Hidden among the warehouses and railway infrastructure of Clerkenwell was one of the least-known New Zealand military establishments of the First World War. Small in scale but national in purpose, the Farringdon Road depot connected the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to Britain’s immense ordnance system while retaining control of New Zealand-specific clothing, stores, accounting and soldier support.

A small depot with a national role

Across the eight decades in which New Zealand’s Army ordnance organisations existed, depots were established at places as varied as Trentham, Hopuhopu, Waiouru, Linton, Burnham and Singapore. Farringdon Road was different. It was a national logistics node located inside an allied system and more than 18,000 kilometres from New Zealand. Its importance lay not in its size, but in the control it gave the NZEF over requirements that could not simply be absorbed into the British supply chain.¹

At the outbreak of war in 1914, New Zealand deployed without a fully developed uniformed ordnance corps. British Army Ordnance Corps (AOC) depots provided much of the necessary support, but experience in Egypt and during the Gallipoli campaign demonstrated a continuing need for New Zealand personnel who understood national scales, clothing patterns, accounting arrangements and special stores. The establishment of the New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps within the NZEF was published in NZEF Orders on 18 February 1916.²

The wartime NZAOC developed around three connected elements: administrative staff at NZEF Headquarters in London; ordnance staff supporting the New Zealand Division in France and Belgium; and personnel supporting the mounted force in the Middle East. The United Kingdom element also became responsible for New Zealand camps, hospitals, convalescent facilities and other establishments dispersed across Britain. That network created the demand for a central New Zealand depot in London.³

Establishing the Farringdon Road depot

The preferred site needed to be close to NZEF Headquarters at Bloomsbury Square, accessible by road and rail, and well placed to draw on British depots and suppliers. On 25 October 1916, the Officer Commanding London District authorised the NZEF, under wartime powers, to take over the premises of H. Fisher and J. Fisher at 30 and 32 Farringdon Road for use as an ordnance store. The buildings were only about 1.5 kilometres from the New Zealand headquarters.⁴

The choice was practical. Farringdon Road was a major north-south route, while the nearby Metropolitan Railway provided access to both Farringdon passenger station and its goods facilities. From this point the depot could reach New Zealand establishments around Britain and connect with the British AOC network, including the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, the Army Clothing Depot at Pimlico, and ordnance depots at Weedon and Didcot. References to these establishments as ‘RAOC’ depots are anachronistic for 1916; the British corps was then the AOC and did not receive the Royal prefix until after the war.⁵⁶

Occupation was intended for 7 November 1916, but obtaining the keys and connecting water and electricity delayed the move. The NZEF finally occupied the premises on 27 November, and the depot began operating on 1 December 1916. The address was later incorporated into Farringdon Lane numbering and is now commonly identified as 30 Farringdon Lane.

Key dates

Date	Event
18 February 1916	NZAOC establishment published in NZEF Orders.
25 October 1916	London District authorised the NZEF to take over 30-32 Farringdon Road.
27 November 1916	The premises were occupied after delays with access and utilities.
1 December 1916	The New Zealand Ordnance Depot began operating.
17 July 1919	The depot’s closing audit was completed.
November 1919	The depot closed after stocks were returned, credited, sold or destroyed.

The people who ran it

Overall responsibility rested with Captain, later Major, Norman Joseph Levien, the Chief Ordnance Officer for the NZEF in the United Kingdom. Day-to-day charge of the depot for most of its existence fell to Warrant Officer Class One (Conductor) Arthur Gilmore. Posted there in November 1916, Gilmore remained closely associated with Farringdon Road apart from a six-month secondment to the Sling Camp depot and about three months of sick leave during the influenza epidemic. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant on 1 February 1919.⁷

The appointment of Conductor carried more authority than the modern image of a warehouse supervisor might suggest. Conductors were senior technical warrant officers responsible for stock accountability, inspection, issue discipline and the practical operation of the ordnance system. Farringdon Road depended on that combination of professional judgement and exacting administration.

Clothing, salvage and local purchasing

Most stock passing through the depot consisted of clothing and necessaries. New garments were obtained from the Army Clothing Depot at Pimlico, while other items were contracted directly from civilian manufacturers. Cleaned and repaired articles recovered through the salvage system were also returned to service. The result was a blended supply model: imperial depots provided depth, the civilian market supplied flexibility, and salvage reduced waste and relieved pressure on new production.

Levien reported that, in the year to December 1917, purchasing clothing from civilian suppliers rather than relying solely on Pimlico produced savings of £31,532 7s. 10d. The figure is best left in its contemporary form because modern currency conversions vary considerably by method. Its significance is nevertheless clear: a small New Zealand organisation was not merely drawing stores from a larger ally; it was actively managing cost, supply risk and availability.⁸

More than a warehouse

The depot also acquired a direct role in soldier welfare and readiness. Men arriving in Britain on leave from France and Belgium often wore dirty, damaged and vermin-infested clothing. Under the direction of the New Zealand General Officer Commanding, additional accommodation was secured so that they could hand in their uniforms, bathe, and receive clean underwear and a serviceable uniform before beginning leave.⁹

A secure kit store held spare kit, arms, ammunition and equipment while the soldiers were in London. The New Zealand Soldiers’ Club and the New Zealand War Contingent Association supported the reception facility with hot drinks and instruction on the use of prophylactic outfits. In one place, the NZEF combined hygiene, health education, clothing exchange, property security and stores control. It was a practical demonstration that logistics and personnel welfare were not separate activities.

The scale of throughput

A surviving summary of selected receipts between 1 December 1916 and 1 August 1919 gives a sense of the depot’s throughput. These figures are receipts across the period, not a snapshot of stock held on one day. The terminology has been retained, with punctuation lightly modernised.¹⁰

Item	Quantity	Item	Quantity
Hat bands (‘Hat Smasher’)	115,000	‘Hat Smasher’ hats	95,400
Boots, ankle, service	78,272	Service dress jackets	98,500
Boots, ankle, NZ pattern	58,691	P.W. jackets	68,500
Boots, ankle, part worn	24,691	Leather jerkins	20,000
Braces, pairs	78,140	B.C. pantaloons	45,500
Kit bags	27,748	Pantaloons, part worn	5,000
Hair brushes	22,000	Worsted socks	123,000
Toothbrushes	28,000	Canvas shoes	31,000
Greatcoats, D.S.	28,665	Flannel shirts	99,500
Greatcoats, part worn	10,765	Service dress trousers	77,300
Warm coats, M.S.	16,172	P.W. trousers	47,000
Comforter caps	14,699	Turkish towels	64,500
Hair combs	25,000	Cardigan waistcoats	23,000
Woollen drawers	89,000	Woollen vests	97,000
Woollen gloves	23,000	Puttees	61,300

Together, these 30 sample lines represent almost 1.6 million individual pieces or pairs. The mix is revealing. Boots, greatcoats, service dress, underwear, socks, brushes and towels show that the depot sustained the soldier as a complete system, while the repeated ‘part worn’ categories confirm that inspection, repair and reissue were routine parts of wartime supply.

Audit, demobilisation and closure

After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, demand changed from reinforcement and sustainment to recovery and demobilisation. Outstanding orders were cancelled, and Gilmore’s audit for the period ending 17 July 1919 provided the basis for closing the account. Remaining stocks were returned to New Zealand, transferred back to British ordnance depots for credit, sold locally or destroyed where no economical alternative existed. The depot closed by November 1919.¹¹

Closure was therefore not simply a matter of locking the doors. It required the same disciplines that had sustained the depot during the war: cancellation of commitments, reconciliation of accounts, disposal decisions, return transport and evidence that public property had been properly accounted for. In modern language, Farringdon Road had to complete its reverse-logistics mission before the organisation could disappear.

Why Farringdon Road matters

Farringdon Road was never intended to rival Britain’s vast ordnance establishment. Its value was that it sat between that system and the specifically New Zealand requirements that the larger network could not see or manage on New Zealand’s behalf. It aggregated demand, maintained national accountability, exploited local purchasing, returned salvaged clothing to use, and connected supply activity with the welfare of soldiers arriving from the front.

The depot’s story is consequently more than an interesting London footnote. It illustrates an enduring principle of coalition logistics: interoperability does not remove national responsibility. Even when a small force depends on an ally’s scale and infrastructure, it still needs its own people, records and nodes to translate national demand into supply, safeguard public property and close the loop when operations end.

Notes

1. Joseph S. Bolton, A History of the Royal New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps (Trentham: RNZAOC, 1992), 52-53.
2. “New Zealand Expeditionary Force – Army Ordnance Corps Daily Order No. 1,” 1916, Archives New Zealand, item R25958433; “Road to Promotion,” Evening Post 91, no. 29 (4 February 1916).
3. Manatu Taonga – Ministry for Culture and Heritage, “NZEF in England 1916-19 Map,” updated 1 August 2022, https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/photo/nzef-england-1916-19-map.
4. Equipment and Ordnance Depot, Farringdon Road, London – Administration Reports Etc., 18 October 1916-8 August 1918, Archives New Zealand, item R25102951.
5. Philip Temple, ed., “Farringdon Road,” in Survey of London, vol. 46, South and East Clerkenwell (London: London County Council, 2008), 358-384, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol46/pp358-384.
6. National Army Museum, “Royal Army Ordnance Corps,” accessed 19 August 2026, https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/royal-army-ordnance-corps.
7. “Personnel Records: Arthur Gilmore,” Archives New Zealand, AABK 18805 W5568 0135616; Arthur Gilmore, “Audit Farringdon Road Ordnance Stores for Period Ended 17 July 1919,” Archives New Zealand, record group WA1, record 2/13 (1919).
8. Norman Levien, “Report of Ordnance Officer on Administration of Ordnance Department for 1917,” Archives New Zealand, record group WA1, record 2/13 (1918).
9. Levien, Report of Ordnance Officer on Administration of Ordnance Department for 1917.
10. Gilmore, “Audit Farringdon Road Ordnance Stores for Period Ended 17 July 1919.”
11. Gilmore, “Audit Farringdon Road Ordnance Stores for Period Ended 17 July 1919.”