The blog began by an exploration of how the British army was supplied in WW1 and WW2 and resulted in three books: Ordnance, War on Wheels and Dunkirk to D Day. I am now exploring the companies which supplied the army and how they and others shaped the manufacturing world. This has produced two books: How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines.
In my quest to discover Who Built Britain, I came across a wonderful record in the Derbyshire Record Office relation to my mother's family building company, F. Perks & Son.
In the Second World War, Central Ordnance depots around Britain ensured that the army, anywhere in the world, was supplied with the armaments and vehicles they needed. This link is to a map of where they were. The work of the depots is described in more detail in this link.
Chilwell near Nottingham had become the Army Centre for Mechanisation, but was running out of space. Donnington in Shropshire had become the main depot for armaments and was also running short of accommodation.
Old Dalby was to have been a sub-depot of Chilwell, but Donnington’s need was greater and it became an armaments and signals depot opening on 30 December 1940 with six officers and 60 other ranks. It was commanded by Bob Hiam, a former manager at Dunlop.
In early 1940, F. Perks & Son of Long Eaton won the contract to build housing for the military employees of the depot and then the depot itself. The contract for a total sum of £428,000 provided for:
3 sheds 480ft x 280ft
4 sheds 360ft x 280ft
movement shed 225ft x 280ft
battery charging rooms
service station
main offices
Water tanks and pump room
lavatory block
petrol store office and tanks
police station
shelters
firemen's quarters and garage for fire engine
telephone exchange and control room
gas cleaning centre
electric substation
canteen
AMPS camp
PAD building
The interior of the sheds show the size and the use of steel
A distinctive feature of the depot was the tower used to calibrate gun sights
Fire was a constant risk. There were two underground water tanks and a tower.
In 1943 more water was needed and a further reservoir was built half a mile from the depot by the water main. A pipe was laid to bring the water from the tank to the depot. I now live in that reservoir. I tell that story in this link
Some further images to help paint the picture of this vast storage facility.
I gave a talk on the story of the Old Dalby depot and here is the link.
In my quest to discover Who Built Britain, building for the military loomed large.
Castles
My story of British buildings before the Elizabethan age is one of internal conflict. The ancient British tribes would fight each other. The long line of invaders would terrify the local population.
The response though wasn’t with castles, but, as I write in my piece on Early England, with burghs promoted by the king where the population could find safety. They were, of course, not always successful when put to the test. The Roman architect Vitruvius was a maker of siege engines.
Eleventh Century
Castles arrived with the Normans who stamped their power with them. These early castles comprised a 'keep' built of stone (or timber in cases of urgency) on a mound of earth created by digging a moat to surround it. Marc Morris's book, Castle, takes the reader through the bloody story of British castles. He suggests that William conquered a population of between one and two million with any army of 7,000 and 500 castles built either under the direction of the King or by his 'great men'. The building was without regard to the local population. The building of Lincoln Castle required the demolition of 166 homes. Whilst Lincoln remained and indeed remains, many if not most of William's castle fell into disrepair simply because they were no longer needed, England was at peace.
Twelfth Century
Morris suggests that this was the age of the stone tower, the foremost of which was the White Tower in what we know as the Tower of London. It was of course a castle, but with rooms built one on top of another producing a tower of three floors. It was built to impress, but also to be defended; William may have won but he still had reasons for fear. He was not the only castle builder; his barons were too.
A tower taller than that in London was built at Rochester
Caerphilly
Thirteenth Century
Rochester takes centre stage in the early part of the century with the siege by King John of the rebel held castle. The brutal siege lasted seven weeks with the King emerging victorious. The year was 1215, the year of Magna Carta. King John died of dissentry soon after.
The string of great Welsh castles are the legacy of Edward I and his conquest of that country. We can start at Caernarfon and work along through Conwy, Harlech and Flint. These took castle building a whole stage further.
Bodiham castle was built by an aspiring aristocrat Sir Edward Dallingridge who had gained great wealth in the Hundred Years War. The Welsh castles had been built on rock in commanding positions. with Bodiham there was no such constraints and it could be built as a square.
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
Scottish castles built as towers surrounded by domestic buildings were the homes of the clan chiefs and had little military use. The two most famous castles north of the border were rather different. Both built on rocks giving them a commanding position in the landscape. Both having courtyard interiors, evidence of French influence. Both were scenes of bloody and famous battles.
The post image is the hall at Stirling Castle which was repurposed as barracks (my father served there in the interwar years) and subsequently restored. The castle in Edinburgh is of course well known for its annual military tattoo.
Edinburgh Castle
A Castle Postscript
The last castles of military importance were those coastal forts built by Henry VIII from Pendennis in Cornwall to Deal in Kent.
Naval Dockyards
I wrote of these in the context of naval shipbuilding in my book How Manufacturing Shaped Britain.
The Naval dockyard at Woolwich became the principal focus in the reign of Henry VIII and the building of Henri Grace a Dieu. Looking at the records of the Board of Ordnance, which supplied cannon, powder and cannon balls, there grew up substantial stores at Chatham, Tilbury and Sheerness and to a lesser extent Woolwich itself.
Chatham was a small village on the mudflats of the Medway not far from Rochester and close to Gillingham, Strood and Rainham. It was the mud that attracted naval use. The Medway then came into its own, since ships could safely be beached there to have their hulls cleaned, caulked and tarred.
Elizabeth I added to the Navy, galleys - ships with both sail and oars. These were stationed at Chatham where they could easily be maintained. The dockyard was already bigger than Portsmouth, Deptford and Woolwich and it maintained and improved on this position through the years of war with the Dutch. The yard attracted shipwrights, carpenters, sailmakers, smiths, sawyers, riggers and mast-makers. Substantial work was undertaken in the nineteenth century with new dry and wet docks, repair and fitting out basins all demanding some 110 million bricks made on site from a 21 acre brickfield.
Portsmouth was one of the earliest homes of naval shipbuilding; there is some evidence that Richard the Lionheart's ships taking him on the crusades were built there. Henry VII commissioned the first dry-dock in 1495. The Mary Rose was built there as Henry VIII amassed galleons to keep up with the Spanish and Portuguese. This 800-ton ship was the first built by a British king specifically for war, previously merchantmen had been adapted as the need arose.
In the late seventeenth century, Plymouth became home to a Royal Dock known now as Devonport. The docks built many hundreds of ships and maintained the fleet. In the nineteenth century it was subject to a major extension to allow for larger ships, also the Royal William Victualling Yard was built.
Barracks
Berwick-upon-Tweed
The great periods of barrack building began in Berwick-upon-Tweed built between 1715 and 1745 against the Jacobite Rebellion. English Heritage has offered an engaging description of this remarkable building designed by Nicholas Hawkesmoor but made to look a little less fancy by the Board of Ordnance whose officers supervised its construction.
Colchester
A military presence in Colchester goes back to Roman times. The relatively modern use came with the Napoleonic Wars when barracks were built by Thomas Neill to house some 7,000 men. After the war, the barracks emptied and were demolished or repurposed. In 1856 a hutted camp was built by Lucas Brothers. In the coming years brick built infantry barracks and married quarters were added along with Cavalry and Artillery barracks. in 1914, some 40,000 men were training at the camp. The camp underwent a major reorganisation by Robert McAlpine between 2004 and 2008.
Woolwich Arsenal
The transformation of the 16th-century royal dockyard and gun wharf into a massive state-run military complex occurred in the early nineteenth century. Individual buildings and expansions were commissioned by the Board of Ordnance or the War Office, utilising various military engineers, architects, and labour forces (including civilian tradesmen, royal master builders, and convict labour). I write much more about Woolwich and its role in the First World War in my book Ordnance.
The Red Barracks was built as a Royal Marine Infirmary. It was later occupied by the RAOC. Image with thanks to the RLC archive.
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military College was built between 1801 and 1812 by the barracks contractor Alexander Copeland.
Weedon Bec Barracks and Ordnance Depot.
Weedon Bec barracks were built between 1805 and 1816 under the supervision of the Royal Engineers to provide backup for Woolwich. It later became a Central Ordnance Depot supplying the army with small arms.
Martello Towers
From the time of the French Revolutionary Wars, Martello Towers were built on prominent situations around the coastline of Britain and its dependancies. Standing at 40 feet tall with thick walls, they had on top a single cannon which could be moved and so could cover 360 degrees. They were based on the Martello Tower in Corsica.
In 1859 the fear of invasion was such that the government decided that action was required and it set up a Royal Commission to report on appropriate defences. The Palmerston Forts Society have obtained a copy of the report which makes for fascinating reading (a pdf is available on their website). Naval warfare was changing with the advent of steam powered, iron or steel clad vessels. Also in the wake of the Crimean War, cannon had become more accurate. The report concludes that the defence of our naval ports and shipyards may most effectively be achieved by fortification at each location supported by associated works. The forts needed to be of new designs to provide protection from attack by modern ships. They also needed batteries of powerful guns. The report provided detailed recommendations on locations and fortifications required. Parliament pruned the recommendations but the following Palmerston Forts, as they became known, were the result:
Portsmouth - a ring of forts to protect the dockyard
The Solent - the sea forts
Plymouth - Crownhill Fort
Isle of Wight
Dover - Fort Burgoyne
Thames Estuary - Cliffe Fort
Humber - Fort Paull
The forts were built by contractors supervised by Royal Engineers. For example, Crownhill Fort was of cutting edge design and built by George Baker who went bankrupt and so the work was completed by Royal Engineers.
Palmerston Fort in the Solent Photo by arnaud audoin on Pexels.com
Drill Halls
In the nineteenth century drill halls were built around the country where members of the local militia could train. Lincoln's hall was financed by local engineer Joseph Ruston, built by H.S. and W. Close of Lincoln and designed by War Office Architect, William Goddard whose also designed the Old Barracks. He was for many years the Diocesan architect working on many churches.
First World War
Catterick Camp
Under the name Richmond Camp in the First World War what became known as Catterick housed in temporary accommodation for some 40,000 men. After the war, the government decided that it should become a permanent establishment. Extensive building work was undertaken by John Laing then of Carlisle.
Munitions Factories
I have compiled a list of WW1 Munition and National Aircraft Factories and WW2 Royal Ordnance and Shadow Factories in my manufacturing history blog. Here I mention just a few.
Gretna
The location of munition factories was generally away from areas of population and Gretna on the Scottish Borders fitted the bill. The camp was built by S. Pearson. John Laing built associated housing for the workforce.
Chilwell
Built by Holland, Hannen and Cubitt. I write of this at some length in my book Ordnance.
Aircraft factories
Holland, Hannen and Cubitt
Handley Page's aircraft factory at Cricklewood was built by HHC, as was the Croydon National Aircraft Factory producing de Havilland DH9s. That factory was fourteen million cubic feet in size and employed seven thousand people.
Naval Harbours
A major fear in the run up to the First World War was that German submarines might take control of the English Channel. In order to prevent this a major harbour was built at Dover by contractors S. Pearson & Son.
Second World War
Aerodromes
The Air Ministry had been building an infrastructure for the RAF since the end of the First World War.
Airfields construction was a major wartime project with some 444 being built across the country between 1939 and 1945. Each airfield had to be surveyed for the composition of the ground but also for water and drainage. Typically there would be three 50 yard wide runways of between 1,000 and 3,000 yards in length, requiring 130,000 tons oof ballast and cement and 50 miles of drainage pipes and conduits. As planes became heavier it was a matter of trial and error to see what runway foundations were required.
John Laing
Laings had been prominent among those who were awarded contracts. From 1935 the pace of air field building speeded up and Laings were very busy. Sites were also built in 1938 for balloon barrages with work divided between Wimpey and Laings. Laings built the new headquarters of Bomber Command near High Wycombe.
F. Perks & Son
Built Aerodromes at Catterick, 1939; Digby, 1938/39; Leconfield, 1939/40; Linton on Ouse, 1939/40; Wittering, 1935/41.
Royal Ordnance Factories
Chorley
Built by Sir Lindsay Parkinson Civil Engineers.
Sellafield
Built by John Laing and repurposed after the war for nuclear fuel by Sir Robert McAlpine and Kier. Laings also built a shadow factory for High Duty Alloys at Distington also in Cumbria.
Swynerton
Built by Mowlem
Central Ordnance Depots
Old Dalby
Built by F. Perks & Son of Long Eaton in 1940 to supply armaments. It is one of the few WW2 depots to remain largely as built although repurposed as an industrial estate. I was fortunate enough to visit it and to be shown the interior of one of the buildings. Read more.
Chilwell
The site of the munitions factory in WW1, repurposed as the Army Centre for Mechanisation. I wrote its story in War on Wheels. Here is a link to the working of the depot. It was repurposed in part by F. Perks & Son with additional large sheds erected by Sir Lindsay Parkinson Civil Engineers.
Militia and Hutted Camps
For both world wars, camps for soldiers were created across the country by probably most building contractors. F. Perks & Son built camps at Pirbright, Lydd and Newark and Air Ministry 'B' type hutting at a number of locations including Carlisle and Woolsingham.
Mulberry Harbours
Although temporary, these structures occupied probably most of the British construction industry in 1943/4 including Costain, Mowlem, Holland & Hannen and Cubitt, and Wates, and contributed massively to the technology of building with concrete.
Further reading;
Morris, Marc, Castle - A History of the Buildings that Shaped Medieval England (London: Pan Books, 2004)
Without a strong manufacturing sector, supplies to our military would have been thin pickings. Sure, in WW2 American kit was written large. Let’s take a step back.
Creating Woolwich was fundamental. It was the go to place for armaments, dragged into the nineteenth century by the genius of William Armstrong, Able and Anderson
I find myself drawn ever deeper into the world of British Manufacturing, looking at the past to find where companies came from and, all too often, where they went. There is a third and exciting strand, for a good many British companies now are doing wonderful work not least in the green revolution and Manufacturing 4.0.
One of my first memories was 'wiring' my bedroom with strands of dressing gown cord; I was obsessed by electricity as, I found much later, had been my father in his childhood at the turn of the twentieth century. Another memory was the brochures he would bring home for the latest Humber Super Snipe; he was export director of the Rootes Group. I discovered at school that my maths wasn't good enough for me to be an engineer, but my arithmetic was fine and so my career was in the accounting profession. In this I loved the challenge in getting to know my clients' businesses, many of which were manufacturing.
Much later, on my retirement, I began a seven year project of writing about how the British army was supplied in two world wars. This brought me into contact with a great many British manufacturing companies who contributed to the war effort. I needed to find out who they were and this is resulting in my book, How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World published by Pen & Sword in 2022.
There was another side to my question: what happened to them, and this is the subject of my current research. It has though taken a life of its own as I am drawn into the vibrant world of 21st century British Manufacturing. The result is Vehicles to Vaccines published by APS Books in 2023
The timeline of Lincoln Engineering at the Celebration of Lincoln Engineering at Lincoln Cathedral by the brilliant Optima Design
In my writing career I have explored army supply which drew in British manufacturing but also British construction.
This latter string, I am researching at the moment. Military building features throughout. Roman roads were built for the Roman legions. William the Conqueror was castle builder extraordinary, that is until Edward’s stunning Welsh castles.
Moving ahead, there were the barracks builders to see off the Scots. There were Martello Towers to defend our coastline, followed by Lord Palmerstone’s Forts
The Woolwich Arsenal reaches into the twentieth century as does Weedon Bec. We then have the massive building challenge of the WW1 munitions factories and the Ordnance Deoits and airfields of WW2
Throughout it all the dockyards created the ships for an indomitable Navy
Building is in my blood; my mother's family ran a Midlands building company for ninety-nine years having previously been itinerant craftsmen. I remember with huge affection childhood visits to the 'yard'.
My last employment before I retired was as Chief Executive of Lincoln Cathedral where I learnt something of stone masons and the way medieval cathedrals were built. Most recently, I have been exploring the history of British manufacturing and the places where it took place. This brought me close to the building of mills, factories and urban housing, over a period spanning three centuries or so.
I needed to try to understand how it was all built and indeed who built it.
I can hardly believe that my blog has attracted so much attention.
The story began in April 2014 when I brought down from the loft boxes filled with scrap books up to 5 inches thick filled with press cuttings, photographs, booklets, dinner menus and a pressed flower.
I had known about the albums all my life but had never really explored them. The compiler, my mother, had died five years earlier and the key player, my father forty five years before that. The albums told the story of the Second World War through the eyes of the Controller of Ordnance Services who along with 250,000 soldiers and civilians was responsible for keeping the army supplied with all they needed except for food and fuel.
My researches of the albums and related research of archives resulted in my book War on Wheels.
I then needed to find out about army supply in the First World War which resulted in Ordnance.
I then realised that many of the leaders in the Second World War had served in the first….here please pause as I did. Two world wars in a lifetime.
I needed to find who these people were and this resulted in Dunkirk to D Day.
Not one to sit back I now needed to find out about those many British companies which supported the war effort. This expanded into a full exploration and has resulted in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines. All this went to shape our country and I am working on How Manufacturing Shaped Britain
You can find more about my books by following this link and more on my research into manufacturing by following this.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 May 2025 by Graham
This book tackles a difficult subject. In warfare the logistics of moving men is always a challenge. The concomitant movement of ordnance and other supplies is as equally difficult if not more so. The difficulty for any author dealing with this topic is to make it interesting. Here, it must be said, Hamlin Williams succeeds. He takes the reader on a journey from the beginning of world war 1 to its ultimate conclusion and what a vivid picture he produces. He refrains from the usual ‘touch on briefly before dwelling on at length’ technique and gives the reader a clear and lively insight into the task which presented itself and how that task was mastered. Certainly there is a plethora of facts to be gleaned from this volume but they are interspersed with touching and poignant stories of humanity. Whether you are a professional historian or a fireside enthusiast this book has much to offer. I recommend it. It is certainly interesting and worth reading.
I am very grateful to Dave for taking the trouble to write a detailed review. Here is the link.
I would like to respond to some of the points he makes.
He was misled by the title!
It was not my choice! I wanted The Soldiers who Armed the Army.
It is indeed a biography of my father but, since he worked so closely with his colleagues, I wanted it to be about them as well. I hope this explains the early chapters.
As to the business of Ordnance, I hope I have addressed this in my books War on Wheels and Ordnance.
The three books stand together as my homage to the men and women who did something astonishing but who are largely forgotten
It was this picture that inspired my research. Taken in the early twenties when young officers who had survived the war learnt the theory of the Ordnance work they had been doing. A good number would go on to lead the work on the RAOC in the Second World War.
I found recently that my mother's cousin had served on the 'lead' Royal Naval ship on D Day and I needed to discover what this might have meant.
The image from the RLC archive shows the Mulberry Harbour in action.
A little research pointed me to HMS Ramillies as possibly the 'lead' battleship. A book entitled Operation Neptune written by Commander Kenneth Edwards offers a near contemporary account published in 1946. The book tells the story beginning with the planning and build up to the action on and around D Day and what happened thereafter.
It was intended at first that the Royal Navy would have the task of providing naval assistance to the whole invading force. In time it became clear that with commitments in other theatres, it simply did not have the ships and so the US Navy joined the enterprise. The Royal Navy certainly did not have anything like sufficient fully crewed ships, for Edwards talks of ship manned by 'passenger' crews, that is sailors who had returned to the UK without their own ships. There were in addition a great many ships of the merchant navy as well as coastal craft, armed trawlers, tugs and ferries.
In a sense the 'lead' ships weren't battleships at all but rather mine sweepers whose task it was to clear passages for the bombardment fleet and then the invasion craft themselves.
The bombardment fleet formed up on the Clyde and, with the delay to D Day of 24 hours had to steam back to use up time. Once across the channel the force first had the task of damaging German emplacements protecting the beaches. This would follow aerial bombardment by the Royal Air Force. Edwards writes that, whilst defensive opposition was not great, the strength of the concrete emplacements was such that only a direct hit in an aperture would have any chance of destruction and this would have normally to await the action of troops moving up the beach. Nevertheless the bombardment did reduce the opposition the landing troops would face.
Landing craft carrying troops, tanks, guns, vehicles and supplies followed the bombardment which would then precede the advancing troops up the beach and inland. Battleship had a range of seventeen miles and so offered cover well inland much to the shock of the Germans. The passage up the beaches varied from beach to beach with Omaha being the toughest. On all beaches the invading forces were met by mines and obstacles as well as gun fire, but they did get through and began the long fight across northern France.
The task of the Navy was now to safeguard the passage of ships bringing supplies and reinforcements. There would be in the region of two hundred crossings a day. Larger craft would be unloaded onto smaller craft for access to the beach.
Gooseberry harbours were created for each beach. These were artificial breakwaters formed by sinking old ships known as blockships which would offer some protection to small craft. As is well known the more substantial Mulberry harbours followed, one for the British at Arromanches and one for the Americans at St Laurent. What I hadn't known was that a gale blew for three days from D Day + 13 which caused massive damage to the American harbour and something like a half of landing craft were lost or damaged. Edwards notes that this far exceeded those damaged by the enemy. It is remarkable that only a week after the storms regularly cross channel supplies were resumed at the same level.
The job for the Navy was not over. There were U Boats menacing supply ships and E boats and armed trawlers protecting German coastal shipping. Then there were the major harbours to be captured beginning with Cherbourg. Two smaller harbours, Port-en-Bessin and Courselles, had been taken early on and were both receiving 1,000 tons of supplies each day.
Once the army was advancing and supply routes secured, the Navy could turn its attention to an arguably bigger challenge, the war against Japan.
As a lifelong admirer of Winston Churchill and a devourer of films and biographies about the great man, I had awaited Katherine Carter's book with keen anticipation. I was not disappointed.
As curator of Chartwell for more than a decade, Carter had access to its astonishing archive. She has used this to great effect with pains-taking care of the detail. There is no broad brush of the biographer, nor the preconceptions of a novelist. The archive is presented as an orderly account of tumultuous years.
For me there were delightful surprises: time Churchill spent with Albert Einstein and TE Lawrence as well as the more prominent members of his circle. The American ambassador Joe Kennedy's relationship with the English is unpicked, as are those less well known with French, Czech, Russian and German opposition politicians. Helpful light is shed on the ambitions of Japan and its aggression toward China.
With all this material, one might have expected a slow, rather tortuous read. Instead, Carter communicates clearly the changes in pace as crises are met. The opposition to Churchill is keenly felt, and even more so the impact this has on the man. Clementine is there in support, but as much the youngest daughter, Mary.
This is a book that will inform and delight. It will take its rightful place in the Churchill canon.
I first heard about this book when I knew Claire at Bishop Grossteste University in Lincoln in her capacity as secretary of the City of Lincoln branch of the Historical Association; she had kindly invited me to speak on a couple of occasions about my books on army supply. So I wanted to read what she was writing.
What I found was the product of a great deal of painstaking research, perhaps echoing the painstaking work of those about whom she wrote. It made me sit up and realise just what a professional historian can do; I am but an amateur, albeit an enthusiastic one!
The end result impacts in a number of ways.
For a lover of James Bond, Claire is generous with her references to the people who probably inspired his characters. Having enjoyed Helen Fry's Spymaster, I found myself back in that shadowy world.
Claire, though, has done much more. She has given long overdue acknowledgement to the women who gave so much in the secret service of their country. She has named the glass ceilings imposed by men which denied the country the service of these women at more senior levels. More generally she has described the way women were brought into and then thrown out of the workplace in time of war.
Perhaps the greatest credit is the way Claire illustrated the painstaking work done by conscientious women, without which the services would have been impotent. Secret service is about information, not only how it is collected but also about how it is stored, verified, safeguarded and accessed.
This vital administration was done alongside a smaller group of women who, blessed with the gift of languages, risked all in the face of the enemy.
A great addition in a vital area of national life.
