Dum Dum Arsenal

Dum-Dum Arsenal was a British military facility located near the town of Dum Dum (near Calcutta) in modern West Bengal, India.^[1]

The arsenal was at the center of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 regarding suspicion that cartridges distributed at the arsenal were greased with pig and cow fat.^[2]

It was at this arsenal that Captain Neville Bertie-Clay developed the so-called "Dum-dum bullet" (Mark IV cartridge), a exposed-nose bullet designed to mushroom in flesh. This was the first expanding bullet for military use, later banned from use in warfare by the Hague Convention.

On the 7th of December 1908 a serious explosion occurred by accident at the Dum-Dum arsenal, resulting in death or serious injury to about 50 native workmen.^[3]

References

1. ^ "DUM-DUM CARTRIDGES." (PDF). The New York Times. January 4, 1886. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9904E0DE173AEF33A25757C0A9679C94679FD7CF. 
2. ^ Charles Henry H. Wright, John Lovering Cooke (1873). Memoir of John Lovering Cooke, with a sketch of the Indian mutiny of 1857-58. Oxford University. p. 29. 
3. ^ "Dum Dum". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9031421.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.