2-632-833 - Historic England/Heritage Images

Cunard Shell Works, Bootle, Merseyside, September 1917. Two female workers using spray guns to apply varnish or polish to the surface of completed heavy artillery shells. In 1915 the Cunard Steamship Company’s store and engineering works at Rimrose Road, Bootle, was converted into a munitions factory. Four-and-a-half-inch, six-inch and eight-inch shells were brought to Cunard's Shell Works to be finished, checked and varnished before being taken to another factory in the area to be filled with explosive.