The Manufacture of Gunpowder: a Study of the Documentary and Physical Evidence Relating to the Woolley Powder Works near Bath

Abstract

The manufacture of gunpowder is perhaps one of the most under-rated aspects of the changes associated with the classical years of the British industrial revolution. With its roots in Chinese learning and its associations with alchemy and the search for longevity, this commodity was nevertheless of immense practical significance in the development of both mining and trade, especially the triangular trans-Atlantic trade which brought into Britain such important raw materials as sugar, tobacco and cotton. This article pursues the limited aim of exploring one powder manufacturing site in the light of the documentary and physical evidence relating to it, but it is hoped that this may prove the starting point of a more comprehensive study of this neglected subject.