Chapter V: Elswick and Its Founder

Sailed from the North of old The strong sons of Odin; Sailed in the
Serpent ships, “By hammer and hand” Skilfully builded.

Still in the North-country Men keep their sea-cunning; Still true the
legend, “By hammer and hand” Elswick builds war-ships.
—(_Northumbriensis_).

For a mile and a quarter, along the north bank of the Tyne, stretch
the world-famed Elswick Works, which have grown to their present
gigantic proportions from the small beginnings of five and a half
acres in 1847. In that year two fields were purchased as a site for
the new works about to be started to make the hydraulic machinery
which had been invented by Mr. Armstrong.

In this undertaking he was backed by the wealth of several
prominent Newcastle citizens, who believed in the future of the new
inventions—Messrs. Addison Potter, George Cruddas, Armourer Donkin,
and Richard Lambert. At that time Elswick was a pretty country
village some distance outside of Newcastle, and the walk along the
riverside between the two places was a favourite one with the
people of the town. In midstream there was an island, where stood a
little inn called the “Countess of Coventry”; and on the island
various sports were often held, including horse-racing.

The price of the land for the new shops, which were soon built on
the green slopes above the Tyne, was paid to Mr. Hodgson Hind and
Mr. Richard Grainger; the latter of whom had intended, could he
have carried out his plans for the rebuilding of Newcastle, not to
stop until he made Elswick Hall the centre of the town.

Until the new shops were ready to begin work, some of Mr.
Armstrong’s hydraulic cranes were made by Mr. Watson at his works
in the High Bridge.

All the summer of 1847, the building went briskly on; and in the
autumn work was started. At first Mr. Armstrong had an office in
Hood Street, as he was superintending his machinery construction in
High Bridge, as well as the building operations at Elswick. On some
of the early notepaper of the firm there is, as the heading, a
picture of Elswick as it was then, showing the first shops, the
little square building in which were the offices, the green banks
sloping down to the waterside, and the island in the middle of the
shallow stream, while the chimneys and smoke of Newcastle are
indicated in the remote background. Along the riverside was the
public footpath.

The first work done in the new shops was the making of Crane No. 6;
and amongst other early orders was one from the _Newcastle
Chronicle_, for hydraulic machinery to drive the printing press.
The new machinery rapidly grew in favour; and orders from mines,
docks and railways poured in to the Elswick firm, which soon
extended its works.

In 1854, when the Crimean War broke out, Mr. Armstrong was
requested to devise some submarine mines which would clear the
harbour of Sebastopol of the Russian war-ships which had been sent
there. He did so, but the machinery was never used.

At the same time, in his leisure moments, he turned his attention
to the question of artillery. The guns in use at that time were
very little better than those which had been used during the
Napoleonic wars; and Mr. Armstrong devised a new one, which was
made at his workshops. It was a 3-pounder, complete with
gun-carriage and mountings, and is still to be seen at Elswick.

With the usual reluctance of Government departments to consider
anything new, the War Office of the day was slow to believe in the
superiority of the new field-piece; but when every fresh trial
proved that superiority to be beyond doubt, the gun was adopted.
And then Mr. Armstrong showed the large-minded generosity which was
so marked a feature of his character. Holding in his hand—as every
man must, who possesses the secret of a new and superior engine of
destruction—the fate of nations, to be decided at his will, and
with the knowledge that other powers were willing and eager to buy
with any sum the skill of such an inventor, Mr. Armstrong presented
to the British Government, as a free gift, the patents of his
artillery; and he entered the Government service for a time, as
Engineer to the War Department, in order to give them the benefit
of his skill and special knowledge.

A knighthood was bestowed upon him, and he took up his new duties
as Sir William Armstrong. An Ordnance department was opened at
Elswick, and the Government promised a continuance of orders above
those that the Arsenal at Woolwich was able to fulfil. All went
well for a time, but after some years the connection between the
Government and Elswick ceased; the Ordnance and Engineering works
were then amalgamated into one concern, and Mr. George Rendel and
Captain Noble—now Sir Andrew Noble, and one of the greatest living
authorities on explosives—were placed in charge of the former.

Released from the agreement to make no guns except for the British
Government, Elswick was open to receive other orders, which now
began to roll in from all the world. Elswick prospered greatly,
until suddenly there came a check, in the shape of a strike for a
nine hours day, in 1871. After the strike had lasted for four and a
half months, work was resumed; but the old genial relationship
between masters and men had received a rude strain, and was never
the same as before.

Shipbuilding had been taken up a year or two before this, but the
earliest vessels were built to their order in Mr. Mitchell’s yard
at Walker. The first one was a small gunboat, the “Staunch,” built
for the Admiralty. In later years the Walker ship-yard was united
to the Elswick enterprises, and a ship-yard at the latter place was
also opened.

Meantime, Captain Noble had been experimenting further in
artillery, and in 1877 another and better type of gun was produced.
It was adopted by the Government, and all guns since then have been
modifications, more or less, of this type. In 1876 the famous
hundred-ton gun for Italy was made, and was taken on board the
“Europa” to be carried to her destination; this vessel being the
first to pass the newly-finished Swing Bridge, another outcome of
the inventive genius of the head of the Elswick firm. The gun,
which was the largest in the world at that time, was lowered into
the “Europa” by the largest pair of “sheer-legs” in existence, and
was lifted out again at Spezzia by the largest hydraulic crane of
that day, and all these were the work of the Elswick firm.

Soon after this the firm became Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and
Co.; and in consequence of the continued increase of business, it
became necessary to open Steel Works also. This is one of the most
notable features of the Elswick works; the wonders of ancient
magicians pale into insignificance before the marvels of this
department, and no Eastern Genius could accomplish such seemingly
impossible feats with greater ease than do the workmen of Elswick.

The works continued to grow still further, and soon Elswick was
building cruisers for China, for Italy (where works at Pozzuoli—the
ancient Puteoli—were opened), for Russia, Chili, and Japan.
Tynesiders took a special interest in the progress of the Japanese
wars, for so many of that country’s battleships had their birth on
the banks of the river at Elswick, and Japanese sailors became a
familiar sight in Newcastle streets. Groups of strange faces from
alien lands are periodically seen in our midst, and met with again
and again for some time; then one day there is a launch at Elswick,
and shortly afterwards all the strange faces disappear. They have
gathered together from their various quarters in the town, and
manning their new cruiser, have sailed away to their own land, and
Newcastle streets know them no more; but, later, Tynesiders read in
their newspapers of the deeds done on the vessels which they have
sent forth to the world.

The ice-breaker “Ermack” is one of the firm’s most notable
achievements, the vessel having been built and designed in their
Walker yard, to the order of the Czar of Russia, in 1898, for the
purpose of breaking up ice-floes in the northern seas, and more
especially for keeping open a route across the great lakes of
Siberia.

The Elswick firm became Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., in
1897, which was also the year of another great strike; and two
years later, a disastrous fire burned down three of their shops,
throwing two thousand men temporarily out of employment. Still the
works continued to grow, and business to increase, until, instead
of the five and a half acres originally purchased, the Company’s
works, in 1900, covered two hundred and thirty acres, and the
number of men on the pay-roll was over 25,000—that is, sufficient
with their families to people a town three times the size of
Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are extending, and
yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an uninterrupted
line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a break
from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
country lanes and village of sixty years ago.

The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the
Company, built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading
rooms, as well as dwellings, and met them personally at their
social gatherings and entertainments—generally provided by himself;
but the increasing size of the concern, the excellence and
capability, amounting to genius, of the various heads of
departments chosen by him, and his own increasing years and failing
health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal attendance at
Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was when the
King of Siam visited the works in 1897.

One who knew him well has written of him, “His mind was at the same
time original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely
restricted, his execution of an idea was unrivalled in its
thoroughness. Whether he was founding an industrial establishment,
or building a house, or making a road, the hand of the man is quite
unmistakable. There is the same solid basis, the same enduring
superstructure. Every stone that is laid at Cragside or Bamburgh
seems to be stamped as it were with the impression of his great
personality, and the thoroughness of his work.” All his life long,
the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his mind on
the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked feature
of Lord Armstrong’s character.

In the early period of his career, while he was still in a
solicitor’s office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing
all his leisure hours, he was quizzically said to have “water on
the brain.” Electrical problems also engaged his attention, and in
1844 he lectured at the Lit. and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric
machine, on which occasion the lecture room was so tightly packed
that he had to get in through the window. In the following year he
explained to the same society his hydraulic experiments and
achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society;
and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works begun.

It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking
at dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the
same time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The
life and work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part
of bygone history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected
shock to realise that here is a life which began about the same
time, yet has lasted until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong’s
long and successful career only closed with the closing days of the
nineteenth century.

In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in
repairing and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh,
which Mr. Freeman calls “the cradle of our race,” and which Lord
Armstrong purchased from Lord Crewe’s Trustees. Of his personal
character, the writer above quoted says, “Apart from his
intellectual gifts, Lord Armstrong’s character was that of a great
man. His unaffected modesty was as attractive as his broad-minded
charity. In business transactions, he was the soul of integrity and
honour, while in private life his mind was far too large to regard
accumulated wealth with any excessive affection. He both spent his
money freely and gave it away freely. His benefactions to Newcastle
were princely, and his public munificence was fit to rank with that
of any philanthropist of his time.”

Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of
them will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the
entire gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture
Theatre of the Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert’s
Church, the Cathedral, St. Stephen’s Church, the Infirmary, the
Deaf and Dumb Institution, the Children’s Hospital, the Elswick
Schools, Elswick Mechanics’ Institute, the Convalescent Home at
Whitley Bay, the Hancock Museum—to which he and Lady Armstrong
contributed a valuable collection of shells, and £11,500 in
money—the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong College, and the
Bishopric Endowment Fund.