Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,  Cork Independent 

– 18 February 2010

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 201)

The Industrious Landscape

A newspaper article in the Cork Constitution in 1856 gives a very important insight into the stages of gunpowder production at Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills. Once refined etc, the three ingredients of gunpowder – sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal were then removed to the mixing house.  The journalist in 1856 could not ascertain the precise proportions or parts of the final mix. He noted that the process was religiously kept and never divulged to strangers. However, the usual proportions given by chemists were 75 of saltpetre, 15 of charcoal and 10 parts of sulphur.

The mixed ingredients were then sent to the composition mills, which consisted (similar to the sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal grinding mill) of two stones vertically placed and running on a bed stone. On this stone the composition was spread and wetted. The composition mills were small buildings. Only a small quantity of composition was worked there at a time, as explosions could sometimes happen from the runners and bed stone coming is contact and from other causes.

The composition taken from the mills was sent in the form of mill-cake to another department of the manufactory, where it was subjected to a violent pressure from a powerful screw-press. The next part of the operation was the breaking up of the press-cake into fragments. This was effected by a large mallet, by which the workmen broke up the gunpowder into small pieces to render its suitable for the action of the corning mill. The gunpowder thus reduced into fragments was transferred to the corning house to be corned or grained. The corning mill consisted of a number of circular sieves, in each of which were two flat circular pieces of lignum vitae or trade wood of a tough dense nature. The sieves were made of parchment skins, having round holes punched through them. Several of these sieves were fixed in a frame. That machinery moved so that the lignum runner in each sieve struck against the powder with a quick velocity breaking the lumps of powder and forcing them through the sieves, forming grains of several sizes.

The next operation was called glazing. It consisted in putting a small degree of gloss on the powder, rendering it less liable to be affected by moisture. For this purpose, the powder was placed in a reel. The reel was kept slowly revolving for some time by which the grains of gunpowder were brought into contact with each other, producing a slight gloss. The next process was stoving or drying. The stoving house comprised of a securely closed chamber, heated by steam passing through large steam-tight tubes. The powder was spread on cases placed on shelves, rising tier above tier round the room. The heat was regulated by a thermometer placed at the door.

The gunpowder was either stored in bags (for home use), or in casks of various sizes, containing from 5 to 100 pounds. The manufacture of the casks constituted an important feature of the operations carried on in connection with the powder mills. It gave employment to about fifty coopers, besides a large number of subsidiary trades. The cutting and shaping of the staves and heads of the casks were performed by machinery. The saw mills comprised a number of vertical, straight and circular saws, worked by the new motive principle entitled the turbine. The machines were noted as long been used on the European continent and farther afield in Syria but only in the years leading up to the Constitution report began to used in Ireland.

The turbine, which was employed in 1856, was constructed by Mr. Perrott. It was of 16 horse-power and was water powered producing 100 revolutions of the shaft per minute. The rounding off the head of casks was completed by a circular saw of peculiar construction by which a skilful workman could complete as many as 250 to 300 heads in an hour.

The number of people employed in the several operations of the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was about 500.  When apprentices to coopers and tradesmen were wanted they were selected from the sons of the men employed on the works, as a reward for good conduct and long services. One great advantage attending the manufacture was that it furnished employment for both sexes and for every age. Indeed a man with the assistance of one or more members of his family could make upwards of three guineas per week. As a result, the men employed on the mills, the majority of whom with their families resided on the estate were deemed by the visiting journalist as amongst the most comfortable of the manufacturing population.

In addition each family connected to the mills resided in a little cottage with a small piece of ground attached rent free. The visiting journalist in 1856 described the neat and orderly appearance of the little dwellings with clean white washed walls and “trimly” kept gardens. He felt they created the feel of a traditional English village rather than the typical habitations of Irish families. However, he further highlighted that the neatness and cleanliness of the cottages was secured through the periodical inspection by an officer who was employed to check dwellings. Indeed, the walls of the buildings were whitewashed every month.

To be continued…

Caption:

527a. Sketch map of mill ruins, western section of Ballincollig Regional Park (source: Kieran McCarthy & work of Jenny Webb, Ballincollig)

 Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Cork Independent

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 200)

A Productive Process

 When conflict broke out in 1854 with the Crimean War, followed by rebellions in India a succession of ensuing colonial conflicts and culminating in the Boer War of 1899 – 1902, Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was an active and productive centre. It thrived because of war within and through the expansion of the British empire. It also flourished due to the business strategies and network of business partnerships the owners, the Tobins engaged with within the empire.

 A newspaper article in the Cork Constitution in 1856 reveals many facets of the gunpowder production and illuminate the now ruinous mill structures that remain as symbols of the industrial process. The anonymous journalist remarks that in previous years to his report, new buildings had been added to keep pace with the advance of manufacturing science and the requirements of increasing demands and sale of gunpowder.

The journalist commented on the isolated and scattered position of the various portions of the works. Gunpowder he noted cannot, like other articles of commerce, be manufactured in one large area like at cotton or paper mills. Each process of the manufacture, from the first purification of the rough ingredients to the packing and storage of the finished article is conducted in a separate building, totally detached from the rest. The reason was influenced by the nature of the substances employed, which were liable at any time to ignite and blow up the walls and roofs of the various buildings in which they are contained.

The complex of Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills was therefore spread over 400 acres. Through diverting part of the River Lee an extensive canal was cut for the convenience of moving elements from one part of the works to another. The canal was over a mile and half long and in some places twenty metres wide. It was constructed at great expense and was considerably enlarged as the mills got busier.

The journalist writes of the canal continually enlivened by the passage to and fro of numbers in large boats. On these sulphur, saltpetre, charcoal and gunpowder in various stages of completion were transferred from one place to another as the processes of manufacturing required.

The ingredients in the composition of gunpowder were saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal mixed together in certain proportions. The journalist commented that it was in this context the experience of and judgements of the manufacturer were brought into operation. He had to determine the proportions in which the ingredients were to be combined according to the peculiar quality of gunpowder which he wished to produce.

Sulphur was an element which was used widely in various manufactures in the Ireland of 1856 and an enormous quantity of it was produced in the mining districts of Ireland. However, so great was the demand for sulphur in Ireland, an extra forty or fifty tons were annually imported from Sicily. The principal seat of the mining operations in Sicily was near Catolica. Sulphur there appeared in veins of various colours mixed with clay and gypsum. The general appearance is that of a shining red colour. Large patches of the sulphur stone were piled up over cauldrons sunk in the earth; a quantity of straw was then spread over the heap and ignited. The sulphur as it melted flowed down into the cauldron and was subsequently received into wooden moulds. The number of persons employed in Catolica in the extraction of ore and the exportation of sulphur was estimated at 8,000. Half of the entire quantity produced in Sicily was exported to Great Britain. For the manufacture of gunpowder the sulphur has to undergo a variety of processes of refinement and milling at Ballincollig to render it pure.

The saltpetre used in Ballincollig was imported from the East Indies. It was sent over in bags containing about 1 ¾ cwt, but was mixed with earths and salts for safety reasons. To remove these impurities the saltpetre at Ballincollig mills was melted in a large copper vessel. The solutions were then drawn off and crystalised. The crystals as removed from the crystallising-pans were again dissolved and subjected to the heat of a furnace by which the superfluous water of crystalisation was driven off and the remaining liquid being evaporated, the saltpetre is received into flat cakes shaped moulds. Thus prepared it possessed a white colour and was free from moisture. The product was then removed to the saltpetre mill and ground by a process similar to that for the grinding of sulphur. The residue of mainly salt was sold off.

The charcoal used in the manufacture of gunpowder was produced from alder, willow and hazel. The usual mode of manufacture was called ‘charring in pits’. It consisted of the wood being cut into lengths of about three feet with straw and then piled on the ground in a circular form and covered with straw, kept on by earth or sand to keep in the fire, giving it air by vent holes as was necessary. When the charcoal was completely made, which the men judged by the smoke and other appearances, the fire was quenched and the charcoal removed.

To be continued…

Captions:

526a. Ballincollig Regional Park, summer 2006 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)

526b. ‘Frozen’, cog wheel mechanics for leaving water into the canal, Ballincollig Regional Park

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article, Cork Independent

In the Footsteps of St. Finbarre (Part 199)

Beyond the High Wall

In the early nineteenth century, Ballincollig was one of three principal Royal Gunpowder Mills in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The other mills were at Waltham Abbey in Essex and Faversham in Kent. However, the mills at Ballincollig were constructed much later (1794) than the latter and hence the County Cork site was based on existing plans and technologies that had developed over many centuries.

Documentary evidence shows that gunpowder was produced in the Waltham Abbey area from at least the seventeenth century.  Later the Waltham Abbey site became the leading English producer. The Faversham site was started as a private enterprise in 1653. In 1760 this site and a later site nearby were bought by the British Government. After the Napoleonic Wars the Westminster Government sold off all three Faversham sites. Without Faversham gunpowder, Britain’s industrial revolution could never have taken place. It was used to blast routes for canals and railways and to quarry stone needed for bridges and other structures.

In Ballincollig a high stone wall enclosed 431 acres across which were various structures of buildings in which the various ingredients of gunpowder were made or mixed. The end result was a volatile product used to advance the British Empire from blasting rocks in mines to aiming to kill people on Britain’s international battlefields.

Waltham Abbey, Faversham and Ballincollig gunpowder mills were serious production centres. They responded successfully in volume and quality to the massive increases in demand which arose over the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1789, culminating in the English victory at Waterloo in Belgium in 1815.  England’s war with France created an economic boom from many provisions regions like Cork benefitted from. In Cork Harbour the imperial navy established a large arsenal on Haulbowline Island and a naval dockyard was built. Martello towers were also erected in Cork Harbour offering the Navy protection. Ballincollig benefitted from large scale employment in the mills, investment in the regional roads infrastructure and the growth of the settlement of Ballincollig ensued.

In 1810, an army barracks was built in Ballincollig to protect the supply of gunpowder. The outer perimeter stone walls extended from the eastern gate of the mills to Inniscarra Bridge. Ballincollig Barracks was located to the northern side of the Main Street in Ballincollig town centre. In the years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars the mills entered a period of quiet with a steep decline in staff numbers and production levels.

In 1834, the Board of Ordnance sold the Gunpowder Mills to the Tobins, a Liverpool family. In the same year, Thomas Tobin married Catherine Ellis in 1835 and they moved into Charles Henry Leslie’s former house. Catherine was an avid painter so Thomas built an Oriel or a recess with a polygonal window built out from a wall. From this time on, the house became more affectionately known as Oriel House (now a hotel). The mills had lain derelict for 20 years before that.

By the year 1837, Samuel Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland described Ballincollig as a place chiefly distinguished as a military depot. He highlighted the extensive gunpowder-mills, formerly carried on under the superintendence of Government. Lewis mentioned the purchase by the Tobins and the return to full operation of the mills. The army barracks contained accommodation for eighteen officers and 242 non-commissioned officers and privates. In the centre of the quadrangle, there were eight gun sheds and near them were the stables and offices. Within the walls was a large and commodious school room. The police depot for the province of Munster was situated here and the men were drilled till they were deemed ‘efficient’ and were then drafted off to the different stations in the province.

Samuel Lewis wrote about the artillery barracks forming an extensive quadrangular pile of buildings. In the eastern range were the officers’ apartments. On the western side stood a hospital and a neat church, built in 1814, in which service was regularly performed by a resident chaplain. There was also a Roman Catholic chapel. The buildings contained accommodation for 18 officers and 242 non-commissioned officers and privates. They were adapted to receive eight field batteries; though at the time of Lewis’ survey only one was stationed here, to which were attached 95 men and 44 horses. In the centre of the quadrangle eight gun sheds were placed in two parallel lines, and near them were the stables and offices. Within the walls a large and commodious school-room was also located.

Immediately adjoining the barracks and occupying a space of nearly four miles in extent were the gunpowder mills. At convenient distances were placed the different establishments for granulating and drying the gunpowder, making charcoal, refining sulphur and saltpetre, making casks and hoops and the various machinery connected with the works.

At a considerable distance from the mills were two ranges of comfortable cottages for a portion of the work-people, tenanted by 54 families, According to Samuel Lewis, the number of persons employed was about 200 and the quantity of gunpowder manufactured annually was about 16,000 barrels.

To be continued…

Captions:

525a. At the gates to Ballincollig Regional Park, winter 2006, on tour with Jenny Webb, local historian

525b. Ballincollig Regional Park, summer 2006 (pictures: Kieran McCarthy)