From Gunpowder to Guns

The Story of Two Lea Valley armouries

Jim Lewis

£9.99

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ISBN:978 1 904750 85 7
Format:Paperback
Pages:104
Published:2009

About From Gunpowder to Guns

From Gunpowder to Guns is a wonderfully readable and descriptive account of two Lea Valley armouries that were responsible for supplying weapons and explosives to British and Commonwealth forces for over 200 years. It is also the story of historical government failings that have an echo in events surrounding some of today’s major military conflicts. The author reveals, for the first time, how the lack of understanding in the design, development and manufacture of weapons by high-ranking Government officials placed our armed forces in considerable danger during the Crimean War. The book shows how the Royal Small Arms Factory, at Enfield Lock, became the first in Britain to manufacture weapons with interchangeable parts with machine tools purchased from America. The extraordinary story of the growth of the Royal Gunpowder Mills at Waltham Abbey takes us on an incredible journey from basic explosives through to Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb, the development of rocket propellants, the exploration of space and the spin-off of modern materials used in everyday objects.

About Jim Lewis

Dr Jim Lewis has spent most of his career in the consumer electronics industry, apart from a three-year spell in the Royal Air Force servicing airborne and ground wireless communications equipment. When working in the Lea Valley for Thorn EMI Ferguson he represented the company abroad on several occasions and was involved in the exchange of manufacturing technology. Currently he is a Consultant to Terry Farrell & Partners on the historical development of London’s Lea Valley and a Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) tutor teaching industrial history. Among his published works are London’s Lea Valley: Britain’s Best Kept Secret (1999) and London’s Lea Valley: More Secrets Revealed (2001).