Site Report

WoSASPIN 42238 NS46NW 36 centred 4480 6790

This World War I ammunition filling factory is situated on the W side of the railway and M8 motorway SE of Bishopton. The area has now been afforested, but a number of concrete hut and building bases can still be seen.
J Guy 2001; NMRS MS 810/11, Part 2, 177-8
NMRS Report date for above text 31/05/01

Georgetown Filling Factory was constructed in September 1915 to produce munitions on 250 acres of agricultural land at Fulwood near Erskine, by Robert McAlpine for the Ministry of Munitions. Georgetown was the fourth and last National Filling Factory (NFF) commissioned by then Minister of Munitions Lloyd George. The factory was officially called the Scottish Filling Factory, but was semi-officially renamed Georgetown in honour of Lloyd George when he became Prime Minister in December 1916.

No. 1 Factory
NFF Georgetown was initially built as a single factory to assemble 40,000 items of Quick Firing (QF) ammunition, and 200,000lbs of Breech Loading (BL) cartridges per week. The factory layout included the following: rooms for the filling and assembly of fuzes, gaines (i.e. chemical boosters, such as tetryl, employed between a detonator such as mercury fulminate and a high explosive. HE shells used in WWII had to be very stable to prevent accidental detonation, and gaines ensured that more stable detonators worked reliably) and primers; rooms for the assembly of cartridges and ammunition; magazines for TNT, cordite, black powder, and finished ammunition; stores; workshops; offices; shifting houses; canteens; boiler house; laundry; fire-hose drying tower; staff and guard accommodation, and a railway station. Most of these facilities were linked by covered walkways which allowed workers to make their way into the factory without being exposed to the elements.

Railway sidings were present on the site prior to the existence of NFF Georgetown but the construction of the factory meant the expansion of the railway system. This expansion included the creation of Georgetown (or Houston) Station, which was a private station built in 1915 to serve the factory. The station was designed to accommodate trains carrying up to one thousand passengers and included covered walkways providing access to the factory. Supplies were brought in to the factory by a standard gauge railway linked to the main Caledonian Railway line. A trolley system conveyed the supplies to the various workshops and finished ammunition was handed over to the Army Ordnance Department (AOD) and dispatched by rail.

No. 2 Factory
By February 1916 there were problems with procuring expensive TNT explosive, so Lloyd George authorised the NFF Georgetown to use amatol, an 80/20 and 40/60 mix of ammonium nitrate and TNT. The first Georgetown factory had not been designed to conduct this type of filling manufacture, so a second factory had to be built. The No. 2 Factory would eventually support the No. 1 Factory 1n the production of both High Explosive (HE) and QF ammunition.

Construction of No 2 Factory started in March 1916 and was designed to fill 160,000 18-pounder, 15,000 60-pounder, 50,000 4.5 inch and 15,000 6-inch HE shells per week, along with the 285,000 fuzes and gaines required for these shells. Construction of the second factory brought the total factory area to 540 acres within a 5-mile perimeter fence.

The No. 2 Factory was laid out so that the ‘dead’ material could be transported and stored in the southern portion of the site, the ‘live’ material on the eastern portion, while assembly took place at the centre with the AOD stores located to the north. Access was provided via a covered walkway from Georgetown Station to various buildings, including general offices, AOD Offices, canteens, shifting houses, a laundry and an ambulance station. As well as stores the working elements of the Factory 1ncluded the Disintegrating House, the Assembling Rooms, magazines, the Incorporating House, the Press House and the Finishing House.

The original factory became known as the No. 1 (Cartridge) Factory with the second the No. 2 (Shell Filling) Factory. The combined factory was constructed adjacent to existing sidings on the Caledonian Railway’s Glasgow to Greenock Line. No. 1 Factory was located on the western edge of the railway, bounded to the south by the Renfrew to Bridge of Weir road, the west by the Dargavel Burn and the north by agricultural land. The No. 2 Factory lay immediately to the west of the No. 1 Factory with the extents of both factories separated by the Dargavel Burn. Many buildings once related to the factory, in particular those providing accommodation and barracks, lay to the south of the boundary fence.

Common functions
The enlarged factory employed up to 10,000 workers and had two railway stations and its own branch line. Most of the workers commuted to and from work using the factory’s own trains, which would also deliver the empty shell cases to be filled, and collect the filled and completed munitions. As the factory only filled and assembled the finished shells, and was not involved in the manufacture of their contents, the explosive filling materials also had to be delivered along this line.

The factory had a good social life, and its own magazine, the Georgetown Gazette. This featured photographs of workers, included sketches of the filling operations, and also covered the visit of Winston Churchill to NFF Georgetown.

Decommissioning of NFF Georgetown
On the conclusion of the Great War plans were drawn up to convert the Georgetown area to a permanent Garden City; however, these schemes were not enacted. The factories closed in November 1918, when they were demobilised and handed over to the military authorities. The schedule of the progressive demolition of the factories is uncertain, but the layout and organisation were carefully mapped so that lessons could be learnt should a similar factory be required in the future.

Although the wooden buildings and covered ways were believed to have been demolished almost immediately, a Luftwaffe photograph taken during 1939 shows a number of buildings still standing on the site including the TNT magazines, and these may have been used temporarily for ROF Bishopton. Although one building survived into the early 2000s, all have now been demolished, with many surviving as concrete slabs, some with wall footings surviving in association.
Information from Rees, T., Rathmell Archaeology Ltd, 05/04/14
Entered WoSAS (MO'H) 05/02/2014