - This type of factory was, in essence, an Engineering factory which specialised in the production of small arms shell casings. D Dominion Cartridge Co., Brownsberg, Quebec, CANADA. I worked at the Royal Ordnance factory (ROF) at Spennymoor. Spennymoor United AFC founded. In 1968 work commenced on the 1,009 houses here and this allowed the clearance of 500 unfit houses as well as the provision of housing work workers coming to the new factories. The production of these raw materials at Coulsons engineering works, Kenmirs furniture factory and newly-opened brickworks at Todhills were the main, if limited, sources of employment.Unemployment was over 33%. Some of the largest horse-race meetings in the North took place on the moor, and miners and their families attended in all their holiday splendour. More workers came from Wales and Lancashire with the opening of the mine at Page Bank (ten lives were lost in a pit fire here in 1858), and with the sinking of a new pit at Tudhoe in the 1880s. Known to have manufactured .303 cartridges in: US United States Cartridge Co, Lowell, Mass., UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Smart and Brown opens on Ordnance Factory site. Known to have produced .303 cartridges in: MJB Incendiary Annexe to MJ Hendon, AUSTRALIA. Known to have produced nitro-cellulose loaded .303 cartridges in: W-W Winchester Western Division of Olin Industries, New Haven, Conn., UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1968 Bessemer Park Housing commenced (1,009 houses). The assets of the company were taken over in 1918 by Explosives Trades Ltd which soon after was renamed Nobel Industries, this new organisation having been founded to amalgamate most of the explosives and ammunition interests of the many separate companies operating in Britain at that time. 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