Littleton Gunpowder Works

Gunpowder was the only explosive available for military use and for blasting in mines and quarries until the mid-19th century.

Production of gunpowder is thought to have begun at Littleton between Winford and Chew Magna in around 1650. The production of gunpowder was hazardous, so the site chosen was away from existing towns and villages but reasonably close to the port of Bristol, to enable the export of the finished product.  The Winford Brook, a tributary of the River Chew, provided a source of power for watermills. There were two other gunpowder mills in Somerset: one at Woolley to the north of Bath and one at Moreton, which now lies beneath Chew Valley Lake.

Gunpowder was produced by mixing saltpetre (potassium nitrate) with sulphur and charcoal.  The saltpetre, which was imported from India by the East India Company, was boiled, drained, washed and crystallised to refine it.  The charcoal and sulphur were boiled and sieved.  Once prepared the three ingredients were mixed, moistened, glazed, pressed and heat dried.  The gunpowder was then packed into 100lb barrels. Most of the gunpowder produced at Littleton was sold in Bristol to merchant and privateer ships or exported via Bristol to Africa and America.  The remainder was sold for use in local mines and quarries and for private uses such as hunting.

At the height of production in the mid-18th century Littleton was the largest gunpowder producer in the South West of England. It had three watermills located in a row between the Winford Brook and a 250 metre long clay lined mill pond, which had been constructed to provide a head of water for the mills.  The three mills were used for different processes: 

1. Crushing - preparing the raw materials

2. Incorporating - mixing the ingredients

3. Corning - forming the gunpowder into pellets 

A house was built to house the manager of the mill, a terrace of three cottages was built to house the millworkers, a clock tower was erected and other buildings were constructed to store and dry the gunpowder.  There was also a cooperage on site.

In the 1750s the mill at Littleton was owned and operated by five Bristol merchants led by Jeremiah Ames.  In 1755 a fire at the Littleton Gunpowder Mill destroyed most of the buildings but they were later rebuilt. The site was owned by the Strachey family in the second half of the eighteenth century.  

Production of gunpowder at Littleton ceased in the 1820s after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.  The site then became a farm: the manager’s house became the farmhouse, the storage facilities were used as a barn and the watermills fell into ruin. The farmhouse, which is still called Powdermill Farm, barn and the millworkers’ cottages are on private land but can be viewed from the public road to Upper Littleton.

The barn formerly used for gunpowder storage is on the left of the photograph

Powdermill Farm, Littleton

Former Millworkers’ Cottages

Alfred Leete, graphic artist

Alfred Ambrose Chew Leete was born in Thorpe Achurch in Northamptonshire on 28^th August 1882.  His parents, John and Harriet, were farmers.  John Leete gave up farming, due to ill health, in 1893 and the family moved to Weston-super-Mare, where Harriet ran a series of boarding houses.  Alfred attended Kingsholme School and the School of Science and Art (now Weston College).  At the age of 12 he was apprenticed to a surveyor in Bristol.  He loved drawing and was a self-taught artist.  In 1897 the Daily Graphic paid him for a drawing and he went on to make regular contributions to the Bristol Magpie.

In 1899 Alfred Leete moved to London to work as an artist for a printer.  He went freelance in 1905, when the magazine Punch published one of his drawings.  Over the next few years he contributed cartoons and drawings to the comic Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, the Pall Mall Gazette, Strand Magazine, Tatler, Sketch, The Bystander, Punch and the London Opinion.  He specialised in comic illustration, cartoons, posters and advertisements. 

In November 1909 Alfred married Edith Jane Webb.  Their first child, a daughter called Betty, was born in 1910 but died a few weeks later. Their son Alfred John was born in 1914. 

Britain declared war on Germany on 4^th August 1914.  On 5^th September 1914 Alfred’s drawing of the Secretary of State for War, Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, pointing his finger, featured on the front cover of the London Opinion, with the words “Your Country Needs YOU” beneath the picture.  The image was later used by the magazine as an unofficial recruitment poster with the words “Britons [Kitchener] “Wants YOU”, Join Your Country’s Army!”.  The magazine also had this image displayed on advertising hoardings in London in the autumn of 1914. 

Alfred Leete's iconic drawing of Lord Kitchener

In 1917 the American artist James Montgomery Flagg adapted Alfred’s drawing by substituting Uncle Sam for Lord Kitchener and using the slogan “I Want YOU for U.S. Army”.  It also inspired similar posters, which were produced in Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, Italy, Austria, Germany and Russia.  In the Second World War Kitchener’s face was replaced by Churchill’s on a recruitment poster for the Australian Imperial Force.  Although Alfred Leete’s drawing of Lord Kitchener was never used as an official recruitment poster, it has become one of the most iconic and enduring images of the First World War.

During the First World War Alfred produced several comic cartoons, which made fun of the Germans. In 1916 he joined the Artists’ Rifles. He served with them on the Western Front in France and produced a series of drawings of his experiences there.

In the 1920s Alfred produced illustrations for successful advertising campaigns for companies such as Guinness, Bovril, London Underground, Younger’s Ales and Rowntree’s.  He often visited Weston-super-Mare and produced advertisements for local businesses and cartoons about local issues. In 1925 he designed the cover for the Weston-super-Mare Official Guide, which was entitled “Atlantic Breezes”.

“Atlantic Breezes” by Alfred Leete, 

cover of the 1925 Official Guide to Weston-super-Mare

Alfred Leete was taken ill on a trip to Italy and he died of a brain haemorrhage at his home in Kensington, London on 17^th June 1933.  He was buried in Milton Road Cemetery in Weston-super-Mare.

Alfred Leete's grave in Milton Road Cemetery, Weston-super-Mare