ARMSTRONG, WILLIAM GEORGE, Baron (1810-1900). An English engineer, scientist, and inventor of hydraulic machinery and ordnance. He was born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and re ceived his early education at Whickham and Bishop Auckland. Yielding to his father's wishes, lie determined to follow the profession of law and spent several years in a solicitor's office, hut was diverted from this calling by a taste for scientific research and mechanics. His first important dis eovery was the hydro-electric machine. which con sisted of an insulated boiler from which steam at high pressure, escaping through nozzles of pe culiar design. produced frictional electricity. In recognition of this discovery. Armstrong was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1846. Soon afterwards lie invented the hydraulic crane, and for the construction of hydraulic machinery lie founded the Elswiek Engine Works. in the suburbs of his native town. In 1834, at these works, were made the rifled cannon with which his name is associated as inventor. -So successful was lie in his construction of ordnance that he was appointed engineer of rifled ordnance at Woolwich. and was knighted in 1S59. Some 3500 cannon were constructed under Sir William Arm strong's direction between 1859 and 1863, when lie resigned his official position to resume his ac tive connection with the Elswick Works. In
1803 he was president of the British Association. and delivered an address ill which lie called at tention to the decrease in the coal supply of (treat Britain and the exhaustion of the deposits. In 1882 he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and served in a similar capacity for several terms in the institute of Mechanical Engineers. A member of the Iron and Steel In stitute of Great Britain, he received from that organization the Bessemer Medal in 1891, and was honored with the degree of LL.D. from Cam bridge in 1862, and that of D.C.L. from Oxford in 1870. In 1887 he was raised to the peerage. The Elswick Works, which at first were concerned with the •onstrit•tion of hydraulic cranes, en gines. accumulators, and bridges, were greatly ex panded and became celebrated for the production of ships of war as well as ordnance and machin ery. Lord Armstrong played an important part in the development of the breech-loading cannon and armor plate, and his improvements \rill he found discussed in the articles ORDNANCE and ARMOR PLATE.