Портон Даун: Ұлыбританияның әскери ғылым паркінің тарихы

Military science park in Wiltshire, England

Porton Down is a science and defence technology campus in Wiltshire, England, just north east of the village of Porton, near Salisbury. It is home to two British government facilities: a site of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – known for over 100 years as one of the UK's most secretive and controversial military research facilities, occupying – and a site of the UK Health Security Agency. Since 2018, part of the campus has housed Porton Science Park, which is owned and operated by Wiltshire Council and has private sector companies in the health, life science and defence and security sectors.

Porton Down is just north east of the village of Porton, near Salisbury, in Wiltshire, England. To the north west lies the MoD Boscombe Down airfield operated by Qinetiq. On some maps, the land surrounding the complex is identified as a "Danger Area".

Porton Down opened in 1916 as the War Department Experimental Station, shortly thereafter renamed the Royal Engineers Experimental Station, for testing chemical weapons in response to German use of this means of war in 1915. The laboratory's remit was to conduct research and development regarding chemical weapons agents used by the British armed forces in the First World War, such as chlorine, mustard gas, and phosgene. Work at Porton started in March 1916. At the time, only a few cottages and farm buildings were scattered on the downs at Porton and Idmiston. By May 1917, the focus for anti gas defence and respirator development had moved from London to Porton Down, and by 1918, the original two huts had become a large hutted camp with 50 officers and 1,100 other ranks. After the Armistice in 1918, Porton Down was reduced to a skeleton staff.

In 1919, the War Office set up the Holland Committee to consider the future of chemical warfare and defence. By 1920, the Cabinet agreed to the committee's recommendation that work would continue at Porton Down. From that date a slow permanent building programme began, coupled with the gradual recruitment of civilian scientists. By 1922, there were 380 servicemen, 23 scientific and technical civil servants, and 25 "civilian subordinates". In 1923 the newly formed Silver Star Motor Services started a bus service to link Salisbury and Porton Down. By 1925, the civilian staff had doubled.

During the Second World War, research at CDES concentrated on chemical weapons such as nitrogen mustard. As Allied armies penetrated Germany, they discovered operational stockpiles of munitions and weapons that contained new chemical warfare agents, including highly toxic organophosphorous nerve agents such as sarin, unknown to Britain and the Allies at the time.

Until 2001, the military installations based at Porton Down were part of the UK government's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). DERA was to be split into two parts: QinetiQ, initially a government owned company; and, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), created to incorporate the activities of DERA deemed unsuitable for the privatisation planned for QinetiQ; particularly the Porton Down site. In 2013, Dstl scientists tested samples from Syria for sarin, which is still manufactured there, to assess soldiers' equipment.

A factory in Sutton Oak, St Helens was requisitioned in 1917 by the War Department, renamed HM Factory, Sutton Oak and started producing the chemical warfare agent diphenyl chloroarsine. The site switched to producing Adamsite in 1922. In 1923 the War Office halted the requisition and purchased the site, renaming it the War Office Research Establishment, a. k. a. Chemical Warfare Research Establishment, and later the Chemical Defence Research Establishment Sutton Oak. During the 1920s, the site switched to producing mustard gas products, starting with the HS variant and adding the HT variant in the 1930s, and also filling armaments. After WW2, the site also produced the nerve agent sarin for experimental purposes. The site closed in 1957, with much of the work transferring to Chemical Defence Establishment Nancekuke.

This Royal Air Force site, built in 1940, was renamed Chemical Defence Establishment Nancekuke in July 1949. Manufacture of sarin in a pilot production facility commenced there in the early 1950s, producing about 20 tons from 1954 until 1956. It was intended as a stockpile and production facility for the UK's chemical defences during the Cold War, focussed on nerve agents, including small amounts of VX intended mainly for laboratory test purposes and to validate plant designs and optimise chemical processes for potential mass production; full scale production of VX agent never took place. In the late 1950s, the chemical weapons production plant was mothballed, but was maintained through the 1960s and 1970s in a state whereby production could easily re commence if required.

A few small scientific start ups were allowed to use buildings on the Porton Down campus from the mid 1990s. Tetricus Science Park has housed companies including and GW Pharmaceuticals. Creation of Porton Science Park started in 2016, with £9.5m in funding from Wiltshire Council, the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the European Regional Development Fund. The first building opened in 2018, with Ploughshare Innovations, Dstl's technology transfer company, among the tenants. Further expansion began in 2022.

In 1942, Gruinard Island was dangerously contaminated with anthrax after a cloud of anthrax spores was released over the island during a trial. In 1981, a team of activists landed on the island and collected soil samples, a bag of which was left at the door at Porton Down. Testing showed that it still contained anthrax spores and in 1986 the Government felt obliged to take necessary steps to successfully decontaminate the island. Between 1963 and 1975 the MRE carried out trials in Lyme Bay in which live bacteria were sprayed from a ship to be carried ashore by the wind to simulate an anthrax attack. The bacteria sprayed were the less dangerous Bacillus globigii and Escherichia coli, but it was later admitted that the bacteria could adversely affect some vulnerable people. The town of Weymouth lay downwind of the spraying. When the trials became public knowledge in the late 1990s, Dorset County Council, Weymouth and Portland Borough Council and Purbeck District Council demanded a public inquiry to investigate the experiments. The Government refused a Public Inquiry but instead commissioned Professor Brian Spratt, to conduct an Independent Review of the possible adverse health effects. He concluded that individuals with certain chronic conditions may have been affected. In 1954 the British Government sent biological warfare scientists to the Bahamas to release Venezuelan equine encephalitis viruses near an uninhabited island. Other research showed that in Obanaghoro in southern Nigeria four British scientific missions spent 15 months dispersing and assessing the effects of experimental nerve gases. in May 2004, a second inquest into the death of Ronald Maddison during testing of the nerve agent sarin commenced after his relatives and their supporters had lobbied for many years, which found his death to have been unlawful. The Ministry of Defence challenged the verdict which was upheld and the government settled the case in 2006. In 2006, 500 veterans claimed they suffered from the experiments. In February 2006, three ex servicemen were awarded compensation in an out of court settlement after they had claimed they were given LSD without their consent during the 1950s. In 2008, the MoD paid 360 veterans of the tests £3m without admitting liability.</blockquote>

An institute similar to Porton Down, the Mordon Microbiological Research Establishment, features in the 1962 novel The Satan Bug by Alistair MacLean. Porton Down features in the 1977 novel The Enemy by Desmond Bagley, the 2010 mystery novel Before the Poison by Peter Robinson, and the 2022 novel Tick Tock by Simon Mayo.

Porton Down is featured in the 2022 psychological horror film The Sleep Experiment directed by John Farrelly. Two detectives begin an investigation into a disastrous secret military experiment where five prisoners were kept awake for thirty days in the facility.

Porton Down and activities there during the 1940s and early 1950s were a significant plot point in Episodes One and Two of the second season of ITV's mystery series The Bletchley Circle. Experiments conducted at Porton Down also appear in the BBC detective drama Spooks, including the development of the VX Nerve Agent and other potentially deadly biological weapons. Porton Down is referenced frequently in the 2020 BBC TV drama The Salisbury Poisonings, portraying its role in testing substances linked to the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Porton Down is referenced frequently in the ITV Trigger Point series, as the origin of a military grade explosive compound HMX 319 which is nicknamed "Her Majesty's Explosive".

Grimbledon Down was a comic strip by British cartoonist Bill Tidy, published for many years by New Scientist. The strip was set in an ostensibly fictitious UK government research lab, referring to the controversial Porton Down biochemical research facility.

"Porton Down" is the name of a song by Peter Hammill. The song "Jeopardy" by Skyclad is about the experiments developed in Porton Down.