2'2'2 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



The Ordnance Committee in the first instance received the gun with 

 a discouraging lack of enthusiasm. It was objected that it could fire 

 neither common or shrapnel shell, and the inventor, feeling the force 

 of this objection, re-bored the gun so as to make it a 5-pourider, and 

 substituted for the lead shot a cast-iron shell, for which he devised 

 time, concussion, and direct-action fuzes. The official wheels moved 

 slowly, but in January, 1857, a further step was taken, and Lord 

 Armstrong was authorised to supply a gun upon his system, to 

 correspond in weight with the Service 9-pounder gun of 13-|-cwt. 

 Within the prescribed weight he submitted an 18-pounder gun, which, 

 tried in competition with the Service guns at Shoeburyness, utterly 

 defeated them in every detail. 



This gun was submitted in July, 1857, and in February, 1858, the 

 Superintendent of Experiments reported " that the very extraordinary 

 powers of range and precision of fire exhibited at Shoeburyness from 

 the breechloading gun of Mr. Armstrong's invention appear to afford 

 a reasonable expectation that artillery will not only regain that 

 influence in the field, of which to a certain extent it has been deprived 

 by the recent introduction of rifled small arms, but that influence will 

 be most materially increased." 



Lord Panmure, who was then Secretary of State for War, expressed 

 himself equally strongly. In August, 1858, a Special Committee on 

 rifled camion was appointed, which examined and reported on rifled 

 guns submitted by seven different inventors. In their report to the 

 War Office, they divided the guns submitted to them into two 

 classes. The first class included the guns of Mr. Armstrong and 

 Mr. Whitworth. As regards the second class, they recommended 

 that no further expense should be incurred with respect to them. 



They unanimously recommended that the Armstrong gun should be 

 introduced into the Service, both on account of its accuracy, the 

 perfection of its workmanship, and the completeness with which the 

 projectiles, fuzes, and other details had been worked out. Some idea 

 of the advance in accuracy by the introduction of rifled guns may be 

 gathered from an appendix attached to the Committee's Report, by 

 which it appears that at 1,000 yards range half of the shot fired from 

 the smooth-bored field gun of the Service fell in a rectangle 92 yards 

 long by 7 yards wide, while the corresponding rectangle with the 

 Armstrong gun was 17 yards long by P 8 yards wide. 



On the adoption of his gun Lord Armstrong placed his inventions 

 at the disposal of the nation, severed for a time his connection with his 

 firm, and received the honours of knighthood and the Companionship 

 of the Bath. He was then appointed Engineer of Rifled Ordnance and 

 Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factories ; an arrangement was 

 made with the newly-formed Elswick Ordnance Company, and the 



