In 1916, at the Barnbow Munitions Factory in Leeds, an accident killed 35 women who worked to make shells for the war effort.

At the time these women’s deaths were hidden from the public, the official records only noting an “industrial accident”. This September Whitkirk Arts Guild are proud to tell their story in the play Barnbow Canaries, and to bring the tale back home by performing only a few hundred yards from the site of the accident.

Based on the true story of the Barnbow Lasses, this play shares the highs, the lows and the cost of supplying ammunition to the millions of troops on the fronts of the Great War.