Barnbow Munitions Factory, injured women and nurses

1916. View showing a group of injured women, and the nurses caring for them, following an explosion which took place at the Barnbow Munitions Factory on 5th December 1916. These were the lucky ones as 35 of their colleagues were killed in the accident. The factory, on Manston Lane, was set up in 1915 as a shell filling factory to provide munitions for the troops in the First World War. From March 1916 it started to produce amatol, a highly explosive material made up of TNT mixed with ammonium nitrate, which resulted in 3 fatal explosions over the next 2 years, this being by far the largest.