British shadow factories were a plan developed by the British Government to implement additional manufacturing capacity for the British aircraft industry, in the build up to World War II. Developed by the Air Ministry under the internal project name of the Shadow Scheme, the project was created by Sir Kingsley Wood and headed by Herbert Austin.
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Up until 1936, the Air Ministry had been headed by Lord Swinton, who at that point had been forced to resign his position by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain due to a lack of progress in re-arming the Royal Air Force. Swinton's civil servants approached their new boss, Sir Kingsley Wood, and showed him a series of informal questions that they had asked since 1935 on the subject, such as those posed to Morris Motors re aircraft engine production capability at their Cowley plant in Oxford.[1] Wood's immediate response was to put forward a plan which would enable the trebling of aircraft production and manning.
The plan had two parts:
Underneath the plan, there was government funding for the building of these new production facilities, in the form of grants and loans. Key to the plan were the products and plans of Rolls-Royce, whose Merlin engine powered many of the key aircraft being developed by the Air Ministry.
Wood handed the overall project implementation to the Directorate of Air Ministry Factories, appointing Herbert Austin to lead the initiative (most of the facilities to be developed were existing motor vehicle factories), and the technical liaison with the aircraft industry to Charles Bruce-Gardner. He also handed the delivery of the key new factory in Castle Bromwich, that was contracted to deliver 1,000 new Supermarine Spitfires to the RAF by the end of 1940, to Lord Nuffield.[2]
As the scheme progressed, and after the death of Austin in 1941, the Directorate of Air Ministry Factories, under the auspices of the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) gradually took charge of the construction of the buildings required for aircraft production. In early 1943 the functions of the directorate of Air Ministry Factories were transferred to the Ministry of Works.
The shadow factory proposals and implementation, particularly its rigidity when bombed, meant that that other key areas of military production prepared their own shadow factory plans:
In parallel with the Shadow Factory scheme, the London Aircraft Production Group (LAPG) was formed in 1940 by combining management of factories and workshops of Chrysler, Duple, Express Motor & Bodyworks Limited, Park Royal Coachworks and London Transport. The major activity of the group was the [production of Handley Page Halifax bombers for the RAF, ammunition, gun parts, armoured vehicles and spare parts for vehicles. The group was led by London Transport from their works at Chiswick and later at Leavesden near Watford, which had a large purpose-built factory and airfield for production, assembly and flight testing of completed Halifax bombers.[7]
Due to the high priority placed on aircraft production, large numbers of workers were drafted with little experience or training in aircraft production, with over half the workforce eventually being female. At its peak the LAPG included 41 factories or sites, 600 sub-contractors and 51,000 employees, producing one aircraft an hour. The first Halifax from the LAPG was delivered in 1941 and the last , named London Pride, in April 1945.[7]
Information concerning the Shadow Factory plan and Shadow Factories can be found among the following records and descriptive series list code headings held by The National Archives. For the full set of references (including German shadow factories) see the Catalogue below:
| CATALOGUE REFERENCE | DESCRIPTION |
| AIR 19/1-10 | Shadow scheme and factories, 1935-1940 |
| AIR 20/2395 AIR 20/2396 | Shadow factories schemes |
| AIR 2, code 6/2 | Aircraft production, shadow factories |
| AVIA 15, code 25/1 | Factories general |
| AVIA 15, code 25/5 | Shadow factories |
| T 161/1070 | Insurance of Government property managed or maintained by private contractors; `Shadow' factories |
| T 161/1156 | Banking: Shadow factories banking accounts |