{"id":19447,"date":"2026-06-15T12:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/?p=19447"},"modified":"2026-06-15T12:56:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:56:26","slug":"new-local-research-the-most-dangerous-factory-in-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2026\/06\/15\/new-local-research-the-most-dangerous-factory-in-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"New local research: &#8220;The Most Dangerous Factory in Britain&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blimey! It seems the centre of Stoke-on-Trent could have been gassed during the First World War, had things gone awry and the wind been in the wrong direction. A forthcoming local history article has the details, <a href=\"https:\/\/keele-repository.worktribe.com\/output\/1651794\">&#8220;The Most Dangerous Factory in Britain: First World War Gas Warfare and the H.M. Cylinder Depot, Stoke-on-Trent<\/a>&#8220;. The factory was located a mile or so west of Hanley, at Bucknall&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;By 1916 it was storing some 70,000 defective, dud and partially-discharged poison gas cylinders salvaged from the Western Front [the battlefield frontline in France]. With desperate gas shortages, cylinders were emptied, repaired and sent on to regional manufacturers to be refilled. The factory operated on a 24\/7 basis.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And there were escapes. For instance, William Heath of Silverdale was a worker there and was awarded the Medal of the Order of the British Empire for his bravery. From his citation&#8230; &#8220;This man, on numerous previous occasions [in addition to bravely rescuing a man saturated with escaped gas], has also displayed bravery and promptitude in dealing with serious escapes of poison gas&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blimey! It seems the centre of Stoke-on-Trent could have been gassed during the First World War, had things gone awry and the wind been in the wrong direction. A forthcoming local history article has the details, &#8220;The Most Dangerous Factory in Britain: First World War Gas Warfare and the H.M. Cylinder Depot, Stoke-on-Trent&#8220;. The factory [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19449,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19447\/revisions\/19449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}