Cunard Shell Works, Bootle, Merseyside. Female workers using a pump to coat the inner cavity of a suspended heavy artillery shell with a thick liquid, possibly a varnish or adhesive. In 1915 the Cunard Steamship Company?s store and engineering works at Rimrose Road, Bootle, was converted into a munitions factory. Four-and-a-half-inch, six-inch and eight-inch shells were brought to Cunard's Shell Works to be finished, checked and varnished before being taken to another factory in the area to be filled with explosive.