3-008-624 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Girls making cartridges for Enfield rifles at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, 1862. 'Our illustration was taken [at]...the Royal Laboratory Department...near the Plumstead marshes. Each girl has a pile of small sheets of cartridge-paper before her, and also a tray of elongated bullets. She has to roll up the paper round a wooden dummy or former, the bullet being inserted at one end, which she ties up tight with string, cutting off the ends of it with a pair of scissors. The cartridges are then ready to be filled with powder...About 200 girls are employed...The girls' ages vary from ten to fourteen years, and they are the children of soldiers and arsenal workmen...They are all on piecework, and make about 900,000 cartridges per week. Clever girls will earn on an average from 8s. to 11s. per week. The nimbleness with which their little fingers rattle over the work is truly wonderful...They work only five days per week, and their hours of employment are from 7.30 a.m. till 5 p.m...The buildings in the winter are heated by means of steam-piping, and are suitably ventilated. Every attention is paid to the health and good conduct of the girls, who looked as happy as possible, but gave unmistakable signs of their sex by the chatter, chatter...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.