EASTRIGGS

We live in an age where global forces profoundly influence our lives - as individuals, as families, as communities and the country we reside in. Whether from a war thousands of miles away, a pandemic, or an international banking crisis, we feel global impacts and the influence of multi-national companies in one way or another every day. This was true over a century ago too, as we explore how the influence of commerce and industry at a worldwide scale came to forever change a quiet and rural corner of Dumfriesshire.

At the turn of the 20 ^th  century, explosives were a global business. Years previously in the 1860s and 70s, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel had established a network of factories in Europe, first in Scandinavia and Germany, and then in 1871 at  Ardeer  in Ayrshire. However, much of the business to be had was further afield in the munitions and mining industries of Africa and the Americas.

In South Africa, the controversial Imperialist businessman and politician, Cecil Rhodes, largely controlled the country’s diamond mining industry through his De Beers corporation. However, mining for diamonds was heavily dependent upon explosives technology and De Beers wanted to break the Nobel Enterprises South African monopoly in supplying explosives to the diamond and gold mining industries. Rhodes turned to the United States, and headhunted William Russell Quinan (1848-1910), the Superintendent of the Hercules Powder Works, California. He was employed from 1899 to build a rival explosives factory at Somerset West, Cape Colony, which was completed in 1903. His nephew, Kenneth Bingham Quinan (KBQ, 1878-1948), joined him there in 1901, eventually becoming the General Manager of the Works. By 1909, Somerset West was the second largest dynamite explosives factory in the world after Nobel’s factory at Modderfontein, Transvaal.     

Britain was relatively unprepared for conflict at the outbreak of the First World War. The Government appointed Lord Moulton as Director of Explosives Production in the War Office and one of the first things he did was to arrange for a cable to be sent to South Africa to seek KBQ’s services. Having accepted Moulton’s invitation to come to Britain, KBQ set about designing a number of National Factories which were intended to produce armaments for the Western Front. By far the largest of these was ‘His Majesty’s Factory, Gretna’, which like the others was under the control of the Ministry of Munitions of War.

KBQ was responsible for the layout and detailed planning of the Gretna factory, while the main contractors were S. Pearson and Sons Ltd under the direction of Edward Pearson.  Eastriggs  (Dornock) was designated as Site 3 within this National Factory, the others being Site 1 - Smalmstown, Site 2 – Mossband, and Site 4 – Gretna. Overall, at its fullest extent, the works that comprised the National Factory stretched 16km (10 miles) from Dornock, Dumfriesshire, in the west to Longtown, Cumbria, in the east. The  Eastriggs section  occupied an area that extended 4km (2.5 miles) from east to west by 2km (1.25 miles) from north to south. It was built on 485 hectares (1200 acres) of requisitioned farmland and marsh on the north side of the Solway Firth.

The National Factory site was chosen, like Somerset West in the Transvaal, because it had excellent communications and lay in a relatively unpopulated part of the country secure from possible enemy action. In addition, there was a sufficient supply of water obtainable from the River Esk, while the land was also well suited to large scale construction. Building work began in the Summer of 1915, undertaken by many thousands of labourers, most of whom came from Ireland. Temporary hostels were provided for them on site, while the dormitory towns of Eastriggs and Gretna were built for those who were to work in the production process. At the height of the war some 30,000 workers were employed in construction and production at the factory. By 1917, when the number of munition workers was approaching 20,000, 70% (about 14,000) were women. They were popularly styled ‘munitionettes’ and some were as young as 15 years old.

In 1917, Royal visits were made to the National Factories, in order to thank the workforce for their solid achievements and Gretna was included in the itinerary. As part of the visit, King George V and the Royal Party arrived at Dornock Railway Station on the 18 ^th  May 1917 having travelled by the Glasgow South Western Railway. They then went by road to the main entrance of HM Factory Gretna, site 3 – the part of the factory just south of Eastriggs township and where cordite paste for propellants was made. Their tour took in the  Nitrocotton Production Area , the  Glycerine Distillery  and the  Grillo Oleum Plant  (Acids Section). From there, they passed through to the  Mannheim Oleum Plant  (Acids Section), before catching a train that took them east past each of the five  Nitrogycerine Hills  and out through the east gate towards Mossband (HM Factory Gretna, Site 2).

This Royal visit emphasised the importance of HM Factory Gretna, which manufactured more cordite than had been produced in any of the privately owned pre-War factories put together and made a significant contribution to the outcome of the conflict. Indeed, the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, understood that Gretna was the jewel in the nation’s war effort and declared in the House of Commons that it ‘would be hard to point to anyone who did more to win the war than Kenneth Bingham Quinan’.

KBQ was made a Companion of Honour in 1917 and although he was offered a Knighthood in 1918, he turned it down as he remained an American citizen. Amongst other honours, the French awarded him the Croix de Guerre and he returned to Somerset West at the end of the war.

More information about Kenneth B Quinan and the factory that he built can be obtained by visiting the  Devil’s Porridge Museum , Eastriggs.

Adam Welfare has worked as an archaeological field investigator with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and then with Historic Environment Scotland for more than twenty-five years.

Miriam McDonald has worked as an archivist then industrial survey field investigator with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and with Historic Environment Scotland for thirty-five years.