4 minute read
The Royal Arsenal, its Centurions
To find that out in actual fact I think we need to turn to the most ignored institution in Greenwich Borough’s industrial history. That was the one which was the largest manufacturing workplace in Europe - and for many of its activities the largest in the world. But it’s not somewhere we think to look at very often. Activity there was hidden and, like everybody else, I don’t really know what they made there. The more I have looked at it in connection with vehicle manufacture, the more confused I have got.
Talking to friends they have pointed out that some of the vehicles made there were really ‘off road vehicles’. If so that means I have to work out the terms of what vehicles count in this series of articles. I had intended to do railway locomotives -clearly running on rails –separately. But sort of in between there are trams which were run on the roads on rails. I counted them as road vehicles and I will come back to picking up some of the sites they used as garages and so on later.
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So what about these ‘off road vehicles? A few years ago was driving round Dorset and I came across one such vehicle which was very clearly on the road and in my way. What was fascinating was that it clearly didn’t have - as most vehicles do – indicator lights at the rear to show if it was going to turn right or left. So standing on the front of the thing was some bloke holding his arm out in the direction the vehicle was going to go. This also leads me to ask if they have to have MOTs? Or is there some special system by which they get a licence to be on the road? I bet they don’t pay road tax?
This is by way of an illustration of some of the difficulties I am having in writing this article. Anyway if you hadn’t guessed already this manufacturing institution is the Royal Arsenal. I am being totally confused by their website (sorry, Steve. It’s a great website, very good, it’s me that can’t cope. https:// www.royal-arsenal-history.com/) but much more confused by the web site for the Tank Museum and the Imperial War Museum – both of which seem to be written solely for the lads. (What is it about men?) So I emailed the ever helpful Ian Bull to ask him if he knew what vehicles were manufactured in the Arsenal and in what numbers - and not to include all the horse drawn gun carriages which they made in their thousands.
Ian answered: “Although it was heavily involved in armoured fighting vehicle development from World War I onwards the Arsenal didn’t build any vehicles until the early 1950s. It then began to build Centurion tanks and Humber Pig armoured trucks in large numbers, certainly many hundreds... the last vehicles built there were the prototypes of the FV432 armoured personal carrier which, now known as the Bulldog, is still in service.”
Seems pretty definitive so big numbers of road vehicles were made at the Arsenal for various military purposes. I had never heard of the ‘Humber Pig’ - what was that? What does Prof.Google say?
“ .... a heavily-armoured truck used by the British Army from the mid 1950s until the 1990s... an armoured body on a four wheel drive 1-ton Humber truck …. powered by a 6-cylinder Rolls-Royce B60 engine developing 98 hp at 3.850 rpm” and it says “about 1700 were produced at Royal Ordnance Factory in Woolwich.. but – oh - production of the armoured bodies took place at Sankey at Telford or by Royal Ordnance…..and – oh, oh, - “the chassis were produced by Rootes at Maidstone”’. So does that count as ‘made in Greenwich?’
Anyway they were not supposed to be made at all very long - but ‘as the situation worsened in Northern Ireland the vehicles proved ideal ‘…. and the Pigs were modified .. “with extra armour and barricade removers installed”. And why were they called ‘pigs’ –I suppose that’s obvious … “ its bonnet resembled a pig’s snout” and “its driving characteristics were somewhat unrefined”.
By the way, in researching this I came across the 1920s The Rolls Royce Armoured Car, used to transport the Monarch, which was armoured at Woolwich Arsenal, in October 1920.
But there was only one of those.
So that leaves us with the tanks – which Ian says were made ‘in large numbers’. I remain confused though. There were lots of different designs of tank and the on-line accounts of most of them mention Woolwich staff as being in at the design or prototype stage and clearly most were manufactured there, even if it was only one or two.
For instance I find ‘’in the early 20th century, the Royal Arsenal Woolwich began to produce tanks and armoured vehicles. … some of the famous tanks produced by the Arsenal were the Mark I and Mark V tanks, which were used in the Battle of the Somme’.
And ‘With France lost,… the design was revised by Dr Merritt Director at Woolwich Arsenal, based on the combat witnessed in Poland and France’.
And ‘It would not actually be until April 1945 that the first prototype A.41… was actually finished at Woolwich Arsenal. This first vehicle was delivered to the Fighting Vehicle Proving Establishment (F.V.P.E.) at Chertsey, Surrey... and followed shortly by the next two vehicles... the first batch of 100 A.41* tanks made by Royal Ordnance Factory Woolwich.” Ah –that’s the Centurion.
If you want to know details of the Centurions’ early trials and use, as well as the mechanics down to each nut and bolt you need to look at the Tank Museum Web site https:// tanks-encyclopedia.com/operationsentry-the-first-centurion-trials-1945
It appears that 4,423 Centurion tanks were made between 1946 and 1962. 2,500 of them went off for export . Apparently most were built at Leeds and Elswick. But even so that means that over 2,000 could have been made in Woolwich. Perhaps someone could correct me? If so it is easily the vehicle of which the largest numbers were made in Greenwich Borough – that is if we accept the Centurion as a road vehicle.
Can I also say that I await with interest to see how many people manage to guess that the largest number of vehicles by a local manufacturer is a choice of two from the Royal Arsenal - if they ever think of the Arsenal as making vehicles at all. I think this is a pity because right in our midst was this very, very important manufacturing base.
Can I also say – sorry about the rude things I said about the Arsenal web site. And can I beg people to look at it and support it. The number of people working on the history of the Arsenal is totally disproportionate to its importance Thanks Steve - and everyone -it’s www.royal-arsenal-history.com/
