C O N T E X T 1 3 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 17 MARK STEVENSON She Works at Woolwich Arsenal Now By 1914 the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich covered 1,285 acres of south London and employed 80,000 people, contributing to what was, among other things, a contest of industrial might. I work atWoolwich Arsenal now, Give my message to your chums, Girls are working ’midst the shells and guns Altho’ ’tis tiring, as you’re requiring ammunition for the fighting line, We’ll do our share for you out there.1 These were the lines sung in 1916 by the women working in the munitions factory at the Royal Arsenal.The song ‘SheWorks atWoolwich Arsenal Now’ was written and composed by Robert Donnelly as a munitions worker’s romance about a letter received by a wounded soldier in France from his sweetheart. One wonders as to how it would have been possible to sing in these factories and be heard above the noise of the machines, the drive-belts, the flywheels and the clanking of wagons being shunted into the workshops, bringing in materials and taking away shells. From humble beginnings in the late 17th century, the Warren, renamed by George III during a visit in 1805 as the Royal Arsenal, developed in fits and starts that reflected one crisis or another in the British Empire. By 1914 the site had expanded to 1,285 acres and employed 80,000 people. Around 40,000 people would pass through the Beresford Gate, the main entrance to the Royal Arsenal, during the half hour before the changeover of the 12-hour shift at 7 pm, with a similar number passing out through the same gate in the next half hour. The Royal Arsenal had developed on the principle of a workshop range grouped into four to form a quadrangle, The Royal Arsenal in 1916. Copyright Greenwich Heritage Centre A Royal Arsenal munitions worker badge. Copyright English Heritage References 1 Trotter, S, 30 May 2014, ‘Woolwich Choir UnearthWw1 song’, News Shopper.The first modern rendition of the song was performed by theWoolwich Singers to mark the start of the first world war. The Board Room for Officers of the Ordnance Board at the Royal Arsenal (1718–20), attributed to Sir JohnVanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor.
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