Mills bomb Mills bomb "Mills bomb" is the popular name for a series of prominent British hand grenades. They were the first modern fragmentation grenades used by the British Army and saw widespread use in World War I. William Mills, a hand grenade designer from Sunderland, patented, developed and manufactured the "Mills bomb" at the Mills Munition Factory in Birmingham, England, in 1915. The Mills bomb was inspired by an earlier design by Belgian captain Leon Roland. Roland and Mills were later engaged in a patent lawsuit. Col. Arthur Morrow, a New Zealand Wars officer, also believed aspects of his patent were
History of trade and industry in Birmingham History of trade and industry in Birmingham Birmingham was a flourishing medieval market town. A settlement of Birmingham appears in Domesday Book, but there is nothing to indicate that it was anything but a rural manor. one of many in the area that had been subinfueded by William Fitz Osbern, Lord of Dudley. In lawsuits of 1285 and 1308 it was claimed that the Birmingham market has been held without interruption since before the Norman conquest. However no more contemporary evidence of such a market exists. The key moment in the transformation of Birmingham from the purely rural manor recorded