Heritage: Wartime naval guns made by city steel manufacturer

I recently came across some pictures of magic lantern slides in the Sheffied Telegraph’s sister paper The Star.

These fascinating glimpses of the past were intriguing, but then I realised one of them was related to my own research interest in armaments.

The image is undoubtedly of the Gun Shop at Vickers’ River Don Works, the modern-day site of Sheffield Forgemasters.

Vickers were the only one of the Sheffield armaments companies – which included the well-known names of John Brown, Cammell Laird, Thomas Firth and Hadfields – to produce finished naval guns for battleships.

The legacy of production endures too; a former Sheffield Forgemasters employee once told me that they still call one area of their works the Gun Shop.

The story of Vickers’ connection with armaments goes back to 1888 and the leadership of brothers Thomas and Albert Vickers.

Under their guidance, the company diversified into both armour and gun manufacture in Sheffield following a government initiative to widen manufacture of armaments products following the 1888 Naval Defence Act.

The company, then known as Vickers and Sons, continued to expand their connection with armaments and purchased a shipyard at Barrow (where the new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier has recently been built) and the Maxim machine gun works in 1897.

These moves brought with them a new name – Vickers, Sons and Maxim. The initials VS&M can still be seen in the building work of the former River Don Works on Brightside Lane.

In further expansion the company manufactured complete battleships, submarines and aircraft before the Great War.