Battye Grenade/Bomb

In late 1914 and early 1915, Captain B. C. Battye of the Royal Engineers designed and put into production, through the Bethune Ironworks in France, his 'Battye' or 'Bethune' bomb.

The Battye Bomb was one of Britain’s earliest hand grenades of the First World War. It consisted of a cast iron, mug-shaped container, pre-diced for fragmentation and filled with 40 grammes of high explosive. The top was sealed with a wooden stopper and wax, and it was ignited using a Bickford safety fuse. A Nobel-type safety device was used to light the fuse, but this was only inserted at the moment of use as a precaution.

The safety fuse used in the Battye Bomb was originally invented by William Bickford in the early 19th century. Before his invention, miners often used crude fuses made of reeds filled with powder, which were unreliable and dangerous. They could explode too early or burn too slowly, causing many deaths when miners returned to what they thought were duds. Bickford's invention—a steady, predictable fuse—revolutionised blasting safety and was later adapted for military use. He was born in Ashburton, Devon, in January 1774, and eventually settled in the Cornish mining region of Tuckingmill, where he developed his safety fuse.

Approximately 100,000 Battye bombs were produced at the Bethune Ironworks, helping to supply British forces in the early years of trench warfare, before more advanced grenades like the Mills Bomb were introduced.

Captain B. C. Battye, the designer of the grenade, went on to have an illustrious career in India, where he was born in 1888. He played a leading role in developing the Shanan hydroelectric power station in Himachal Pradesh, which opened in 1929 and still supplies electricity to Punjab. After India’s independence in 1947, the station was nationalised and became part of the state energy system. Battye’s contributions were seen as instrumental in laying the groundwork for modern energy infrastructure in northern India.