The Canary Girls,
Filling shells with TNT
Risking life and limb.
This street art, in Beeston Notts, commemorates the work of the so-called Canary Girls. These worked in dangerous conditions filling shells with TNT for the war effort in World War One. In 1918, an explosion of 8 tons of TNT in the Chilwell factory killed 134, of which only 32 could be positively identified.
They were called the Canary Girls because working with the TNT caused their skin and hair to take on a yellowish orange colour.
