Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) was the collective name of the UK government's munitions factories in and after World War II. Until privatisation in 1987 they were the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply and later the Ministry of Defence. Materiel (from the French for material) is the equipment and supplies in Military and commercial supply chain management. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 8 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a military conflict that took place between 1939 and 1945. ... Privatization (sometimes privatisation, denationalization, or — especially in India — disinvestment) is the process of transferring property, from public ownership to private ownership. ... 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK Government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supplying of equipment to the British armed forces. ... Main Building - The Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, Westminster, London Tri-service badge of the UK armed forces The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and the headquarters of the UK military. ...

The ROFs were built in the Re-armament period just before the start of the 1939-45 World War to enhance the capacity of the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, the Royal Gunpowder Factory (RGPF) Waltham Abbey, Essex and the Royal Small Arms Factory, (RSAF) Enfield. These were sited in or near to London and were considered to be vulnerable to aerial bombing from continental Europe. In British history, Re-armament refers to the period between 1934 and 1939, when a substantial programme of re-arming the nation was undertaken to meet the threat posed by Hitlers Nazi Germany. ... The Royal Arsenal, originally known as the Woolwich Arsenal, carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing and explosives research. ... Woolwich is a town in south-east London, England in the London Borough of Greenwich, on the south side of the River Thames, though the tiny exclave of North Woolwich (which is now part of the London Borough of Newham) is on the north side of the river. ... Waltham Abbey is a market town of about 20,400 people in the south west of the county of Essex, in the East of England region. ... The RSAF at Enfield was closed in 1987 and the majority of the site is now covered by a large housing development. ... Enfield Town is a town in the London Borough of Enfield. ... The Houses of Parliament and the clock tower containing Big Ben Part of the London skyline viewed from the South Bank London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... This article is about explosive devices. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ...

The Royal Arsenal designed many of the ROFs and was also the agent for the construction of all of the Rifles ROFs, the Medium Machine ROF and the Small Arms Ammunitions ROFs. The Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Works and two other private companies were agents for the construction of the remaining ROFs (Kohan, 1952). An agent is an autonomous entity with an ontological commitment and agenda of its own. ... Cranes are essential in large construction projects, such as this skyscraper In project architecture and civil engineering, construction is the building or assembly of any infrastructure. ... The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1943 to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. ...

ROFs, Agency Factories, Royal Navy Factories and other factories

A number of UK government-owned Explosives Factories and Filling Factories were built in the Great War. These were known respectively as National Explosive Factories (NEFs) or National Filling Factories (NFFs) rather than ROFs, which term came into use in the 1930s. One NFF was reopened as a World War II Filling Factory under the name ROF Hereford. An Explosive ROF was a UK Government-owned Royal Ordnance Factory (abreviated ROF), World War II terminology, which specialised in manufacturing explosives. ... A Filling Factory was a munitions factory which specialised in filling various munitions, such as bombs, shells, cartridges, screening smokes, etc. ... World War I, also known as the First World War, and (before 1939) the Great War, the War of the Nations, and the War to End All Wars, was a world conflict lasting from August 1914 to the final Armistice (cessation of hostilities) on November 11, 1918. ... // Events and trends A public speech by Benito Mussolini, founder of the Fascist movement The 1930s were described as an abrupt shift to more radical lifestyles, as countries were struggling to find a solution to the global depression. ...

In both World Wars the Royal Navy used its own government-owned factories to produce explosives and propellants, for naval guns. These were the Royal Navy Propellant Factory (RNPF) Caerwent, Monmouthshire, and the Royal Naval Cordite Factory (RNCF) Holton Heath, Dorset. Both factories closed as explosive manufacturing sites after World War II; and, naval propellants were then manufactured at ROF Bishopton and filled at ROF Chorley and ROF Glascoed. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the senior service of the British armed services, being the oldest of its three branches. ... This article is concerned solely with chemical explosives. ... A propellant is a material that is used to move an object by applying a motive force. ... Caerwent is a village in Monmouthshire, Wales. ... Monmouthshire (Welsh: Sir Fynwy) is both a principal area and a traditional county in south-east Wales. ... Cordite is a smokeless propellent explosive made by combining two high explosives: nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin. ... Dorset (pronounced Dorsit, sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the southwest of England, on the English Channel coast. ... The Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Bishopton was a UK Ministry of Supply, World War II, Explosive ROF. It is sited adjacent to the town of Bishopton, Renfrewshire, in Scotland. ... ROF Chorley was a UK government-owned, Royal Ordnance Factory. ... ROF Glascoed was a UK government-owned, Royal Ordnance Factory. ...

Other World War II munitions factories in the UK were built and owned by Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). These ICI-Nobel Explosives owned factories were not considered part of the Ministry of Supply's Royal Ordnance Factory organisation and they were not called ROFs. ICI also managed munitions factories constructed with Ministry of Supply funding. These were known as "Agency Factories" and three of them became part of Royal Ordnance upon the ROFs' privatisation. Materiel (from the French for material) is the equipment and supplies in Military and commercial supply chain management. ... Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) is a British chemical company, based in London. ... Royal Ordnance was the state-run arms manufacturer in the United Kingdom which was privatised in 1984 and sold off by the government to British Aerospace (BAe) in 1987. ...

Some of the ROF Filling Factories built later during World War II were government-owned but managed, as Agency Factories, by private companies unconnected with the explosives industry. For example Joseph Lyons & Co ran ROF Elstow throughout the war. Other Filling Factories were run by Imperial Tobacco Co Ltd, Courtaulds Ltd, The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), Metal Closures Ltd and Lever Brothers. Joseph Lyons and Co. ... ROF Elstow, a Royal Ordnance Factory, was one of nearly twenty World War II, UK, government-owned Filling Factories, which filled munitions. ... Imperial Tobacco PLC is the largest cigarette manufacturer in the UK (but the second largest UK based tobacco company by global sales after British American Tobacco), second largest in Germany and fourth worldwide, following its purchase of Reemtsma Zigarettenfabriken, adding brands such as Davidoff, Peter Stuyvesant and West to its... Co-operative Group - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... The British manufacturer Lever Brothers was founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) and his brother James. ...

Siting and building the ROFs

The new ROFs were to be built in areas which regarded as "relatively safe", which until 1940 meant from Bristol in the south and then west of a line that ran from (roughly) Weston-super-Mare in Somerset northwards to Haltwhistle, Northumberland; and then northwestwards to Linlithgow in Scotland. The South, South East and East of England were regarded as "dangerous" and the Midlands area, including Birmingham as "unsafe". This definition of "safe" area was later changed, and in 1940 ignored in the case of ROF Chorley (see Hornby, 1958, Chapter IX). 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Bristol is a unitary authority with city and ceremonial county status in South West England. ... Weston-super-Mare is an English seaside resort town in North Somerset, population 65,000 (1991 estimate). ... Somerset is a county in the south-west of England. ... Map sources for Haltwhistle at grid reference NY7064 Haltwhistle is a town in Northumberland, England, situated ten miles east of Brampton, near Hadrians Wall. ... For other places with this name, see Northumberland (disambiguation) Northumberland is a traditional, ceremonial and administrative county in northern England. ... Location within the British Isles Linlithgow town in the background, the Loch in the mid-ground with the Palace in the foreground Linlithgow (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Iucha, Lowland Scots Lithgae) is a town and Royal Burgh in Scotland. ... Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within the United Kingdom Languages English, Gaelic, Scots Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... In general, the midlands of a territory are its central regions. ... The city from above Centenary Square. ...

Siting of the individual ROFs north and west of this line was of vital importance. ROFs involved with explosive manufacture or filling needed, on safety grounds, to be located away from centres of population. However they needed access to good transport links, such as railways; the availability of adequate workers within reasonable travelling distance; a plentiful guaranteed supply of clean process water; and (to avoid the danger of frozen explosives) tended to be located at or just above sea Level. Some ROFs located in Wales and Scotland were the result of political lobbying as these areas had high unemployment rates in the 1930s. This article is concerned solely with chemical explosives. ... For considerations of sea level change, in particular rise associated with possible global warming, see sea level rise. ... For an explanation of often confusing terms such as Great Britain, Britain, United Kingdom and England, see British Isles (terminology). ... Politics is the process and method of decision-making for groups of human beings. ... Lobbying is the practice of private advocacy with the goal of influencing a governing body, in order to ensure that an individuals or organizations point of view is represented in the government. ... Dorothea Langes Migrant Mother depicts destitute pea pickers in California during the Great Depression. ...

The ROFs were guarded by what was to become the Ministry of Defence Police Force. The Ministry of Defence Police (or MOD Police; MDP) is the police force of the British Ministry of Defence. ...

Types of ROFs

There were six generic types of Royal Ordnance Factory: Generic can be used in the following contexts: In computer science, generics (or genericity) are concepts used in programming. ...

• Engineering ROFs;
• Filling Factories including small arms ammunition (SAA) Filling Factories;
• Medium Machine Shops, specifically ROF Patricroft;
• Small Arms Ammunition Factories;
• Rifles ROFs, specifically ROF Fazakerley and ROF Maltby; and,
• Explosive ROFs.

The three main types were: Engineering, Filling and Explosives. A Filling Factory was a munitions factory which specialised in filling various munitions, such as bombs, shells, cartridges, screening smokes, etc. ... Small arms captured in Fallujah, Iraq by the US Marine Corps in 2004 The term small arms generally describes any number of smaller infantry weapons, such as firearms that an individual soldier can carry. ... An Explosive ROF was a UK Government-owned Royal Ordnance Factory (abreviated ROF), World War II terminology, which specialised in manufacturing explosives. ...

The largest ROFs tended to be the Explosive ROFs and the Filling Factories as these needed an explosives safeguarding zone around the perimeter of the factory; as well as separation, or reduced separation and traverses, between buildings. ROF Bishopton occupied over 2,000 acres (8 km²) and ROF Chorley was 900 acres (3.6 km²). The perimeter is the distance around a given two-dimensional object. ... Separation may refer to a several different subjects: In chemistry, separation refers to the separation process. ... The Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Bishopton was a UK Ministry of Supply, World War II, Explosive ROF. It is sited adjacent to the town of Bishopton, Renfrewshire, in Scotland. ... This article is about the unit of measure known as the acre. ... ROF Chorley was a UK government-owned, Royal Ordnance Factory. ...

Each ROF tended to be self-contained, apart from its raw materials: with their own coal-fired power stations, for generating steam for heating and process use, and electricity via high-pressure steam turbines if needed; engineering workshops; plumbers and chemical plumbers; leather workers; electricians; buildings and works departments; housing and hostels for workers; canteens; laundries and medical centres. material is the substance or matter from which something is or can be made, or also items needed for doing or creating something. ... A power station (also power plant) is a facility for the generation of electric power. ... In physical chemistry and in engineering, steam refers to vaporized water. ... Look up Process in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Process (lat. ... Lightning strikes during a night-time thunderstorm. ... WWII era ship propulsion turbine A turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow. ... For a colloquial American use, see White House Plumbers; in London, see Worshipful Company of Plumbers A plumber is a tradesman who specialises in installing and maintaining systems used for plumbing, heating, drainage, potable (drinking) water or industrial process plant piping. ... Modern leather-working tools Leather is a material created through the tanning of hides, pelts and skins of animals, primarily cows. ... Houses in Fishpool Street, St Albans, England For other meanings of the word house, see House (disambiguation). ... Youth hostel in Rome. ... Canteen has several different meanings: Canteen (place), a private cafe, restaurant, or cafeteria at a school, office, or military base. ... Man and woman washing linen in a brook, from William Henry Pynes Microcosm, 1806. ...

The UK's ROFs were set up and operated as production factories. The design of explosives, propellants and munitions was carried out at separate government-owned research and development establishments such as the Research Department, which was initially based at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich and then Fort Halstead, in Sevenoaks, Kent; and at PERME Waltham Abbey, Essex, which later moved to became RARDE Fort Halstead. This article is concerned solely with chemical explosives. ... A propellant is a material that is used to move an object by applying a motive force. ... Materiel (from the French for material) is the equipment and supplies in Military and commercial supply chain management. ... The Royal Arsenal, originally known as the Woolwich Arsenal, carried out armaments manufacture, ammunition proofing and explosives research. ... Woolwich is a town in south-east London, England in the London Borough of Greenwich, on the south side of the River Thames, though the tiny exclave of North Woolwich (which is now part of the London Borough of Newham) is on the north side of the river. ... Halstead is a village in Kent, England located approximately 3 miles south of Orpington and 4 miles north of Sevenoaks. ... Sevenoaks is a town in Kent, in south-east England. ... Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. ...

Post-war fate of the ROFs

Some of the ROFs were designated "temporary" for use during the war's duration only. They closed shortly after the end of World War II. Other ROFs were designated "permanent" and they continued working until quite recently. Some closed in the late 1950s (after the end of the Korean War) and other in the 1970s. The remainder were privatised in 1984 and became Royal Ordnance PLC. The Korean War, from June 25, 1950 to cease-fire on July 27, 1953 (the war has not ended officially), was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. ... 1970 (MCMLXX in Roman) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV in Roman) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Royal Ordnance was the state-run arms manufacturer in the United Kingdom which was privatised in 1984 and sold off by the government to British Aerospace (BAe) in 1987. ...

Temporary ROFs, or ROFs which closed in the 1950s and 1970s, tended to be used by other Government Departments. Some closed ROFs, such as RNPF Caerwent, were retained by the Ministry of Defence as ammuniton storage areas; others became Government Industrial Estates or Trading Estates; others were used as sites to build Prisons or Open Prisons. Part of ROF Thorpe Arch became the Boston Spa depository of the British Library; and a Hostel at ROF Swynnerton became a Training School for the General Post Office (GPO) Telephones, which later became British Telecom. Now called Yarnfield Park Training and Conference Centre and run by Accenture. Caerwent is a village in Monmouthshire, Wales. ... ROF Thorpe Arch, (Royal Ordnance Factory, Thorpe Arch), or possibly ROF Thorp Arch, was one of nearly twenty World War II, UK, government-owned Filling Factories, which produced munitions. ... Boston Spa is a village in the county of West Yorkshire, England, four miles south of Wetherby, on the banks of the River Wharfe. ... British Library Ossulston St entrance, with distinctive red logo. ... Training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, attitudes as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge and relates to specific useful skills. ... American high school students in a school A school is most commonly a place designated for learning. ... The British General Post Office (GPO) was officially established in 1660 by Charles II and it eventually grew to combine the functions of both the state postal system and telecommunications carrier. ... BT Group plc (which trades as just BT, and is commonly known by its former name, British Telecom) is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. ...

As part of privatisation process in the 1980s Royal Ordnance took over some of the formerly separate UK Government-owned research and development capability and moved this capability into the ROFs. Other parts of the UK Defence research and design capability were closed down, remained with the UK Ministry of Defence, or they became part of QinetiQ. The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ... Main Building - The Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, Westminster, London Tri-service badge of the UK armed forces The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and the headquarters of the UK military. ... QinetiQ (pronounced kĭ-nĕtĭk, as in kinetic energy) is a British defence technology company, created out of the greater part of the government agency DERA when it was split up in June 2001 (with the smaller part forming Dstl). ...

The small number of ROFs involved in nuclear weapons production were removed from the ROF management chain and did not pass over to Royal Ordnance upon privatisation. The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... Management (from Old French ménagement the art of conducting, directing, from Latin manu agere to lead by the hand) characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organization, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). ...

The Minstry of Defence Police left most of the ROFs on or within a few years of privatisation.

See also

• Royal Ordnance
• List of Royal Ordnance Factories
• Filling Factories

Royal Ordnance was the state-run arms manufacturer in the United Kingdom which was privatised in 1984 and sold off by the government to British Aerospace (BAe) in 1987. ... This is a list of Royal Ordnance Factories. ... A Filling Factory was a munitions factory which specialised in filling various munitions, such as bombs, shells, cartridges, screening smokes, etc. ...

References

• Bowditch, M.R. & Hayward, L. (1996). "A Pictorial Record of the Royal Naval Cordite Factory, Holton Health". Warham: Finial Publishing.
• Hay, Ian. (1949). "R.O.F.: The Story of the Royal Ordnance Factories: 1939 - 48". London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.
• Hornby, William. (1958). Factories and Plant. History of the Second World War. United Kingdom Civil Series. London: Her Majesty's Staionery Office and Longmans, Green and Co.
• Kohan, C.M. (1952). Works and Buildings. History of the Second World War. United Kingdon Civil Series. London: Her Majesty's Staionery Office and Longmans, Green and Co.
• Nevell, Mike, Roberts, John & Smith, Jack. (1999). " A History of Royal Ordnance Factory, Chorley". Trowbridge: Carnegie Publishing..