BMARC (British Manufacture and Research Company) was a UK-based firm designing and producing defence products, particularly aircraft

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

and naval anti-aircraft cannon. It was based on a site on Springfield Road (part of the A607) in

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln a ...

, Lincolnshire.

History

Second World War

Created and funded under the

Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of Stat ...

's Shadow factory plan headed up by Herbert Austin, the company was founded by William Denis Kendall. Shortly after start-up during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

rearmament period, Kendall became MP for

from 1942 to 1950. By 1943, its two production units fulfilled 46% of the UK's demand for the Hispano-Suiza 20 mm cannon. The remainder came from The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) shadow factory in

Newcastle-under-Lyme Newcastle-under-Lyme ( RP: , ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, England. The 2011 census population of the town was 75,082, whilst the wider borough had a population of 1 ...

, 25%; Poole

Royal Ordnance Factory Royal Ordnance Factories (ROFs) was the collective name of the UK government's munitions factories during and after the Second World War. Until privatisation, in 1987, they were the responsibility of the Ministry of Supply, and later the Mini ...

, 25%; and the

Royal Small Arms Factory The Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) was a UK government-owned rifle factory in Enfield (though some parts were in Waltham Abbey), adjoining the Lee Navigation in the Lea Valley. The factory produced British military rifles, muskets and s ...

Enfield, 3%. At the time of the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

in 1940, 20 mm cannon were only just starting to arm the

Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...

and

Hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Dep ...

. By 1943, the RAF had converted entirely to cannon armament for its fighters. Grantham received 21 raids by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...

for precisely this reason, which killed 70 people in 1941-2 (many around the ''Commercial Road'' and ''Norton Street'' area on 9 January and 4 February in 1941). One notable raid was on 24 October 1942 when 30 people were killed when bombs destroyed most of ''Stuart Street'' and its

air-raid shelter Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but many ...

. The

Ministry of Aircraft Production Ministry may refer to: Government * Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister * Ministry (government department), a department of a government Religion * Christian ...

site on ''Springfield Road'' was hit on 27 January 1941, when a plane was shot down. The factory was also attacked in daylight on 3 December 1940, but the plane was damaged by the 3rd Kesteven (Grantham and Spittlegate) Battalion who had an anti-aircraft battery at the factory. The 1942 morale-raising film '' The Foreman Went to France'' was based on an employee of the Grantham factory. Melbourne Johns, from Pembrokeshire, was working at the Grantham factory and realised in 1940 that the Hispano-Suiza factory in France had important Deep Hole Boring Machines that could be of immense value to the Germans and set out on a mission with a team to recover the equipment. Finding the French factory and local village deserted, they drove the equipment back to England on a lorry. Melbourne Johns died in Grantham in 1955. The Deep Hole Boring Machine (DHBM), used for

drilling Drilling is a cutting process where a drill bit is spun to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at ...

the barrels of the guns, in the Grantham factory was very valuable, and was encased in a specially-made bomb-proof shelter.

Post-war

In 1974, the company acquired a site at

Faldingworth Faldingworth is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A46, and approximately south-west from Market Rasen. Spridlington parish lies to the west, and Friesthorpe parish to the s ...

, near Market Rasen which had two indoor firing ranges for testing and proving of cannon ( Oerlikon 20 mm cannon). The site also had the capability to store nuclear weapons such as

Redbeard Redbeard or Red Beard may refer to: People * Frederick Barbarossa (Redbeard), another name for Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor (1122–1190) * Oruç Reis or Redbeard (''Barbarossa'') (1474–1518), Ottoman naval commander * Hayreddin Barbarossa o ...

and WE.177. This site is currently used by

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenue ...

. The company also made the Oerlikon 30 mm twin cannon (GCM). BMARC was a subsidiary of

Hispano-Suiza Hispano-Suiza () is a Spanish automotive–engineering company. It was founded in 1904 by Marc Birkigt and Damian Mateu as an automobile manufacturer and eventually had several factories in Spain and France that produced luxury cars, aircraft en ...

(

Suisse ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

), S.A. in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

and then was owned from 1970 to 1987 by Oerlikon, the Swiss defence contractor. It was then sold to British Astra Holdings, which had a head office in Kent, in May 1988. In the 1990s, the company was investigated for alleged illegal dealings with

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Jonathan Aitken Jonathan William Patrick Aitken (born 30 August 1942) is a British author, Church of England priest, former prisoner and former Conservative Party politician. Beginning his career in journalism, he was elected to Parliament in 1974 (serving u ...

was a non-executive director of the company from September 1988, and in a libel trial in March 1997, BMARC was accused of selling weapons to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

.BBC trial report
/ref> On 11 December 1995, an ITV ''

World in Action ''World in Action'' was a British investigative current affairs programme made by Granada Television for ITV from 7 January 1963 until 7 December 1998. Its campaigning journalism frequently had a major impact on events of the day. Its product ...

'' programme covered the subject and the Scott Report. It was extensively (and exclusively) investigated by the ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...

'' newspaper, largely motivated by the potential to discredit (and later convict) Jonathan Aitken.

Financial collapse

On 4 February 1992, after owing £50 million, Astra went into receivership. In Britain, it also owned the pyrotechnics company Haley & Weller (who made

grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade ge ...

s). After the financial collapse of Astra Holdings, in April 1992 BMARC was bought by

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

, briefly becoming part of Royal Ordnance. The company closed the Grantham site later in 1992, and the site was sold in 1994.

Royal Navy use

Ships using the 20 mm weapons are the

Type 22 frigate The Type 22 frigate also known as the ''Broadsword'' class was a class of frigates built for the British Royal Navy. Fourteen were built in total, with production divided into three batches. Initially intended to be anti-submarine warfare fri ...

, the

Type 42 destroyer The Type 42 or ''Sheffield'' class, was a class of fourteen guided-missile destroyers that served in the Royal Navy.Marriott, Leo: ''Royal Navy Destroyers since 1945'', , Ian Allan Ltd, 1989 A further two ships of this class were built for and ...

, the , the , the , the , the , HMS Bristol, and and .

Current use of the site

The former site's offices are now home to the Springfield Business Park, with the rest of the factory part developed for housing. South Lincolnshire Enterprise Agency was based there.

References

External links

Faldingworth site

Listen to a BBC documentary about BMARC/Astra.

20mm weapon
on HMS ''Cumberland''

Video clips

Dennis Kendall in 1945
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bmarc 1992 disestablishments in England Companies based in Grantham Defence companies of the United Kingdom Defunct manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom Firearm manufacturers of the United Kingdom Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1992 Science and technology in Lincolnshire Manufacturing companies established in 1937 British companies established in 1937 1937 establishments in England