armament depot (or a group of depots) dedicated to supplying the Royal Navy (as well as, at various times, the Royal Air Force, the British Army and foreign and Commonwealth forces). They were sister depots of Royal Naval Cordite Factories, Royal Naval Torpedo and Royal Naval Mine Depots.[citation needed] The only current RNAD is RNAD Coulport, which is the UK Strategic Weapon Facility for the nuclear-armed Trident Missile System
; with many others being retained as tri-service 'Defence Munitions' sites.
Historically, several of these depots played a key role in
garrisons based there, in Britain they were stored as close as possible to the Royal Navy Dockyards, to facilitate the transfer of armaments between the depots and warships
, but not too close to minimise the risk of any accident or explosion in the depot causing damage to warships.
History
Under the Board of Ordnance
The earliest Ordnance Depots, several of which later became RNADs, were built by the
forts and armaments within the United Kingdom as well as the British Empire; it provided ordnance and ammunition for both naval and military uses.[2]
In the
Anchorage where cannons, shot, small arms and other items were kept available ready for naval use. Gunpowder was stored separately (initially in nearby fortified structures such as Portsmouth's Square Tower, Plymouth's Royal Citadel and Upnor Castle on the River Medway). After 1671 the gun wharf at Woolwich Dockyard was extended to the east and by 1700 ammunition was being assembled on the site, which soon expanded to become the Board's principal manufacturing facility (later named the Royal Arsenal
).
In the 1720s the Board of Ordnance consolidated its gunwharf activity within new, purpose-built sites at
Keyham Point near Devonport (from 1775). The Thames dockyards were served by the Board's central magazine complex at Purfleet, as were the yards on the Medway (where Upnor Castle continued to serve as an interim store).[1]
In times of conflict the demand for provision (and therefore storage) of gunpowder grew, so additional magazines were built during the
When the Board of Ordnance was abolished in 1855 control of its assets passed to the War Office; they were overseen by a series of different military authorities:
This period coincided with a revolution in naval ordnance, with new gun and shell technology being developed for a new generation of
ironclad warships. An emphasis was placed on adapting the established depots to handling the new ammunition, rather than on establishing new depot sites (although much needed additional storage space was provided in 1875 when a new magazine complex was opened at Chattenden
near Upnor).
Some depots began to develop a manufacturing role alongside that of storage: a factory opened on Portsmouth Gunwharf in 1863 for making
small-arms
ammunition manufacture) developed into a facility for shell-filling, an activity which soon outgrew its initial accommodation and spread into new purpose-built complexes at this and most of the other magazine depots.
Under the Admiralty
Naval Ordnance Store Department (1891–1918)
In 1891, the decision was taken to divide responsibility for armament provision (for the army and the navy respectively) between the War Office and the
Admiralty, with assets (including premises, personnel, equipment and supply vessels) being divided between the two services. For their part, the Admiralty established a new Naval Ordnance Store Department, based at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich and overseen by the Director of Naval Ordnance, to manage them.[3]
As part of this process, the gunwharves at Portsmouth and Chatham were each divided in two between the Navy and the Army, as were storage facilities at Woolwich Arsenal; at Plymouth the Devonport gun wharf remained with the Army, so a new naval gunwharf was set up within part of the Royal William Victualling Yard.[1] Other ordnance locations (including some which were initially divided) ended up either with one service or the other; those that remained with the Army included Purfleet, Tipner and Weedon ordnance depots.
... the Official designations of the Naval Ordnance Depots at the undermentioned places will be as follows:
Woolwich: H.M. Naval Gunwharf, Woolwich Arsenal;
Priddy's Hard: H.M. Naval Magazine;
Portsmouth: H.M. Gunwharf;
Plymouth: H.M. Naval Gunwharf;
Bull Point, Devonport: H.M. Naval Magazine;
Chatham: H.M. Naval Gunwharf;
Upnor, Rochester: H.M. Naval Magazine.
By the start of the 20th century, however, all these facilities were officially known as Royal Naval Ordnance Depôts (as were the smaller depots belonging to the Admiralty, both at home and overseas).
It was only in the last decade of the nineteenth century that gunpowder began to lose its primacy in ordnance manufacture.
narrow-gauge railways
.
Several new Depots were established during, or in the run up to, the First World War, including a number in Scotland, where new naval dockyards had opened at Rosyth and Invergordon.
Armament Supply Department (1918–1964)
On 23 December 1918 the Naval Ordnance Store Department was renamed the Armament Supply Department and its depots were likewise renamed Royal Naval Armament Depots (RNAD) in 1920. The change of nomenclature recognised the inclusion of torpedoes and naval mines (which had been managed separately during the war) alongside ordnance as part of the new department's responsibilities.
The vulnerability of the armament depots to
Navy List (viz. Woolwich, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham and Crombie),[5] by 1945 over thirty are mentioned, in addition to these five, with nine more RNADs in various locations listed as sub-depots of the 'Central Naval Armament Supply Depots, Wolverhampton'.[6] Similarly overseas, the 1939 list of seven RNADs (Gibraltar, Malta, Hong Kong, Singapore, Simon's Town, Bermuda and Ceylon)[5] had grown to a list of over twenty (with several more sub-depots in addition).[6]
The Armament Supply Department continued in operation until 1965.[3]
On 1 April 1994, the RNSTS ceased to exist and was absorbed into the Naval Support Command. At first renamed the 'Warship Support Agency', it went on to form part of the tri-service
DM Beith
), with the aforementioned exception of RNAD Coulport.
The collective name for the Gosport depots was changed in 1977 from RNAD Priddy's Hard to RNAD Gosport in anticipation of the closure of Priddy's Hard itself.[3]
Established by the government of New South Wales in 1865; in Royal Navy ownership 1884–1913, then transferred to the Royal Australian Navy, which still uses the site as a Naval repository.
^ abcdefgEvans, David (2006). Arming the Fleet: The Development of the Royal Ordnance Yards 1770–1945. Gosport, Hants.: Explosion! Museum (in association with English Heritage).
W N Mansfield (1995), "Priddy's Hard 1846 – 1906 – The site impact of the introduction of modern chemical explosives" – BSc (Hons) Archaeology dissertation.
Semark, H.W. (1997). The Royal Naval Armaments Depots of Priddy's Hard, Elson, Frater and Bedebham (Gosport, Hampshire) 1768 to 1977. Winchester: Hampshire County Council.