Mills bomb rod and the gas check grenade could be thrown as a standard hand-grenade. 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
Theatre in Birmingham close the Hippodrome in 1961 and 1970, but in 1979 sold it to the City Council who in turn leased it to a charitable trust. The Hippodrome's fortunes gradually revived, and by the early 21st century it was selling more tickets than any other single theatre in the country. By the 1980s Birmingham had only three large-scale professional theares, though this was still – jointly with Manchester – the highest number of any English city outside London. During the 70s, mac, then known as the Midlands Arts Centre for Young People had its own professional puppet theatre and resident theatre