2-913-871 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ammunition Works at Northfleet - Ball-Cartridge-Making, 1854. Kent factory of Schlesinger & Wells during the Crimean War - 'extensive contract for the supply of ball cartridges to the Turkish government. '...behold, sitting at benches, from three hundred to four hundred young women, whose occupation it is to roll on brass tubes slips of cartridge paper, previously cut for that purpose by machines. The bullet...is dropped into the further end of the tubular paper, which is, at that end, pasted together so as to hold securely its metallic enclosure. Let the reader bear in mind that this is the only manner in which paste is used throughout the whole establishment...The girls, as fast as they form the paper tubes, place them tidily and neatly in wooden boxes which, when full, are forthwith carried into drying-rooms...the most careful and the most ingenious pains are taken to finish off the cartridges both cold and dry...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.