The White Lund Explosion | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror

“On the 1st of October, 1917, a small fire began at a factory in Lancashire, England…”

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CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Intro
00:47 – Background
04:02 – The White Lund Explosion
09:38 – The Aftermath

MUSIC:
► “Glass Pond” by Public Memory
► “The Plan’s Working” by Cooper Cannell

SOURCES:
► “News black out on devastating explosion” published by Lancashire Post, September 2017. Link: https://www.lep.co.uk/news/news-black-out-on-devastating-explosion-654246
► “White Lund National Filling Factory, Morecambe” by Tim Churchill, published by Contrebis, 2018. Available via: https://lahs.archaeologyuk.org/Contrebis/Churchill%20Munitions%20WEB.pdf
► “Munitions Factories in Lancaster and Morecambe” by Christine Workman, published by Documenting Dissent. Link: http://www.documentingdissent.org.uk/munitions-factories-in-lancaster-and-morecambe/
► “White Lund Explosion, October 1917” published by Heysham Heritage Association. Link: http://www.heyshamheritage.org.uk/white_lund_explosion_1917.html

​​​​​​​#Documentary​​​​ #History​​​​​​​​​ #TrueStories​

On the 1st of October, 1917, a small fire began at a factory in Lancashire, England. Workers and on-site firemen rushed to control the flames. In doing so they were fighting not only to save the factory… but also their own lives.

The facility was a munitions factory, producing shells that were destined for the trenches of World War One. On site were around 20,000 shells. If the fire spread, the nearby town of Morecambe was at risk of becoming a warzone.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Great Britain was faced with a serious problem – there was only one factory in the country entirely dedicated to filling munitions: the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, London. This National Filling Factory, as it was known, was where bombs, shells and cartridges were

Filled with explosive material before being shipped off to the front. One factory was nowhere near capable of producing enough ammunition for a conflict on the scale of World War One. As such 170 National Filling Factories were created in England by the Ministry of Munitions.

Some factories made fuses, some produced bullets and cartridges, and some worked on heavy trench mortars or even chemical weapons. National Filling Factory 13, at White Lund near the town of Morecambe, was responsible for filling high explosive shells. White Lund was a great location for a munitions factory.

The site was close to the coast, and already connected by rail to the city of Leeds – where shell casing were made. The factory was built on a wide open area of farm and marshland, and would consist of dozens of buildings, bunkers and storehouses connected by covered walkways and conveyer belts.

The site would be managed by Vickers Limited – an experienced engineering conglomerate from Sheffield that was known for helping to produce the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. No matter how experienced you were, though, a munitions factory in the early 1900s was a dangerous place to be.

There was the constant risk of poisoning from the many dangerous chemicals and substances used, as well as the dangers inherent in having so many explosive materials collected together in one place. To mitigate this danger, armoured walls and banks of earth were constructed between different parts of the factory, to contain potential explosions.

A dedicated on-site police force would confiscate anything that might cause a spark from workers arriving on site. This could be anything from matches and tobacco to items of clothing with any metal elements. The punishment for knowingly bringing items like this onto the site was a steep fine, or even imprisonment.

TNT (or trinitrotoluene) was the main explosive used in shells by 1916. However, pure TNT alone didn’t have enough explosive power, and was also very expensive… so ammonium nitrate was also added to many explosives. The mixture of the two substances was called Amatol, and was a volatile substance that

Could explode if exposed to high temperatures. Filling the shells was a laborious process, carried out by thousands of women workers employed at the factory. The main danger to them was poisoning from the TNT, which would cause their skin and the whites of their eyes to turn yellow.

This lead to the women who worked in White Lund and other munitions factories being nicknamed “canaries”. On the evening of the 1st of October, 1917, the night shift started work at 6:00pm. Around 10:00pm many workers retreated to the canteen for their supper.

The timing of this break would, ultimately, save many of their lives. Howarth Nuttall, secretary to the Night Manager, was one of the first to notice a “flare of light” in the factory proper – and to correctly assume that it was a fire.

When he realised that the flames were coming from the upper floor of the number six unit, he knew all too well the terrifying danger that this posed. That building contained TNT as well as completed shells filled with Amatol. If the fire reached the shells, the entire factory would be obliterated.

He ordered that the factory gates be opened, so that workers could run to safety. He also ordered a telephone operator to notify the fire brigade. As he approached the number six unit a massive explosion picked him up and flung him bodily

Into a ditch, leaving him bloody, bruised and in a state of shock. It was the first of many explosions that would echo across the site that evening. Thanks to Mr Nuttall’s actions, though, many of the workers on duty that night were able to flee.

Panicking and in the dark, they sprinted into the surrounding marshland, where many became lost or stuck in the boggy ground, and had to be rescued the next day by soldiers from a nearby military camp. The workers weren’t the only ones to flee into the night.

Residents in surrounding communities were wakened by the deafening explosion. Knowing just how close they lived to a munitions plant, they would have been painfully aware of the danger they were in. Some took shelter in their homes, while others poured out into the night and fled to the

Beach, where they took shelter against the sea wall until the early hours of the morning. Off-duty site railway worker Thomas Kew, heard the explosion from his home and, instead of making good his escape, immediately ran to the scene. He knew that there were around 50 train carriages on site.

Some were empty, but many were already filled with shells. If the fire reached them it would have catastrophic consequences. He was joined by a shunter, Abraham Graham, and together the men moved 49 railway cars, some of them already partially on fire, to safety.

Not satisfied with their night’s work, they then returned to the factory to help fight the fire, staying on site for a total of 36 hours. Despite firefighting efforts, though, the first explosion had started numerous small fires across the site. The flames were now nearly impossible to contain, and further explosions were inevitable.

Despite this, workers continued to fight, doing everything they could to limit the spread of the flames, despite being surrounded on all sides by high explosives. By 11:00pm, they were joined by the Lancaster and Morecambe Fire Brigades. Just 10 minutes later, however, everyone still on site was ordered to take cover: the explosions

Had become almost constant, and the risk was too great to continue. Morecambe’s fire brigade was still horse drawn, and seeing the horses frightened by the explosions, the fire chief ordered them to withdraw back to the town at 2:00am, in case they were needed there.

The multiple successive blasts had shattered windows all over town, and sent red hot shrapnel raining down on streets and houses. There were very real concerns that these could start fires beyond the bounds of the factory. At 3:00am, there was the biggest explosion of the night – loud enough to be heard more

Than 65 kilometres (or 40 miles) away. A telephone operator, Mary Wilkinson, was called into work at the telephone exchange in the nearby city of Lancaster, as they were in desperate need of reliable communications for the firefighting effort.

As she cycled into work, she was twice blown off her bike by the force of explosions at White Lund, but she made it in and then worked for more than 24 hours straight to help co-ordinate the emergency response. Twenty different fire brigades from nearby towns and cities came to the scene the following

Day. They worked around the clock, but the fires weren’t contained until the morning of the 3rd of October. By the time the last fire had been extinguished, every single one of the 20,000 shells that had been on site had detonated. In the aftermath, ten bodies were discovered.

The dead were: thirty-two-year-old labourer Firth Dole, thirty-eight-year-old fireman James Inglesent, thirty-nine-year-old fireman Thomas Beck, thirty-seven-year-old fireman John Crowther, thirty-eight-year-old fireman Frederick Leslie, twenty-six-year-old supervisor Henry Taylor, twenty-seven-year-old shell searcher William Topping, twenty-six-year-old fireman Ernest Duester, and twenty-six-year-old labourer Herbert Peterell, along with one other man who could not be identified.

Despite the fact that the explosions had been heard for miles around, there was just one line in the Lancashire Post about the disaster, which read simply: “The Ministry of Munitions announces that a serious fire and an explosion has occurred at a munitions factory in the North of England.

Much damage has been caused to the factory.” There was an understandable reluctance from the British Government to elaborate, during wartime, on the damage, the loss of life and the loss of munitions. It wasn’t until January 1919 that the disaster was reported on in any more detail.

In the meantime, a police investigation into what caused the initial fire was inconclusive, but the consensus was that it was “almost certainly” caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette. This didn’t stop unsubstantiated rumours of spies, sabotage, or even an attack by a German zeppelin.

Only 25 people ever received a first class Edward Medal for bravery relating to their work in industry. Four of them were for the life-saving efforts at White Lund. Recipients included Thomas Kew and Abraham Graham, for risking their lives to move train

Cars away from the fire, as well as Thomas Coppard (the onsite sergeant) and Thomas Tattersall, who was blasted through the roof of a building, and survived, while attempting to fight the fire. The factory at White Lund was out of commission for the rest of the war.

The staff were paid an extra two weeks wages, and then instructed to find other jobs. Whatever caused the White Lund Explosion, the heroic actions of the workers undoubtedly saved the lives of many people in the area. For some, it was one of the greatest tests of their courage and commitment that they

Would face during the long and difficult years of the First World War.