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 N; 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 L11,500 in money the Armstrong Bridge, the Armstrong College, and the Bishopric Endowment Fund.