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Bronze life-size figure of a pensive Armstrong, dressed in a frock coat, on an ashlar pedestal flanked by two screen walls with seats. He holds a roll of drawings in his left hand. There is a table to his right and a recumbent Scotch terrier at his feet. Aspects of Armstrong's career as a manufacturer are depicted on two bronze reliefs attached to the screens: a hydraulic crane and shear-legs lowering of a 12-inch gun onto a battleship at Elswick; and a ship being towed by two tugs through the Newcastle Swing Bridge. The whole is set at road level in front of the slight hill that rises to the Hancock Museum.

Newcastle Corporation chose the grounds of the Museum of the Natural History Society for the Monument because Armstrong had been particularly associated with the Society during his life-time, joining it in 1846 and eventually becoming its President from 1893 until his death. He was also a key benefactor of the Museum, donating a rare fossil collection in 1859 and contributing £8,000 towards the cost of a new purpose-built home in 1882. In addition, Armstrong entertained the Prince of Wales on behalf of the Museum in 1884 when the latter came to perform the official opening (the Museum became the 'Hancock Museum' in 1891). Thornycroft was invited to submit a model by Armstrong's great-nephew and heir, Watson Armstrong, in 1903.(2) The cost of bronze casting was estimated at £300 in March 1905. The realism and relaxed pose met with approval. The local press spoke of the statue being 'carried out with artistic skill and the boldness of a hand sure of its powers'. Commentators also liked the inclusion of one of Armstrong's favourite Scotch terriers. This detail may have been inspired by the terrier in H.H.Emmerson's 1870s portrait of Armstrong reading a newspaper, in the dining room inglenook at his home at Cragside. Two models of the statue were left in Thornycroft's studio at his death. At the unveiling on 24th July 1906 the Duke of Northumberland spoke of the monument as a 'noble tribute to the genius of Newcastle's greatest benefactor and one of England's most brilliant and honoured masters of industry'. This was followed by a speech tracing Armstrong's career by Sir Andrew Noble, the industrialist's right-hand man for forty years. A commemorative postcard shows that a large crowd was present.(3)

William George Armstrong (1810-1900) was born in Shieldfield, Newcastle, the son of a corn merchant. After attending several private schools in Newcastle, he was sent to Bishop Auckland Grammer School, Co. Durham. There he showed great apitude for mathematics and mechanics and experimented with hydraulic machines. In spite of his deep love of engineering he had to leave school to follow law at the wish of his father. It was not until Armstrong was 37 that he abandoned law in favour of engineering. With other Newcastle businessmen, he formed a company to produce hydraulic cranes which he designed at a small factory at Elswick on the north bank of the river Tyne. Initially, the Elswick factory produced hydraulic equipment (used for Newcastle's Swing Bridge, for example) but following the outbreak of the Crimean War, there was a demand for improved field guns and he designed and manufactured the famous breech-loading 'Armstrong Gun', the forerunner of all modern guns. Subsequently he opened a shipyard at Elswick and in 1868 built his first warship, H.M.S Staunch, for the Navy. The firm continued to prosper and played an important part in World War I supplying vast quantities of armaments of all types. In 1887 Armstrong was created a Baron. After his retirement he continued to work on electrical experiments until he was well into his eighties.(1)

circa

raw year

Condition

At risk

Inscriptions

Signatures

Pedestal

Heworth stone

300cm high x 150cm square

Statue

Bronze

250cm high

Reliefs

Bronze

80cm high x 180cm wide

Screen walls

Stone

100cm wide

Abrasions, cracks, splits

Pedestal stonework split and blackened by weathering

Accretions

Statue is dirty