The
Royal Small Arms Factory (
RSAF) was a
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
government-owned
rifleA rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
factory in the
London Borough of EnfieldThe London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest...
in an area generally known as the
Lea ValleyThe Lea Valley, the valley of the River Lea, has been used as a transport corridor, a source of sand and gravel, an industrial area, a water supply for London, and a recreational area...
. The factory produced
British military riflesThe origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket. While a musket was largely inaccurate over 80 yards due to a lack of rifling and a generous tolerance to allow for muzzle-loading, it was cheaper to produce and could be loaded quickly. The use in...
, muskets and
swordsA sword is a cutting/thrusting weapon made of metal. Sword or swords may also refer to:* Swords, County Dublin, Ireland* Suit of swords, a suit in Latin-suited playing cards and Tarot decks* SWORDS, a ground-based military robot...
from 1816. It closed in 1988, but some of its work was transferred to other sites.
Foundation
The factory was located at
Enfield LockEnfield Lock is an area in the London Borough of Enfield, North London. It is approximately located east of the Hertford Road between Turkey Street and the Holmesdale Tunnel overpass, to the River Lee Navigation, including the Enfield Island Village. The locality gains its name from the lock on the...
on a
marshIn geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
y island bordered by the River Lea and the
River Lee NavigationThe Lee Navigation is a canalised river incorporating the River Lea . Its course runs from Hertford Castle Weir all the way to the River Thames at Bow Creek. The first lock of the navigation is Hertford Lock the last being Bow Locks....
. It was built on the instructions of the
Board of OrdnanceThe Board of Ordnance was a British government body responsible for the supply of armaments and munitions to the Royal Navy and British Army. It was also responsible for providing artillery trains for armies and maintaining coastal fortresses and, later, management of the artillery and engineer...
near the end of the Napoleonic War. The land was acquired in 1812 and the factory completed by 1816. The site had the advantages of water-power to drive the machinery and the River Lee Navigation for the transportation by barge of raw materials and finished weapons to the River Thames, 15 miles away to be loaded onto sailing ships. Neighbouring farmland was acquired to become a restricted area to test ordnance from the Royal Gunpowder Mill. The RSAF was originally all situated on the east side of the Lea, in the county of
EssexEssex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
in
Waltham AbbeyWaltham 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. It is about 24 km north of London on the Greenwich Meridian and lies between the River Lea in the west and Epping Forest in the east. It takes its name from The Abbey...
parish,
SewardstoneSewardstone is a place in the Epping Forest district of Essex, England.It is located 11.6 miles north north-east of Charing Cross and is the only area outside Greater London to be covered by a London postcode district . The area consists of scattered development with large sections of open land...
hamlet. The course of the river was diverted during the life of the factory, and
part of the site then fell in Enfield parish. Local boundary changes initiated by SI 1993/1141 after it closed transferred the site entirely from
Epping Forest (district)Epping Forest is a local government district of the county of Essex, England. It is named after Epping Forest, of which the district contains a large part...
to the
London Borough of EnfieldThe London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest...
.
The original ambitious plans by Captain
John ByLieutenant-Colonel John By was a British military engineer, best remembered for supervising the construction of the Rideau Canal and, in the process, founding what would become the city of Ottawa....
included three mills. Later, the engineer
John Rennie-People:* John Rennie the Elder , engineer * Sir John Rennie the Younger , engineer * John Rennie , naval architect...
recommended the construction of a navigable
leatA leat is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond...
. The leat was made, although only one mill with two
waterwheelsA water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...
was completed.
In 1816 the
barrelA gun barrel is the tube, usually metal, through which a controlled explosion or rapid expansion of gases are released in order to propel a projectile out of the end at a high velocity....
branch was transferred from
LewishamLewisham is a district in South London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
; and by 1818 the
lockThe lock of a firearm is the system used to ignite the propellant. Types of lock include snaplock, matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, modern percussion, rotating bolt, and experimental electronic types. A complete firearm often consists of lock, stock, and barrel...
and finishing branches had been moved to the site, enabling the closure of the Lewisham factory. A
swordA sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
-making department was set up in 1823.
The Crimean War
The factory fought off the threat of closure in 1831; and remained quite modest in size until the
Crimean WarThe Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
of 1853/1856, which resulted in vastly increased production.
By 1856 a machine shop was built on
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mass-production lines, using American machinery powered by steam engines. The shop was based on a design by John Anderson and built by the
Royal EngineersThe Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army....
. The workforce increased to 1000, and by 1860 an average of 1,744 rifles were produced per week.
In 1866 another major expansion took place, when the watermill gave way to steampower. The total number of steam engines grew to sixteen; and by 1887 there were 2,400 employees.
Production of the new model rifle designed by
James Paris LeeJames Paris Lee was a Scottish-Canadian and later American inventor and arms designer, best known for inventing the bolt action that led to the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series of rifles.-Early Life and Career:...
begun in 1889. The famous Lee Enfield rifle was designed in 1895.
20th century
The factory expanded again in
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
; and in
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Two other Royal Ordnance Factories were set up in World War II to manufacture rifles designed at RSAF Enfield, and hence to increase arms output in areas less vulnerable to bombing:
ROF FazakerleyROF Fazakerley was a Royal Ordnance Factory rifle manufacturing plant in Fazakerley, Liverpool; which manufactured weapons such as the Sten and Sterling submachine guns and Lee-Enfield rifle during and after World War II....
and
ROF MaltbyROF Maltby was a Royal Ordnance Factory rifle manufacturing plant in Maltby, South Yorkshire which manufactured weapons such as the Lee-Enfield rifle and Sten submachine gun during World War II....
. Both of these have long been closed.
Decline set in after World War II; and in 1963 half the site was closed.
The Royal Small Arms Factory was
privatisedPrivatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
in 1984 along with a number of
Royal Ordnance FactoriesRoyal Ordnance Factories 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....
to become part of
Royal OrdnanceRoyal Ordnance plc was formed on 2 January 1985 as a public corporation, owning the majority of what until then were the remaining United Kingdom government-owned Royal Ordnance Factories which manufactured explosives, ammunition, small arms including the Lee-Enfield rifle, guns and military...
PlcA public limited company is a limited liability company that sells shares to the public in United Kingdom company law, in the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth jurisdictions....
; and was later bought by
British AerospaceBritish Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...
(BAe). They closed the site in 1988.
The significance of RSAF Enfield
The factory was set up because of disappointment with the poor quality and high cost of the existing British weapons used in the Napoleonic War. At this time in Britain, they were built as individual gun components mainly in the Gun Quarter, Birmingham by a number of independent manufacturers and then hand-assembled to produce rifles. These component makers eventually combined to become the
Birmingham Small Arms CompanyThis article is not about Gamo subsidiary BSA Guns Limited of Armoury Road, Small Heath, Birmingham B11 2PP or BSA Company or its successors....
. The Enfield factory was intended to improve the quality and to drive down costs.
Weapons designed / built at RSAF Enfield
Almost all the weapons in which the Royal Small Arms Factory had a hand in design or production carry either the word
Enfield or the letters
EN in their name;
- Enfield Pattern 1853 Rifle-Musket
The Enfield Pattern 1853 Rifle-Musket was a .577 calibre Minié-type muzzle-loading rifle-musket, used by the British Empire from 1853 to 1867, after which many Enfield 1853 Rifle-Muskets were converted to the cartridge-loaded Snider-Enfield rifle.-History &...
which used the Minié ballThe Minié ball is a type of muzzle-loading spin-stabilising rifle bullet named after its co-developer, Claude-Étienne Minié, inventor of the Minié rifle...
ammunition.
- Snider-Enfield
The British .577 Snider-Enfield was a type of breech loading rifle. The firearm action was invented by the American Jacob Snider, and the Snider-Enfield was one of the most widely used of the Snider varieties. It was adopted by British Army as a conversion system for its ubiquitous Pattern 1853...
Rifle: an 1866 breech-loading version of the 1853 Enfield.
- Martini-Henry
The Martini-Henry was a breech-loading single-shot lever-actuated rifle adopted by the British, combining an action worked on by Friedrich von Martini , with the rifled barrel designed by Scotsman Alexander Henry...
Rifle: breech-loading lever activated rifle, manufactured from 1871-1891.
- Enfield revolver
Enfield Revolver is the name applied to two totally separate models of self-extracting British handgun designed and manufactured at the government-owned Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield; initially the .476 calibre Revolver Enfield Mk I/Mk II revolvers , and later the .38/200 calibre Enfield No...
: standard issue sidearms, two main versions from 1880 to 1957.
- Martini-Enfield
Martini-Enfield rifles were, by and large, conversions of the Zulu War era .450/577 Martini-Henry, rechambering the rifle for use with the newly introduced .303 British cartridge...
: a conversion of the Martini-HenryThe Martini-Henry was a breech-loading single-shot lever-actuated rifle adopted by the British, combining an action worked on by Friedrich von Martini , with the rifled barrel designed by Scotsman Alexander Henry...
rifle to .303.303 British, or 7.7x56mmR, is a .311 inch calibre rifle and machine gun cartridge first developed in Britain as a blackpowder round put into service in December 1888 for the Lee-Metford rifle, later adapted to use smokeless powders...
calibre, from 1895.
- Lee-Enfield
The Lee-Enfield bolt-action, magazine-fed, repeating rifle was the main firearm used by the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century...
rifles - using the LeeJames Paris Lee was a Scottish-Canadian and later American inventor and arms designer, best known for inventing the bolt action that led to the Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield series of rifles.-Early Life and Career:...
bolt action. There were 13 variants from 1894 to 1957.
- Pattern 1914 Enfield Rifle: intended as a Lee-Enfield replacement, mainly used by snipers in WWI.
- Bren
The Bren, usually called the Bren Gun, was a series of light machine guns adopted by Britain in the 1930s and used in various roles until 1991...
(Brno + Enfield), .303 Light machine gunA light machine gun is a machine gun designed to be employed by an individual soldier, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. Light machine guns are often used as squad automatic weapons.-Characteristics:...
from 1935 onwards.
- Sten
The STEN was a family of British 9 mm submachine guns used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War...
(Shepherd, Turpin + Enfield) 9mm Sub-machine gun from 1941 to 1953
- Polsten
The Polsten was a low cost Polish development of the 20 mm Oerlikon gun. The Polsten was designed to be simpler and much cheaper to build than the Oerlikon without reducing effectiveness.-Development:...
low cost version of 20 mm Oerlikon (acknowledging two PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
designers + Sten (= Shepherd, Turpin + Enfield)), from 1944.
- Taden gun
The TADEN was a British experimental light machine gun firing the .280 in intermediate round. Alongside the bullpup EM-2 rifle design, it formed part of a proposal to reequip the British Army with new small arms which would use a round smaller than the .303 inch which was shown to be impractical...
: .280The .280 British was an experimental intermediate rifle cartridge. It was later designated 7 mm MK1Z, and has also been known as 7 mm NATO, .280/30, .280 Enfield, .280 NATO, 7 mm FN Short, and 7×43mm. It was designed by the British Army in the late 1940s, with subsequent help from...
calibre experimental machine gun, 1951.
- EM-1: .280 calibre bullpup
Bullpups are firearm configurations in which the action is located behind the trigger group and alongside the shooter's face, so there is no wasted space for the buttstock as in conventional designs. This permits a shorter firearm length for the same barrel length for improved maneuverability, and...
design experimental assault rifleAn assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...
, 1951.
- EM-2: .280 calibre bullpup
Bullpups are firearm configurations in which the action is located behind the trigger group and alongside the shooter's face, so there is no wasted space for the buttstock as in conventional designs. This permits a shorter firearm length for the same barrel length for improved maneuverability, and...
design experimental assault rifleAn assault rifle is a selective fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard infantry weapons in most modern armies...
, 1951.
- L1A1 SLR, a British FN FAL
The Fusil Automatique Léger or FAL is a self-loading, selective fire battle rifle produced by the Belgian armaments manufacturer Fabrique Nationale de Herstal . During the Cold War it was adopted by many North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, with the notable exception of the United States...
derivative 7.62mm Self Loading Rifle, from 1954.
- TC-10
The TC-10 is a semi-automatic pistol manufactured by Enfield. The weapon uses a shock-impact polymer frame and is chambered in the 9x19mm Parabellum and fed from a 32 round magazine....
assault pistol, circa 1970s-80s.
- SA80
The SA80 is a British family of 5.56mm small arms. It is a selective fire, gas-operated assault rifle. SA80 prototypes were trialled in 1976 and production was completed in 1994....
(L85) assault rifle, from 1987.
For weapons manufactured at Enfield before 1853, see British military rifles#Early Enfield rifles
The RSAF, Enfield, was famous for its
PatternA pattern, from the French patron, is a type of theme of recurring events or objects, sometimes referred to as elements of a set of objects.These elements repeat in a predictable manner...
Room which was a collection, or master set, of every
weaponA weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...
made at RSAF Enfield. After closure this collection was moved to
ROF NottinghamRoyal Ordnance Factory Nottingham, first opened in 1916 and first opened as an ROF January 1936 was one of a number of Royal Ordnance Factories created at the start of World War II.-Background:R.O.F...
; which has since closed. The collection is now held at the Royal Armouries Museum,
LeedsLeeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
.
Closure and reuse of the site
Local government boundary changes meant that the majority of the site was now within the
London Borough of EnfieldThe London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest...
. The necessary outline planning permissions were obtained for site redevelopment; making closure of the site attractive to its new owners.
Closure was announced on 12 August 1987, shortly after privatisation as
Royal OrdnanceRoyal Ordnance plc was formed on 2 January 1985 as a public corporation, owning the majority of what until then were the remaining United Kingdom government-owned Royal Ordnance Factories which manufactured explosives, ammunition, small arms including the Lee-Enfield rifle, guns and military...
, and the site closed in 1988; the machinery was
auctionAn auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
ed off in November 1988. BAe then formed a
joint ventureA joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
with the property company
Trafalgar HouseTrafalgar House Public Limited Company was a British conglomerate with interests in property investment, property development, engineering, construction, shipping, hotels, energy and publishing...
to redevelop the site.
The majority of the site is now covered by a large housing development called
Enfield Island VillageEnfield Island Village is a modern village in the outskirts of the London Borough of Enfield, North London, home to a large housing development. Before 1998, Enfield Island Village formed part of the Epping Forest district of Essex, but was transferred to the borough of Enfield in Greater London...
.The original machine shop frontage and the older part of the rear structure has been retained and was converted into workshops and retail units by the Enfield Enterprise Agency, making use of
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(ERDF) funding. The buildings also house the RSAF Interpretation centre which can be viewed by appoinment only.
Community
By 1895, the community had long had its own school (demolished), but it now also had a church (demolished in the 1920s), police station- with three sergeants and nine constables in 1902- and a fire brigade which was manned by one professional and 32 amateurs. Housing conditions in the mid 19th century were poor in the area. The extant Government Row a
terraceIn architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...
of cottages was built between two watercourses to house some of the factories workers. Several public houses were opened close to the complex with only the
Greyhound surviving today (2009) and the brewers
Truman & HanburyThe Old Truman Brewery is the former Black Eagle brewery complex located around Brick Lane in the Spitalfields area, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was established by the brewers Truman's which subsequently became Truman, Hanbury and Buxton...
became responsible for the catering within the factory
Further reading
- Cherry, Bridget and Pevsner, Nikolaus
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, FBA was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture...
. Buildings of England: London 4: North. Pp 452–3 & 45. ISBN 0-14071049-3.
- Hay, Ian (Maj.Gen. John Hay Beith, CBE
CBE and C.B.E. are abbreviations for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", a grade in the Order of the British Empire.Other uses include:* Chemical and Biochemical Engineering...
, MCThe Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
) (1949). R.O.F. The Story of the Royal Ordnance Factories, 1939-1948. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.
- Putman, T. and Weinbren, D. (1992). A Short History of the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, Centre for Applied Historical Studies, Middlesex University
Middlesex University is a university in north London, England. It is located in the historic county boundaries of Middlesex from which it takes its name. It is one of the post-1992 universities and is a member of Million+ working group...
.
External links