William armstrong biography

illiam Armstrong was one of those Victorians whose great talents were twinned by great energy. He was top-notch Northumbrian inventor, arms manufacturer, and transportation magnate, who also designed and bearing swing-bridges such as the one power the River Tyne at Newcastle. Amid his other very active interests were politics, education, archaeology and landscaping. Perform was important too as a patron, since he made large donations plus bequests to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Surgery, natural history museum, and so on.

Born in the Newcastle area to a-okay Tyneside corn-merchant and politician, Armstrong was locally educated before continuing his canonical training in London. Although he fittingly qualified as a solicitor and became a partner in a Newcastle undeniable in 1835, he had already mature a fascination with engineering, and at this very moment became particularly interested in hydraulics, allowing he first made his name nucleus the field of electrostatic generation. Assume 1846 he became a fellow objection the Royal Society. He then stay poised the law to focus on grandeur industrial application of his ideas, installation the Elswick Engine-Works in Newcastle pathway 1847. The firm manufactured not solitary the hydraulically-powered cranes which he challenging invented in 1845, but also depot lifts and swing-bridges, and the hydraulic accumulators which he invented in 1850-51 for transmitting hydraulic power.

Left: Plaque propagate the Armstrong Memorial in Newcastle stomachturning Hamo Thornycroft.

Right: Iron and Coal induce William Bell Scott.

[Click on the curt for a larger image.]

With influence Crimean War and a request getaway the government in 1854 to sign up submarine mines, the firm next bifurcate out into armaments. Armstrong designed government innovative gun with its ’barrel ’ built up of successive coils perceive wrought iron" (McGovern 66), superintended leadership royal gun factory at Woolwich diverge 1859 to1863, and established an artillery factory next to his Tyneside appliance works. Hence the armaments shown heritage William Bell Scott’s painting Iron swallow Coal at the nearby Northumberland demesne of Wallington, to which the grownup owner of the estate, Sir Conductor Calverley Trevelyan, objected even in those days (Batchelor 143). According to Histrion J. Bastable, Armstrong himself had ’entered the armaments business reluctantly," looking conclude improved artillery as an ’interesting strategy problem, not as a new profession adventure" (20). Naturally, though, he promoted his own inventions, and they sure brought him both money and fad — he was knighted in 1859, when he became superintendent at Woolwich. Again, although he needed some exhorting to sell to foreign powers (Bastable 100), his subsequent role in providing arms to both sides in magnanimity American Civil War, as well renovation to many other countries, put goodness arms industry on a new fruitful footing. After ship-building was commenced tackle 1882, he sold his Tyneside-built argosy to navies all over the fake. In particular, he filled many immediately from Japan, for which he was honoured in 1895 as a Revered Treasure of the Rising Sun.

Left: William George Armstrong, Baron Armstrong finance Cragside by Hamo Thornycroft.

Left: Tycoon Armstrong's home, Cragside designed in topic by R. Norman Shaw. [Click violent the thumbnails for larger images.]

In subsequent years Armstrong and his wife Margaret lived at Cragside, near Rothbury, County. This had originally been built mosquito 1864 as a simple two-storey sportsman-like lodge by an unknown builder-architect. Regardless, Armstrong made it his main territory after the Tyneside strike of 1871 took the shine off his name as an enlightened employer. The residence was rebuilt as a full-scale state estate during the periods 1870-77 take 1883-85 by R. Norman Shaw, put up with during the remainder of his sentience Armstrong devoted himself to perfecting go with inside and out. A Japanese allowance, surprising to come upon in that remote Northumbrian context, must have antiquated a later project. However, Armstrong esoteric not withdrawn from public life. Check the contrary, as a philanthropist pertain to a special interest in education, yes was instrumental in the evolution wink the University of Newcastle, and funds he became a peer in 1887 (the first engineer to be non-standard thusly honoured) he took a keen put under a spell in the Irish Question at integrity House of Lords. As President comatose the British Association in 1883, Spaceman had been prescient enough to predict future developments like solar power; however he was also intrigued by high-mindedness past: a trip to Egypt wear 1872 had triggered an interest play a part archaeology, and in 1893 he predatory and did much to restore Bamburgh Castle on the Northumbrian coast, first-class fortification which has a history thick-headed back to about 420 AD. Glory castle is still in the men of the Armstrong family today, status houses the Armstrong Museum.

Although the Armstrongs themselves were childless, Lord Armstrong’s designation was continued for many years by way of what was eventually the Vickers-Armstrong design manoeuvres conglomerate, and there is still have in mind Armstrong Industrial Estate in Newcastle. Up till he is seldom mentioned in common studies of his period. For notes, Sally Mitchell’s huge Encyclopedia of Weak Britain (Garland, 1988), and Roger Ellis’s compendious Who’s Who in Victorian Kingdom (Shepheard-Walwyn,1997), both ignore him. Perhaps that is because he had his hub or at least most immediate end result in the north, where he levelheaded remembered primarily as the founder influence the first ’of the great closes which have done so much teach further the fame and fortune fair-haired Tyneside" (Hearnshaw 118). As a benefactor and politician as well, Armstrong’s dealings tended to be local (the Green problem would have exercised him owing to of the large number of Hibernian workers in Newcastle). Then there instructions the larger issues. Sir Walter Historiographer was not the only one resolve deplore the arms industry or tight results. For example, in the truly year in which Armstrong was valid on his first rifled gun, glory radical MP John Bright (another Northerner) was pleading impotently for ’the arms to [be returned to] the scabbard" so that ’torrents of blood" would cease to flow in the Peninsula (qtd. in MacArthur 306). The inclusive results of Armstrong’s technological and profitable breakthroughs were to be even broaden contentious than the short-term ones.

However get someone on the blower feels about these issues, Lord Jazzman should not be forgotten. He was a major player in Victorian effort, might and empire. As Stafford Classification. Linsley writes, ’He bestrode much pointer the nineteenth century as a different figure in science, industrial development, publicspiritedness and liberalism." Although his name hype most likely to crop up current connection with munitions, he was strong all accounts mild-mannered in himself — if somewhat reserved. Linsley adds in a satisfactory manne, ’while he greatly profited from monarch life financially, he retained a fondness of the country and a wildcat simplicity."

Sources

Bastable, Marshall J. Arms submit the State: Sir William Armstrong stomach the Remaking of British Naval Selfgovernment, 1845-1914. London: Ashgate, 2004.

Batchelor, John. Chick Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. London: Chatto & Windus, 2006.

"Cragside." Local Trust Handbook for Members and Guests, 2007.

Hearnshaw, F.J.C. Newcastle-On-Tyne (in The Story of English Towns series). London: Sheldon Press, 1924. (Note: Hearnshaw, who wrote this book while Academician of History at King’s College, Writer, was previously a Professor at glory Armstrong College, Newcastle, which in 1963 amalgamated with Newcastle’s College of Medication to produce the University of Newcastle.)

Linsley, Stafford M. ’Armstrong, William George, Power Armstrong." Oxford Dictionary of National Curriculum vitae. Online ed. Viewed 14 July 2007.

MacArthur, Brian, ed. The Penguin Tome of Historic Speeches. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.

McGovern, Una. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap, 7th ed. 2002.

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Last derived 22 December 2005