Title:WOOLWICH ARSENAL AND ITS WORKERS [Main Title]
Film Number:IWM 161
Other titles:
Summary: Munitions manufacture at Woolwich Arsenal West, London, early 1918.
Description: (Reel 1) The arsenal entrance in Beresford Square, with the internal train taking the workers to various departments. Women and boys in the Tailors' Shop make gloves, felt "buttons" for 15-inch shells, and cartridge bags of various sizes. Other women make and assemble time fuses and impact fuses for the various types of shell. (Reel 2) The workers (who, except in the heavy jobs, are women with men as supervisors) making small arms cartridges, showing in detail the process involved in making an 18-pounder shell-case from first casting. (Reel 3) Men in the Leather Shop making leather, canvas and cork items including saddlery and cartridge carrying cases. Logs are brought to the Sawmill where they are cut into sheets, then on to the Carpenters' Shop where they are cut into planks and into the basic shapes for wheels and barrels. (Reel 4) On to the Coopers' Shop where wheels and barrels are repaired. Old, very young and disabled men are seen at work. Inside the Iron Foundry a Bessemer Converter is at work, and steel is shaped using drop hammers and giant shears. (Reel 5) Casting in the Brass Foundry, with guns' ends shaped and bored by an automatic rifling tool, mountings being tested in the Fitters' Shop and finished shells and guns being taken out of the factory by train and barge. The film ends with workers leaving the factory at the end of the day.
