Agnes Marshall Cowan MRCOG was a Scottish physician who was one of the first fully qualified female physicians in the UK, and a medical missionary in Manchuria during the Manchurian plague. She oversaw medical issues in the "Devil's Porridge" explosive factory at Gretna serving the demand for explosives during the First World War.
Mukden College: students and staff (Agnes is thought to be in front row sitting on far left)
The grave of the Cowan family, Grange Cemetery
H. M. Factory, Gretna was Britain's largest cordite factory in World War I. The government-owned facility was adjacent to the Solway Firth, near Gretna, Dumfries and Galloway. It was built by the Ministry of Munitions in response to the Shell Crisis of 1915. The capital cost was £9,184,000 and it covered 9,000 acres (3,600 ha). The cost of working it from September 1916 to September 1918 was £12,769,000, during which time it produced cordite valued at £15,000,000, though it was claimed that without it the cordite would have had to be imported from the USA at a cost of £23,600,000.
Railway sidings at MoD Depot Smalmstown in 2005
The site of Wylies Halt where workers from Eastriggs township would get trains into H. M. Factory, Gretna
An original wooden workers house in Eastriggs
St John's Episcopal Church, Eastriggs was built in 1917.
