Qualla: National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell

National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willednic at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. Their skin turned yellow. Working with TNT all day did that — the chemical absorbed through the lungs and the pores, jaundiced the liver, and the colour came out across the face and arms first. Munitions factories across Britain in 1916 and 1917 acquired a new vocabulary for the women they were hiring by the thousands: munitionettes when the language was polite, canaries when it was not. The biggest of the high-explosive plants was at Chilwell, in Nottinghamshire, on the road between Nottingham and Ashby de la Zouch. Over three years it filled more than nineteen million shells — slightly more than half of every high-explosive shell Britain fired during the First World War. The women who did the filling were the ones who turned colour.

Image: Willednic at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell: The Shell Crisis of 1915

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Sommerfield, CC BY-SA 3.0. The factory existed because in the spring of 1915 the British army on the Western Front had run out of ammunition. The political scandal that followed brought down the Liberal government, brought David Lloyd George into a new Ministry of Munitions, and produced the Munitions of W...

Image: Dave Sommerfield | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell: The Canary Girls

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Sommerfield, CC BY-SA 3.0. The labour force was overwhelmingly female. Britain's men were at the front, and the work — repetitive, dangerous, requiring careful hands — fell to women drawn in from Beeston, Stapleford, Long Eaton, and the surrounding villages. They handled TNT directly. The chemical stained ...

Image: Dave Sommerfield | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell: The Evening of 1 July 1918

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marcin Floryan, CC BY 2.5. On the evening of 1 July 1918, eight tons of TNT detonated in the Mixing House and the TNT Mill. The blast was heard twenty miles away. One hundred and thirty-four people were killed — every worker in the Mixing House and the TNT Mill, and others in surrounding buildings, includi...

Image: Marcin Floryan | CC BY 2.5

National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell: The Cause Never Confirmed

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Sommerfield, CC BY-SA 3.0. Scotland Yard investigated. Lord Chetwynd is alleged to have told them he was sure it was sabotage and to have named the man he suspected. The Home Office committee published its report on 7 August. Neither inquiry could identify a cause with confidence. The likeliest explanation...

Image: Dave Sommerfield | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Shell Filling Factory, Chilwell: What the Site Became

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Jamieson, CC BY-SA 2.0. At the end of the war in 1919, the factory site became a Royal Army Ordnance Corps depot. It is still inside military hands today, as Chetwynd Barracks. The pyramidal memorial that workmen built in 1919 to the dead became a Grade II listed building in 1988 and stands inside the b...

Image: Andy Jamieson | CC BY-SA 2.0