In connection with an official inquiry it was found that in 1896 there were 18,000 men employed in the arsenal at Elswick alone, and that 13 ironclads and cruisers, and 1400 guns were being built.
TESTING GUNS AT SHOEBURYNESS.
It is at Shoeburyness, in the county of Essex, that experiments are carried out with the guns, large and small, manufactured at Woolwich and Enfield.
Shoeburyness has become a military centre, not because of any advantages afforded by its position on the sea, but because it consists of a large tract of dreary marshes flanked to the south and east by the far-stretching Maplin sands, which are almost entirely uncovered at low-water. These sands form the attraction from a scientific point of view.
The first connection of Shoeburyness with modern military matters appears to have been made so lately as the time of the Crimean War, when the flat rough marshland was employed as a camping ground for men and horses with the view of accustoming both to the hard work which lay before them in the East. This tract of country has thus become the property of the War Department, and that administrative body soon found another use for it, in which the half-submerged sands were to bear an important part. The idea was conceived that targets might be erected on these sands, and that the projectiles which were fired at them might be recovered at low-water. Hence the first connection of Shoeburyness with the artillery of the present day. A safe range can be found across the sands to almost any distance, and these marshes have therefore become the stage on which our great guns, such as Armstrongs and Whitworths, have made, so to speak, their first début.
To reach Shoeburyness we take the railway which runs along the south coast of Essex and the northern bank of the Thames. As we near the mouth of the estuary we pass Southend, beloved of trippers, with its pier stretching out in its length of over a mile, and then cross the base of the ness itself, when we reach the sea again. On the south-eastern face of the ness we are at our journey's end, and the railway also, so far as the general public is concerned, has come to a full stop. We walk through the little town or village, and on the farther side find what we may call the original settlement of gunnery experiments, now for the most part a group of barracks and quarters such as we might find at any military station. A few differences we notice, however, for, as we pass through the barrack-yard, we observe that one building is labelled 'Lecture-room,' and other evidences there are here and there that the artillerymen who are quartered here are not altogether engaged in their ordinary duties. We shall probably not linger long at the barracks, but we shall not fail to observe that the officers' quarters and mess-room occupy an extremely pleasant position on a wooded bank above the sea, and that at high-water the waves come rippling up to the very trees themselves. Farther on are the houses appropriated to married officers, all alike situated on the pleasant sea-bank.
We see in front of us huge wooden erections standing on the edge of the shore. These are conning-towers from which, when practice is going on, a view is obtained of the direction of the shot. Beneath them are the batteries from which the guns are fired, and here go on the courses of instruction in practical artillery work, which are necessary for newly joined officers.
But we have by no means seen the most important part of Shoeburyness when we have visited the barracks and the batteries. We notice that a line of rails winds its way in and out amongst guns and storehouses, and if we have timed our visit right we shall find a little miniature train just about to start for what is called The New Range. Taking our places in this train we shall be carried first through the village and past the terminus of the public line, and then along a private railway which winds along amongst the corn-fields, until we reach a retired spot on the sea-shore hemmed in by lofty trees. In this private place are carried on all the experiments for which Shoeburyness is famous, and here both guns and explosives are tested to their utmost capability.
It is not altogether an unpicturesque spot at which we have arrived. Grouped together in this immediate neighbourhood are certain nice old farmhouses and other buildings which have been taken possession of by the military. The space in front would no doubt be an admirable rabbit-warren, only the whole ground is now covered by guns of various sizes, targets, shields, breastworks, and models of portions of ironclad and other vessels. Amongst these run lines of rails by which guns and materials can be moved to any part of the ground; and in places there are overhead travelling cranes by which heavy cannon may be hoisted on to or off from their carriages or into trucks, as need may require; and we again see lofty conning-towers, though target practice at a distance is not carried on here to the same extent as it is in that portion of the establishment which we first visited. The work at The New Range is connected rather with experiments as to the force of explosives and the penetrating power of projectiles than with accuracy of aim and the direction of the shot.