238 
MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
attack; it was only 12 miles distant from tlie seat of government; and it 
was in the immediate neighbourhood of good loam for the moulds. 
Such is the story. I will not dwell upon its internal signs of improba¬ 
bility, but will merely assert (as the result of much careful research) that 
no such advertisement as it describes is to be found in any newspaper of 
the period^ and that no allusion to the alleged circumstances is to be found 
in any contemporaneous journal or Minute Book of the Board of Ordnance. 
The advertisement and minutes which are really to be found I have already 
quoted in extenso. 
Andrew Schalch served England well: for sixty years he was master 
founder at Woolwich.* But; though much honour is his due, there cannot 
be ascribed to his memory the credit of having founded the Boyal Arsenal 
at Woolwich. The authors of this long-lived error seem most strangely to 
have thought a chance origin as probable as the advice of the public officials 
whose duty and privilege it was to observe the want, and suggest the 
founding, of such an important establishment. 
The Brass Eoundry and Dial Square buildings, in the Woolwich Arsenal, 
are said to have been designed by Sir John Vanbrugh (the celebrated 
architect of Blenheim House, Castle Howard, &c.). The former of these 
appears, from old plans, to have been completed in the year 1717. It is well 
described in the Quarterly Review for January 1858, “ with a stately solemnity 
which marked the conceptions of its builder, Vanbrugh, stands the picturesque 
gun factory, with its high-pitched roof, red Brickwork, and carved porch, 
looking like a fine old gentleman amid the factory ranges which, within 
these few years, have sprung up around. It is impossible to contem¬ 
plate this building without respect, for forth from its portals have issued 
that victorious ordnance which, since the days of George II., has swept 
the battle grounds of the old and new worlds/'’ 
To Sir John Vanbrugl/s pen are attributed three curious old plans to 
be seen in the King’s Library at the British Museum, thus entitled:— 
“ Flan of the Roundary buildt at Woolwich anno. 1715 ” (sic) . “ Part of 
the Great Pile of Building designed at the Tower Place at Woolwich, 
July the 9th 1717,” (showing the south portion of the Dial Square) 
and “ Eront of the Gate next the Biver Thames for the Ship Carriage 
House, designed at the Tower Place at Woolwich instead of A rnarkt 
1717.” It is recorded in the Board of Ordnance Minutes a Martis 24° die 
Julij 1716, That a letter be sent to Mr W m i Meade to make out estimates 
for Building the Magazine at Tilbury Port, the Eoundery at Woolwich, & 
making two Wharfs over the Moat near the new Carriage Yard at do;, 
Mr Ogborne applying for imprests for those Services.” 
To describe seriatim the changes which have occurred in the Boyal 
Arsenal since the year 1717 would be too lengthy, too thankless, a task. 
Suffice it to say that, whereas the original Tower Place consisted of but 
42 acres (and its extent so remained for 60 years), the present Boyal Arsenal 
* He died, £efc. 84, at Charlton in 1776. His two daughters married Colonels Belford and 
Williamson, of the Royal Artillery, and five of his descendants served in the same regiment. 
Some of Schalch’s guns, cast in 1742, were raised from the wreck of the “ Royal George ” at 
Spithead in 1840. 
