WW1 Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield RSAF War Workers Lapel Badge

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The Royal Small Arms Factory (RSAF) was a UK government-owned rifle factory in the London Borough of Enfield in an area generally known as the Lea Valley. The factory produced British military rifles, muskets and swords from 1816. It closed in 1988, but some of its work was transferred to other sites. The RSAF had its origins in a short-lived Royal Manufactory of Small Arms established in Lewisham in 1807. (The site in Lewisham was a mill where armour had been made since the fourteenth century; following its purchase by Henry VIII in 1530, it became known as the Royal Armoury Mills and served his armoury in Greenwich.) During the Napoleonic War, the increasing demand for large quantities of reliable weapons prompted the Board of Ordnance to look into building a new factory on a larger site.[1]

The factory was to be located at Enfield Lock on a marshy island bordered by the River Lea and the Lee Navigation. The land was acquired in 1812 and the factory completed by 1816.[2] The site had the advantages of water-power to drive the machinery and the River Lea Navigation for the transportation by barge of raw materials and finished weapons to the River Thames, 15 miles away to be loaded onto sailing ships. Neighbouring farmland was acquired to become a restricted area to test ordnance from the Royal Gunpowder Mill. The RSAF was originally all situated on the east side of the Lea, in the county of Essex in Waltham Abbey parish, Sewardstone hamlet. The course of the river was diverted during the life of the factory, and part of the site then fell in Enfield parish. Local boundary changes initiated by SI 1993/1141 after it closed transferred the site entirely from Epping Forest (district) to the London Borough of Enfield.

The original ambitious plans by Captain John By included three mills. Later, the engineer John Rennie recommended the construction of a navigable leat. The leat was made, although only one mill with two waterwheels was completed. In 1816 the barrel branch was transferred from Lewisham; and by 1818 the lock and finishing branches had been moved to the site, enabling the closure of the Lewisham factory. A sword-making department was set up in 1823. The factory fought off the threat of closure in 1831; and remained quite modest in size until the Crimean War of 1853/1856, which resulted in vastly increased production. By 1856 a machine shop was built on American mass-production lines, using American machinery powered by steam engines. The shop was based on a design by John Anderson and built by the Royal Engineers. The workforce increased to 1000, and by 1860 an average of 1,744 rifles were produced per week. In 1866 another major expansion took place, when the watermill gave way to steampower. The total number of steam engines grew to sixteen; and by 1887 there were 2,400 employees. The factory expanded again in World War I; and in World War II. Two other Royal Ordnance Factories were set up in World War II to manufacture rifles designed at RSAF Enfield, and hence to increase arms output in areas less vulnerable to bombing: ROF Fazakerley and ROF Maltby. Both of these have long been closed. Decline set in after World War II; and in 1963 half the site was closed. The Royal Small Arms Factory was privatised in 1984 along with a number of Royal Ordnance Factories to become part of Royal Ordnance Plc; and was later bought by British Aerospace (BAe). They closed the site in 1988.

Please see our other items for more original WW1, WW2 & post war British military badges for sale including other WW1 Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield RSAF War Workers Lapel Badges.