Frederick Marten Hale

Frederick Marten Hale (1864 – 2 February 1931) was a British explosives engineer and inventor. After education at the Devon County School and in Brussels, Belgium, Hale worked in hydraulic and fire engineering. He became involved in the design and manufacture of explosives from 1895 and rose to positions at the Cotton Powder Company and the Roburite & Ammonal company. Hale saw the successful use of hand grenades in the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese War and designed his own grenade in 1906. This was rejected by the War Office but during the 1914–1918 First World War it was used by the British Army as the No. 2 grenade.

Hale became the predominant British designer of grenades in the pre-war era. He developed the Hales rifle grenade which was exported to several states but did not see extensive use until the First World War. With the coming of trench warfare the army requested large quantities. Hale struggled to meet these demands owing to its complicated design and fuse, which was manufactured by Dynamit Nobel. Hale refined his design three times during the war to make it simpler, safer and more reliable. Some 10 million were used during the war. Hale also developed an aircraft bomb, which was used successfully by British aircraft against German Zeppelin airships on the ground and in the air, and a depth charge. After the war he successfully sued the British government for infringing his rifle grenade patents.

Early life and career

Frederick Marten Hale was born in Bristol in 1864, the son of Matthew Henry Hale. He received an education at Devon County School in West Buckland and in Brussels, Belgium. He became a director of the Cotton Powder Company and also controlled the Roburite & Ammonal company, both of which manufactured explosives for use in mining and warfare.

No. 2 grenade

The British War Office had declared hand grenades obsolete in 1902 and ceased work on modern versions. However Japanese troops used the weapons to good effect during the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War, a fact reported by a British military observer Lieutenant Colonel Aylmer Haldane who also brought back an example of the grenades used. The War Office determined that the weapons might be useful in assaulting fortresses and the Royal Laboratory was commissioned to produce an example. The Laboratory's struggled to replicate the Japanese design but in 1906 produced a version which became the No. 1 grenade. After testing it was considered to be somewhat overengineered but was adopted by the army in 1908. Production was low and only 420 were produced by the start of the First World War in 1914. Hale sold a number of grenades to Germany in 1911 but they were not selected for service. By 1911 Hale had modified the grenade to incorporate a wind vane.

Hale's rifle grenade was accepted by the British Army in 1913 but by the start of the First World War only a single box of 50 grenades was on hand. Hale died on 2 February 1931 at Torquay in Devon.