The Lads of Enfield Lock

About The Lads of Enfield Lock

The Lads of Enfield Lock is a comprehensive and fascinating history of the apprenticeship scheme at Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) at Enfield Lock, Middlesex in 1816.

The development of apprentice training in Enfield was closely intertwined with that of the factory itself.  Progressively, over the 172 years that the factory was in operation until its closure in 1988, its apprenticeships evolved to embrace new technologies and advancing educational requirements for the training of engineers, technicians and craftsmen, to become one of the longest surviving and best schemes in British industry. The story includes photographs and reminiscences by ex-apprentices along with pen pictures of key personalities on the factory staff who took leading roles in apprentice training. 

Compiled from authoritative sources, this story is a unique chronicle of apprentice training in a vital part of Great Britain’s industry. In the late-19^th and early-20^th centuries such activity was central to the country’s achievement of world leadership in manufacturing and technology. The book includes many original photographs together with reminiscences by some fifty ex-apprentices who served their time at RSAF between 1920 and 1987.