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In 1889, a new propellant consisting of nitroglycerine, gun cotton and petroleum jelly, was developed and manufactured in thin spaghetti-like rods. It was known initially as ‘cord powder’ – a name quickly abbreviated to ‘cordite’. Cordite was not designed to be a high explosive such as gunpowder: it was developed to deflagrate – that is, to burn and produce high-temperature gases. It was the rapidly expanding gas inside the breech that accelerated the projectile up the barrel, to such an extent that the shell was still accelerating as it left the barrel, unlike gunpowder where the shell was decelerating from the moment of detonation. This expansion of cordite gas was much less destructive of the gun barrel than gunpowder.

Cordite was stored for protection in propellant magazines, deep in the ship below the waterline. The magazines for the big 12-inch guns were clustered around the barbettes and ammunition hoists.

During World War I, the British kept all their big gun cordite propellant in silk pouches stored in flashproof copper Clarkson cases in the magazines. These Clarkson cases were 5-foot-high flashproof brass or steel tubes (like large cigar cases) with a carrying handle on the side and a circular lid at one end. The top half of the cases opened longitudinally to receive and safely transport cordite in silk pouches from the magazine to the gunhouse above via the ammunition hoists. Cordite propellant charges for smaller calibre guns were housed in rectangular brass-ribbed flashproof cases with a removable lid.