Lord Armstrong. 219 



his earliest and latest researches lay. in the direction of electrical 

 science. Attention had been turned to the statements of workmen at 

 Cramlington Collieries that, in attempting to adjust the safety valve 

 while steam was blowing off, they had experienced severe electric 

 shocks. Lord Armstrong, among others, was interested by this 

 phenomenon, and communicated his experiments in connection with 

 it to the "Philosophical Magazine" in 1840 and 1841. He continued 

 to experiment with the indefatigable perseverance which always 

 distinguished his researches, and it was not until 1844 that he 

 ventured to exhibit the results in public. In that year he brought 

 before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 

 a hydro-electric machine, constructed to his design by Messrs. Watson 

 and Lambert. Several of these machines were ordered by scientific 

 institutions upon the Continent, and one was exhibited by Prof. 

 Faraday at the Polytechnic. In this apparatus, steam was made to 

 issue through wooden nozzles, perforated with a crooked passage in 

 order to increase the friction. The collector consisted of a row of 

 spikes placed in the path of the steam jets issuing from the nozzles, 

 and was supported, together with a brass ball which served as a prime 

 conductor, upon a glass pillar. It was the most powerful machine 

 known at the time for producing electricity of high tension, and 

 yielded sparks five or six feet long. 



Almost immediately afterwards Lord Armstrong was elected a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society. He was described in his certificate 

 as a solicitor of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, " a gentleman well known as 

 an earnest investigator of physical science, especially with reference to 

 the electricity of steam, and the inventor of the hydro-electric machine." 

 Among the signatures to this certificate were those of Buckland, 

 Faraday, Owen, Grove, and Wheatstone. It is dated March 10, 

 1846, and Lord Armstrong was elected on May 7, 1846. In those 

 days there was no fixed date for the annual election, nor was there 

 apparently any limit to the number of new Fellows who might be 

 admitted each year. There was about this time some dissatisfaction 

 among the Fellows with the condition of the Society, and, as a result 

 the statutes were revised in 1847. Since that date only fifteen new 

 elections have been made annually. In the year 1846, when Lord 

 Armstrong was elected, he was one of twenty-five successful candidates. 

 Among the more interesting names in the list are those of Major 

 Cautley, the constructor of the Ganges Canal, Wilberforce, Bishop of 

 Oxford, and James Neilson, the inventor of the hot blast for blast 

 furnaces. When Lord Armstrong died in 1900 he was in point of 

 election the third oldest Fellow, senior to him being General Kiddell 

 and Sir John Simon, and in point of years the oldest but one, 

 Dr. Glaisher, who was born in 1809. Lord Armstrong served upon 

 the Council of the Society in 1861 and 1862. 



