Womens Role Munitions During World War One Gretna Devils Porridge

Devil's Porridge Exhibit - Womens Roles in Munitions during World War One

During the early stages of the First World War the crisis in munitions shortage was quickly realised and acted upon under the hand of Lloyd George who was made Minister for Munitions and charged with sorting the problem. A site was looked for to house a huge cordite making munitions factory, and Eastriggs to the west of Gretna Green seemed the perfect Green Field site - it was shadowed by a number of hills (Cumbrian Mountains, the Pennines and the Cheviots) so had good cloud cover to deter attack. The area also benefitted from a good railway service, little other industrial development and those in command knew there would be a huge pool of workers both locally and further afield around Scotland.

The Dornock Munitions Factory was built at Gretna in 1915 and it stretched from Dornock across Eastriggs and Gretna to Longtown. Many of the 30,000 migrant worker that came to do the dangerous work at Dornock Munitions Factory were women - as the poem above reflects, the higher wages for working here were a big pull. Many of these working class women had been in domestic service - earning five pounds a week making munitions would have far exceeded wages in domestic service and other factory work.

Journalist and feminist Rebecca West visited the HM Factory Gretna in 1916 and wrote an article - The Cordite Makers. In it she give details on the long hours worked and dangers, but it's clear that women workers here wanted the long hours to earn the extra money, "Every morning at six, .... 250 of these girls are fetched by a light railway from their barracks on a hill two miles away. When I visited the works they had already been at work for nine hours, and would work for three more. This twelve-hour shift is longer than one would wish, but it is not possible to introduce three shifts, since the girls would find an eight-hour day too light and would complain of being debarred from the opportunity of making more money; (Rebecca West, 1916).

The Devil's Porridge Exhibition, Daleside Butterdales Road, Eastriggs, Annan, Dumfries and Galloway. For information Telephone. 01461 700021 and browse the Devil's Porridge Exhibit's webguide linked right.

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World War 1 Weapons Production - Cordite Dangers & Womens Lives in Wartime

"There was a Danger Inspector came to see the engine houses every now and again, to see if we were alright I remember once a girl was killed in the factory at the acid point. When the girl was killed I was on the day shift and I was in bed at home in Annan. We heard the explosion all the way from there .. we went outside the door and could see the flames rising all the way from Annan. They said that dirt had gotten into the gun-cotton and that was what caused it. The girl who was killed was a chargehand, she got all her girls out, and she was last to come out, and she was caught, she was the only one killed". (Mary Ellen Hind, Munitions worker at Dornock from 1916).

Various parts of the Gretna munitions complex produced different materials - separated deliberately to reduce the likelihood of explosions. The western part of the factory at Dornock covering 1203 acres produced nitric and sulphuric acids, nitroglycerine and gun cotton. The nearby township of Eastriggs emerged to serve this part of the factory. It was at Dornock that nitroglycerine and nitro-cotton were mixed together by mostly women workers to produce the cordite paste. This cordite paste was then shifted to the Mossband area where mineral jelly was added, then it was gelatinized with the use of alchohol and ether serving as solvents. It was then shaped into cords and dried in stoves. Cordite was the final product then packed into cartridge cases of artillery ammunition. When Cordite is fired it burns profusely giving off gases which fire shells from guns.

It was the mix of nitroglyceerine with gun-cotton, kneaded together into what was referred to as a kind of 'Devil's Porridge'. This was a particular danger point as the slightest introduction of heat during this process could cause an explosion. Mary Ellen Hind talks about having to watch the temperature, "Well we sat watching the temperature and we had to get up every half hour and see what the temperature was. If it was too high we had to open the door and put a wedge in it, to cool down the building, if it was the opposite then we had to close it".

Uniforms worn by munitions workers were fireproof and with protective soft footwear (such as wellingtons). Explosions did happen and women were badly injured and some died. It was dangerous work, with another danger point being the fumes given off by the ether and alcohol solvents. Rebecca West hightlighted in her post-visit article that '..there is the cold fact that they face more danger every day than any soldier on home defence ..The girls who take up this work sacrifice almost as much as men who enlist; for although they make on average 30s a week they are working much harder than most of them, particularly the large number who were formerly domestic servants, would ever have dreamed of working in peacetime".

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Gretna First World War Munitions Factory - Women's Memories in Munitions Factory Work

Women workers at the Dornock Factory lived in barrack blocks and life there was compared to being in the army. A number of civic buildings and accommodation buildings were rapidly constructed in the Gretna and Dornock area including laundries, bakeries, halls, institutes and reading rooms, hostels, shops, banks, post offices, a cinema and hostels. Workers only got one day off a week - usually spent sleeping, "I went to Gretna in 1916, we lived in hostels, just wooden huts with long dormitories and a large living room .. (no comforts). Each girl had a small bedroom .. it was very cold. We worked in three shifts and we went to work in trains. We made cordite. We changed into overalls and hats to cover all our hair and shoes that must not touch the ground outside where we worked.. It was an awful job .. if on night shift - cold rain, dark and lonely, pushing the heavy trucks, and rats running around your feet. Sometimes the girls were drunk with fumes from the cordite and had to be taken to the sick bay to sleep it off". (Mrs Cooper of Sunderland, from 'Gretna's Secret War by Gordon L. Routledge available at the Devil's Porridge Museum).

"If you can come and help to make munitions, And in a crowded Factory Hostel live, If you can work and never want positions That Ministry of Munitions do not give; If you can smile when Cresol fumes are blowing Across your face in an annoying way; If you can slave - no temper ever showing - and never long to reach the end of Day;

If you can rise at half-past five and hurry To catch a beastly train that goes at six; If you can squelch through snow and never worry - In fact, count harships absolutely nix; If you can really eat a Canteen dinner, and never once grouse or complain, You then will be an A.1, first-class winner, And all respect and admiration gain". (If! To the Girls of the Cordite Laboratory, Mossband, in "Munitions Workers Poems" available at the Devil's Porridge Museum).

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