THE DEVIL'S PORRIDGE

During World War I, Britain's female workforce rallied to the war effort, joining munitions and weapons factories. Some of this work was notoriously hazardous...

- CRAIG MOORE

 A ten-minute drive to the west of the Gretna Green Weddings tourist attraction, on the Scottish border with England, is the unusually named The Devil’s Porridge Museum. It tells the story of HM Factory Gretna, the largest munitions factory of World War I, and the 30,000 people who worked there – of whom 70 percent were women. The ‘Devil’s Porridge’ was the nickname given to the explosive mixture that was used in the manufacture of artillery shells.

Working in a munitions factory was hazardous. Handling acids, chemicals and volatile materials meant that the potential for accidental explosions was a constant threat. Nitric acid fumes posed one of the greatest risks to health, and the acid could turn the women’s skin a yellowish tinge. The workers handling these TNT explosives, which caused their skin to turn bright yellow, earned the moniker ‘Canary Girls’.

By the spring of 1915 it was obvious that the war was not going to be over quickly. The British Army was losing key battles because of a lack of high-explosive artillery ammunition. This led to what was called the ‘Shell Crisis of 1915’, or the ‘Shells Scandal’, and after the shortage was reported by The Times and the Daily Mail newspapers, questions were asked in Parliament. Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George and the newspapers’ owner Lord Northcliffe worked together to try and force Parliament to adopt a national munitions policy with central control. This resulted in Lloyd George being appointed minister of munitions. He created a series of new munitions factories to supply the soldiers and artillery guns on the front line with the ammunition they needed. Before the war there were three national factories producing ammunition; by 1916 there were 150.