Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment

RARDE
Successor	Defence Evaluation and Research Agency
Formation	1922
Extinction	1995
British military research organisation. Subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency in 1995.

The Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) was a British government organisation established at Fort Halstead in Kent during World War II. RARDE was subsumed into the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in 1995.

History

RARDE was formed following the merger of two departments, the "Research Department" and the "Design Department", that had been established in 1922 at Woolwich Arsenal.

Britain's development of the atomic bomb, hidden under the name 'High Explosive Research' (HER) was initially based at Fort Halstead, where the first atomic bomb was developed under the directorship of William George Penney, who had been appointed Chief Superintendent Armament Research ("CSAR", called "Caesar") by C. P. Snow. Operation Hurricane saw the bomb conveyed by frigate to Australia and successfully exploded in the Montebello Islands. In 1950, 'HER' research was believed to have been moved to a new site at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, Aldermaston in Berkshire.

In the 1980s, RARDE was amalgamated with the Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment (MVEE) with sites at Chertsey and Christchurch, and the Propellants, Explosives and Rocket Motor Establishment based at Waltham Abbey and Westcott.

Activities

Following the December 1988 Lockerbie bombing, Alan Feraday and Thomas Hayes, forensic experts from RARDE's explosives laboratory, examined material recovered from the crash scene, and subsequently testified as expert witnesses at the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.

In 1995 the Forensic Explosives Laboratory (FEL) at Fort Halstead came under media and scientific scrutiny. In 1996, amid allegations that contaminated equipment had been used in the testing of forensic evidence, an inquiry was set up under Professor Brian Caddy of Strathclyde University to investigate the laboratory's alleged shortcomings.

In 1996, the bus from the Aldwych bus bombing was taken to Fort Halstead for analysis, where previously a number of Irish Republican Army (IRA) explosive devices had been examined.

RARDE was home to a number of military simulation and war game projects, mainly aimed as assessing the effectiveness of future defence equipment procurement. After Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and throughout the latter half of 1990, a series of computerised war games were conducted at RARDE in preparation for Operation Granby, Britain's contribution to the Gulf War.

In 2017, scientists from the FEL at Fort Halstead examined the wreckage of the aircraft from the crash of a Polish Air Force Tu-154 in 2010, for traces of explosives, after being engaged by the Polish government.

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End
Thomas Hayes	Head	1985	1989

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:The Political Scientists of Lockerbie - Allen Feraday	blog post	26 October 2010	Adam Larson	"Patrick Haseldine’s famously deleted Wikipedia page on Alan Feraday sums up nicely that he 'has appeared as an expert witness at criminal trials leading to convictions in at least four high-profile cases, three of which were subsequently overturned on appeal. The appeal in the fourth case is ongoing'. Of course that last is no longer pending, as of August 2009 when Abdelbaset al-Megrahi surrendered his appeal of conviction for the bombing of flight Pan Am 103."
Document:The Political Scientists of Lockerbie - Thomas Hayes	blog post	22 October 2010	Adam Larson	Dr Thomas Hayes' testimony was central to the Lockerbie verdict. Yet he and two colleagues conspired to withhold evidence from the 1974 alleged IRA Maguire Seven trial which would have indicated innocence. The Maguires were freed on appeal after fifteen years in jail. This matter was exposed at the Lockerbie trial, but the Judges trusted Hayes' word implicitly.

 

A document sourced from Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment

Title	Type	Subject(s)	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Green Circuitboard Fragment - PT35	Memo	PT/35(b) MST-13 Timer Edwin Bollier Thomas Hayes Stuart Henderson Thomas Thurman Pan Am Flight 103/The Trial Abdelbaset al-Megrahi	21 January 1990	Alan Feraday	"The most important piece amongst PT35 is the fragment of green circuitboard – PT/35(b)."

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