Calico Printers Mystery

[Postwarden]

I am just putting together the next edition of The Formation Sign which will illustrate all the Calico Printers printed badges that surfaced this year on Antiques Roadshow and from a Belgian collector on this Forum.

The badge shown is one I do not recognise and my best guess at the initials would be Chief Inspector Naval Ordnance - if such a thing existed.

Can anyone help with a positive ID please?

Jon

[leigh kitchen]

Hardly supporting evidence I suppose, but a lapel badge of the Inspectorate of Naval Ordnance.

[High Wood]

I cannot imagine that a Chief Inspector of Naval Ordnance would have required a large production run of printed badges.

[leigh kitchen]

Only one at a time and not printed, presumably, unless the initials for Chief Inspector of Naval Ordnance wore worn by members of the Naval Ordnance Inspectors Department.

[Postwarden]

With a quick Google I found this on the National Archives site. Seems unlikely that Chief Inspector wore a badge but perhaps he had associated staff?

Jon

The Naval Ordnance Inspection Department (NOID) was formed under the Chief Inspector of Naval Ordnance (CINO) in 1922 to avoid the deficiencies in quality of guns and ammunition which had previously become evident after the battles of the Falkland Islands and Jutland in the First World War. An area organisation was created to supervise the new manufacture of weapons and empty and filled ammunition, to carry out proof firing at the various ranges, and to provide a world-wide service to the fleet based on gunwharfs and ammunition depots. This was later extended to torpedo manufacture and ranging, and to mines.

In later years reorganisations caused new names to be given to NOID; firstly, Directorate of Weapons Quality (DWQ(N)), then, Directorate of Naval Ordnance Services (DN Ord S), and later Directorate of Technical Services (Warship Equipment) (DTS(WE)).

A laboratory for conducting metallurgical testing and instrumentation work for CINO was opened in Sheffield before World War Two, and was known as the Bragg Laboratory from 1938 onwards. In the course of time it came to employ a wide range of chemical and physical analytical techniques, but the organisation and functions remained largely unchanged until 1968.