Everything about Royal Ordnance Factory totally explained
Royal Ordnance Factories (
ROFs) was the collective name of the
UK government's
munitions factories in and after
World War II. Until
privatisation in
1987 they were the responsibility of the
Ministry of Supply and later the
Ministry of Defence.
The ROFs were built in the
Re-armament period just before the start of the 1939-45 World War to enhance the capacity of the
Royal Arsenal,
Woolwich, the
Royal Gunpowder Factory (RGPF)
Waltham Abbey, Essex and the
Royal Small Arms Factory, (RSAF)
Enfield. These were sited in or near to
London and were considered to be vulnerable to aerial
bombing from continental
Europe.
The Royal Arsenal designed many of the ROFs and was also the for the
construction of all of the Rifles ROFs, the Medium Machine ROF and the Small Arms Ammunition ROFs. The Ministry of Supply, the
Ministry of Works and two other private companies were agents for the construction of the remaining ROFs.
ROFs, Agency Factories, Royal Navy Factories and other factories
A number of UK government-owned
Explosives Factories and
Filling Factories were built in
the Great War. These were known respectively as
National Explosive Factories (NEFs) or
National Filling Factories (NFFs) rather than ROFs, which term came into use in the
1930s. One NFF was reopened as a World War II Filling Factory under the name
ROF Hereford.
In both World Wars the
Royal Navy used its own government-owned factories to produce
explosives and
propellants, for naval guns. These were the
Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent (RNPF),
Monmouthshire, and the
Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, (RNCF)
Dorset. Both factories closed as explosive manufacturing sites after World War II; and, naval propellants were then manufactured at
ROF Bishopton and filled at
ROF Chorley and
ROF Glascoed.
Other World War II
munitions factories in the UK were built and owned by
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). These
ICI Nobel Explosives owned factories were not considered part of the Ministry of Supply's Royal Ordnance Factory organisation and they were not called ROFs. ICI also managed munitions factories constructed with Ministry of Supply funding. These were known as "Agency Factories" and three of them became part of
Royal Ordnance upon the ROFs' privatisation.
Some of the ROF Filling Factories built later during World War II were government-owned but managed, as Agency Factories, by private companies unconnected with the explosives industry. For example
Joseph Lyons & Co ran
ROF Elstow throughout the war. Other Filling Factories were run by
Imperial Tobacco Co Ltd,
Courtaulds Ltd,
The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), Metal Closures Ltd and
Lever Brothers.
Siting and building the ROFs
The new ROFs were to be built in areas which regarded as "relatively safe", which until
1940 meant from
Bristol in the south and then west of a line that ran from (roughly)
Weston-super-Mare in
Somerset northwards to
Haltwhistle,
Northumberland; and then northwestwards to
Linlithgow in
Scotland. The South, South East and East of
England were regarded as "dangerous" and the
Midlands area, including
Birmingham as "unsafe". This definition of "safe" area was later changed, and in 1940 ignored in the case of ROF Chorley (see Hornby, 1958, Chapter IX).
Siting of the individual ROFs north and west of this line was of vital importance. ROFs involved with
explosive manufacture or filling needed, on safety grounds, to be located away from centres of
population. However they needed access to good transport links, such as
railways; the availability of adequate workers within reasonable travelling distance; a plentiful guaranteed supply of clean process water; and (to avoid the danger of frozen explosives) tended to be located at or just above
sea Level. Some ROFs located in
Wales and Scotland were the result of
political lobbying as these areas had high
unemployment rates in the 1930s.
The ROFs were guarded by what was to become the
Ministry of Defence Police Force.
Types of ROFs
There were six generic types of Royal Ordnance Factory:
The three main types were: Engineering, Filling and Explosives.
The largest ROFs tended to be the Explosive ROFs and the Filling Factories as these needed an explosives safeguarding zone around the
perimeter of the factory; as well as
separation, or reduced separation and traverses, between buildings.
ROF Bishopton occupied over 2,000
acres (8 km²) and
ROF Chorley was 900 acres (3.6 km²).
Each ROF tended to be self-contained, apart from its raw
materials: with their own coal-fired
power stations, for generating
steam for heating and
process use, and
electricity via high-pressure steam
turbines if needed; engineering workshops;
plumbers and chemical plumbers;
leather workers; electricians; buildings and works departments;
housing and
hostels for workers;
canteens;
laundries and medical centres.
The UK's ROFs were set up and operated as production factories. The design of
explosives,
propellants and
munitions was carried out at separate government-owned research and development establishments such as the Research Department, which was initially based at the
Royal Arsenal,
Woolwich and then
Fort Halstead, in
Sevenoaks,
Kent; and at PERME Waltham Abbey, Essex, which later moved to became RARDE Fort Halstead.
Post-war fate of the ROFs
Closure of temporary ROFs
A number of the ROFs were designated
temporary, for use during the war's duration only. They closed shortly after the end of World War II. Other ROFs were designated
permanent and they continued working until quite recently. Some of the
permanent ROFs closed in the late
1950s (after the end of the
Korean War) and others closed in the
1970s.
The temporary ROFs, or ROFs which closed in the 1950s and 1970s, tended to be taken over by other Government Departments. Some closed ROFs, such as the
Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent, were retained by the Ministry of Defence as ammunition storage areas; others became Government Industrial Estates or Trading Estates; others were used as
brown field sites to build
Prisons or Open Prisons.
Part of
ROF Thorpe Arch became the
Boston Spa depository of the
British Library. A Hostel at
ROF Swynnerton became a
Training School for the
General Post Office (GPO) Telephones, which later became
British Telecom. Now called Yarnfield Park Training and Conference Centre and run by
Accenture.
ROF Elstow was taken over by the
CEGB and became a storage depot.
The remainder, apart from
ROF Cardiff and
ROF Burghfield, were privatised in
1984 and became
Royal Ordnance PLC.
Privatisation of the ROFs
As part of its
privatisation process in the 1980s, the UK Government transferred some of the, formerly separate, research and development capability of the
Defence Research Establishments into the ROFs. Other parts of the UK's defence research and design capability were later closed down; remained with the UK
Ministry of Defence, as
Dstl; or became part of
QinetiQ.
On
2 January 1985 the majority of the Royal Ordnance Factories were vested in the UK Government-owned company
Royal Ordnance; it was later bought by
British Aerospace.
The small number of ROFs involved in
nuclear weapons production,
ROF Burghfield and
ROF Cardiff, were removed from ROF management and didn't pass over to Royal Ordnance upon privatisation. They were transferred to the control of AWRE; which later became the
Atomic Weapons Establishment.
The
Ministry of Defence Police left most of the ROFs on or within a few years of privatisation.
21st Century
Buildings and earthworks on the explosive areas of
ROF Chorley were almost completely removed by demolition and land remediation. The site is part way through the process of becoming a new residential and light industrial area -
Buckshaw Village - although some buildings on the administration site were retained and used for other uses. They include an adult college.
The former
ROF Elstow is also undergoing the same process and will become a new town -
Wixams.
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