Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the long-range artillery shell that bears his name, dies.
Shrapnel, a British lieutenant, was serving in the Royal Artillery in the mid-1780s when he perfected his shell. A shrapnel shell, unlike a conventional high-explosive artillery round, was designed as an antipersonnel weapon. The projectile was packed with fragments—often sharp metal, lead balls, or nails—and detonated in midair, spraying enemy troops in the vicinity with what the British quickly christened shrapnel.
Shrapnel combined two existing weapons technologies, the canister shot and the delayed-action fuse. Canister shot, in use since the 1400s, burst upon leaving the gun’s muzzle and was originally used in small arms at close range against infantry. Shrapnel’s refinement carried the shell intact to the enemy’s lines, where it detonated above the heads of the troops, to devastating effect.
The British army, not quick to embrace innovation, did not adopt Shrapnel’s invention until 1803. The shell saw early action against the Dutch in Suriname but really came into its own after the Duke of Wellington demonstrated its effectiveness against Napoléon’s army at several engagements, including the Battle of Waterloo. Henry Shrapnel, by then a captain, was rewarded with a promotion to major and then to lieutenant colonel. In 1814, the British government awarded him a lifetime annual stipend of £1,200 (about $100,000 in today’s money). Shrapnel also worked on improvements in howitzers and mortars. He ended his military career a major general.
The shrapnel shell was quickly adopted by the armies of all Europe’s great powers. Modern arsenals still employ shells that use canister-shot projectiles based on the shrapnel principle, but the nature of ordnance has obviously changed.
As for the word itself, shrapnel has long been used generically to refer to any shell fragment.—TL