Barnbow

Barnbow was a small settlement situated near the city of Leeds in the township and parish of Barwick in Elmet.

However, the name was by the thirteenth century sometime reinterpreted as including the word bow (from Old Norse bogi and/or Old English boga), which influenced its present form.

[2] After the declaration of war with Germany in August 1914, there was suddenly an urgent need for large volumes of arms and munitions.

A committee, chaired by Joseph Watson the Leeds soap manufacturer, was established for the purpose and decided to build a munitions factory from scratch.

A governing board was organized to oversee construction on the new site, which was earmarked for Barnbow, situated between Cross Gates and Garforth.

An extremely large work force was required so an employment agency was set up at the Wellesley Building in Leeds.

A third of the staff was recruited from Leeds itself, and other workers came from York, Castleford, Wakefield, Harrogate, Pontefract and many of the small villages nearby.

The food rationing was also rather severe, but the workers were allowed to drink as much barley water and milk as they liked, due to the nature of their jobs.

[7] The workers often worked with Cordite which was a propellant for the shells, but had the unfortunate side effect on people who came into contact with it of turning their skin yellow.

[9] Because of the censorship at the time, no account of the accident was made public, though Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig paid tribute to the devotion and sacrifice of the workers killed.

[12] Barnbow was Britain's top shell factory between 1914 and 1918, and by the end of the war on 11 November 1918, a total of 566,000 tons of ammunition had been shipped overseas.

In February 2025, a blue plaque was unveiled in Pontefract commemorating Barnbow munitions worker Mary Lucy Turner who died of TNT poisoning.