Lord Justice of Appeal John Fletcher Moulton and explosives production in World War I: 'the mathematical mind triumphant'.

Abstract

At the end of November 1914 Lord Moulton (1844-1921) became the director of explosives production in the War Office. A 70-year-old jurist may seem an extraordinary choice, but he was an extraordinary man. He was Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, was elected to the Royal Society for research on electricity, and learned about chemistry as a barrister for dye and explosives manufacturers. He assembled an able team of administrators and chemists who designed and managed mammoth new national explosives factories. They could not make enough TNT and picric acid from obtainable precursors, so Moulton persuaded the reluctant armed services to adopt mixtures of TNT and ammonium nitrate, which enabled them to make even more than was needed. In mid-1915 they moved to the new Ministry of Munitions, where they also became responsible for fertilizers and poison gases. In 1917 they produced explosives at a higher rate than was attained in World War II.