As Kingsnorth Power Station is decommissioned, and people start looking back to the events of a century ago, it seems fitting to consider how Kingsnorth was transformed from marsh and farmland to the industrial landscape, bordering the south shore of the Medway today.
When Walter Miskin negotiated relinquishing his lease on Kingsnorth Farm and the sale of land at neighbouring Barton’s Farm, on the Hoo peninsula, towards the end of 1913, he could hardly have imagined the chain of events that would follow.
The Admiralty’s plan for a simple airship station changed in June 1914 when the Royal Naval Air Service was formed, placing airships and their development in the hands of the Navy. Work was relocated from Farnborough to Kingsnorth under Commander Usborne and by the time Great Britain joined the war 230 military personnel were based here. One airship shed was lengthened and more building work was planned to accommodate the increasing number of workers and the range of work they were undertaking. H.I. Oakley, the supervising Civil Engineer from Chatham Naval Dockyard appointed Mr Ferrett as site foreman; he dealt with the many contractors working on the site. Carting materials from Beluncle Halt onto the site provided extra work for John Blackman of Pearce’s Farm, Hoo, other local people were employed on the site as it grew and staff numbers increased, women such as Ada Stratford and Florrie Miskin, who worked in the Fabric Shop, May Hooker in the Inspection and Marking Out department, Elsie Perkins learned French polishing for the instrument panels and Jessie Pelling worked as a welder on the aluminium framed gondolas. Local men did labouring on the site, on leaving school Eric Smith was employed in the experimental laboratories and Alf Bates was a driver.
Once a successful design for the Submarine Scout airship had been produced, Kingsnorth started production of airships and training pilots. Thomas B. Williams, one of the early airship pilots, recalled that trainee pilots were involved in the building of airships, ensuring they knew their ship inside-out.
The station itself continued to grow with the initial Silicol Hydrogen plant supplemented with a water-gas plant, a standard gauge rail link to Sharnal Street Station and internal narrow gauge lines. By the end of the war only the semi-detached labourers’ cottages known as Sparrow Castle remained of the original farm. The staff photo taken in 1918 has 637 military personnel and 266 civilian workers. War over, the men left, the site was sold for industrial use, and Kingsnorth was forever changed.
Tina Bilbé's Kingsnorth Airship Station: In Defence of the Nation is available from The History Press today.