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Kynoch's I C I 1800s - 1920s

This is a BBC audio clip about the production of ammunition at Kynoch's during WW1. Viv.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023tcyk


The narrator of the programme sounds like Paul Franks, the chap that does the football phone ins on Radio West Midlands.

Any road, at the start of the story the Managing Director of Ely, Andrew Lane, says that Kynoch was located at Witton as George Kynoch had decided to move the factory from Whittall Street after the explosion of 1859.

Kynoch started with Messrs Persall and Phillips at Whittall Street in 1856, and it was as that Company that the explosion took place. It was not George Kynoch’s idea to move to Witton, although he would be involved, but the regulations that were set up to stop munitions factories being located in dense areas of population.

It was after the move to Witton that G Kynoch took over the Company.
 
This is a BBC audio clip about the production of ammunition at Kynoch's during WW1. Viv.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023tcyk

Another thing mentioned in the short programme is the large contracts that Kynochs received during the Great War.

Arthur Chamberlain, was then running the show, and there was many who believed it the contracts were achieved with the help of his brother. It was obviously denied, but Lloyd George remarked that the Company should be called Chamberlains as the family had about £150,000 in shares!
 
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But surely Kynochs were one of the major manufacturers of ammunition. I fail to see how they would not receive large contracts in a war , unless, of course some influential politician was of the opposite sect (party)
 
But surely Kynochs were one of the major manufacturers of ammunition. I fail to see how they would not receive large contracts in a war , unless, of course some influential politician was of the opposite sect (party)

I’m sure that the Camberlains would produce their own arguments as to why contracts should be received.

The point I make is not whether the firm Kynoch should receive or not receive contracts, just that there were some who questioned them, including Lloyd George.
 
Kynoch's Cordite leaflet, no date but hopefully this is the place to post it. Viv.

View attachment 120460

This leaflet features on the site “History of Ireland” in an article concerning the little talked about Kynoch factory in Ireland....Arklow’s explosive history: Kynoch, 1895-1918.

“In fact Chamberlain only managed to secure the initial order to manufacture cordite in Arklow by putting political pressure on the British government. The government understood that Kynoch would be supplied with ‘cordite pulp’, an almost completed product, from another manufacturer and that Kynoch would only be doing the final processing in Ireland. This was Chamberlain’s original intention, but once he visited Arklow and purchased the Arklow Chemical Works this was no longer the case. When the government discovered that Kynoch would not be manufacturing the product in Britain but in Ireland they objected, and it looked like the order was going to be withdrawn. Not to be thwarted, Chamberlain approached John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, to lobby the War Office not to obstruct the building of the factory, and following a deputation to London the objections were dropped and approval was given, somewhat begrudgingly, to manufacture cordite in Arklow.“

https://www.historyireland.com/20th...y/arklows-explosive-history-kynoch-1895-1918/
 
An early image c1867 of the Witton factory compared with the site just 20 years later. The second image shows the isolated huts (top of drawing) used for loading explosives. Viv.
image.jpeg
image.jpeg
 
Another thing mentioned in the short programme is the large contracts that Kynochs received during the Great War.

Arthur Chamberlain, was then running the show, and there was many who believed it the contracts were achieved with the help of his brother. It was obviously denied, but Lloyd George remarked that the Company should be called Chamberlains as the family had about £150,000 in shares!

Here is more info on Lloyd George’s thoughts on the contracts from the book,Two Titans, One City, by Andrew Reekes (2017)

“In retaliation Lloyd George set about investigating the extent to which the Chamberlain family benefited from war contracts, starting with Kynoch’s. Joseph’s brother Arthur Chamberlain ran the firm, one of the three biggest cordite manufacturers in Britain; Lloyd George alleged that ‘it had been practically made by the War Office’ and that it had received preferential treatment simply because of ‘the unconscious influence of a powerful personality’. He went on to point out that Hoskins (in which Joseph’s sons Neville and Austen were prominent shareholders) supplied the Navy, and that Austen was Civil Lord of the Admiralty. Herbert Chamberlain was deputy chairman of Birmingham Small Arms, whose munitions supplied British forces in South Africa. As Peter Marsh points out, here was ‘a family federation of companies manufacturing metal supplies and munitions for the armed forces to fight a war brought on by the senior member of the family, the Colonial Secretary’.”
 
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, OM, PC (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1916 and 1922. He was the final Liberal to hold the post. Lloyd George was born in Manchester to Welsh parents.
Political party‎: ‎> ‎Liberal‎; :) 1890–1916; 1924–...
Resting place‎: ‎Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd‎, Wales
Nationality‎: ‎British
Occupation‎: ‎Solicitor‎; politician
he is buried local to me.1579977474514.png
 
vintage Kynoch ammo
Kynoch didn't only make ammunition.
In 1904 they were making stationary engines from 3hp to 35hp, and portable oil engines like the one illustrated here, in a range from 7hp to 27hp, and costing from £165 to £430.
Boomy
 

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Image result for kynoch ammunition history
In 1895 Kynoch built an explosives factory east of Shell Haven Creek, Essex (now known as Coryton). This opened in 1897, with an estate for employees called Kynochtown. Products included cordite, guncotton, gunpowder, and cartridges. ... Kynoch, along with names such as Eley, became brands of subsidiaries.
Founder: George Kynoch
Founded: 1862, Witton in Birmingham, United ...
 
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View attachment 140994
In 1895 Kynoch built an explosives factory east of Shell Haven Creek, Essex (now known as Coryton). This opened in 1897, with an estate for employees called Kynochtown. Products included cordite, guncotton, gunpowder, and cartridges. ... Kynoch, along with names such as Eley, became brands of subsidiaries.
Founder: George Kynoch
Founded: 1862, Witton in Birmingham, United ...
I came across this advert in an original copy of The Birmingham Daily Post, dated August 3rd 1889, when Kynoch was selling off its lamp business.
In the book "Under Five Flags" published by Kynoch in 1962 to celebrate its centenary, a memo is quoted mentioning their lamp business;- "That the lamp business has been from the first, and is still, a losing concern, and causes a serious drain on the Company's capital".
Amusingly, the advert calls it a "Going Concern".
I found their book disappointing as it mainly dealt with the internal and external politics surrounding the company, rather than its products, but did find the picture of one of Kynoch's Alldays lorries of interest, having researched that company in great detail for my complete history of the company, published about 18 years ago.
Boomy.
 

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