Minister of Munitions

The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis of 1915 when there was much newspaper criticism of the shortage of artillery shells and fear of sabotage. The Ministry was created by the Munitions of War Act 1915 passed on 2 July 1915 to safeguard the supply of artillery munitions. Under the very vigorous leadership of Liberal party politician David Lloyd George, the Ministry in its first year set up a system that dealt with labour disputes and fully mobilized Britain's capacity for a massive increase in the production of munitions.

The government policy, according to historian J. A. R. Marriott, was that:

No private interest was to be permitted to obstruct the service, or imperil the safety, of the State. Trade Union regulations must be suspended; employers' profits must be limited, skilled men must fight, if not in the trenches, in the factories; man-power must be economized by the dilution of labour and the employment of women; private factories must pass under the control of the State, and new national factories be set up. Results justified the new policy: the output was prodigious; the goods were at last delivered.

Wartime role

David Lloyd George gained a heroic reputation with his energetic work as Minister of Munitions, from 1915 to 1916, setting the stage for his political rise. When the Shell Crisis of 1915 dismayed public opinion, with the news that the Army was running short of artillery ammunition, demands arose for a strong leader to take charge of munitions production. A new coalition ministry was formed in May 1915 and Lloyd George was made Minister of Munitions, in a new department created to solve the munitions shortage.