224 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



With his retirement in 1863 from a position which had become 

 untenable the public career of Lord Armstrong may be said, in a 

 certain sense, to have come to an end. He was now fifty-three years 

 old : for five years the force of circumstances had placed him in the 

 most commanding position which an inventor has ever occupied. He 

 had revolutionised artillery, and had been the centre of much bitter 

 controversy and argument. He now retired into private life, and took 

 his place again as head of the Elswick Works. The agreement with 

 Government being at an end, there was nothing to prevent the 

 amalgamation of the Engineering and Ordnance Works into one 

 concern. This was at once effected, and a considerable foreign 

 connection, which rapidly increased, spread the fame of the Armstrong 

 guns over the world. About 1870 the building of warships was added to 

 the other operations of Lord Armstrong's firm, and in 1882, an amalgama- 

 tion with the shipyard of the late Mr. Charles Mitchell took place, and 

 the business was converted into a limited Company. The coalition with 

 Mr. Vavasseur added great strength to the new Company, and later 

 still, as we have already noticed, in 1897, the works of Sir Joseph 

 Whitworth, once the most active rival of Lord Armstrong, were also 

 absorbed, and the Company is now known as Sir W. G. Armstrong, 

 Whitworth & Company, Limited. The subject of Elswick may be 

 dismissed with the remark that it is one of the largest industrial 

 concerns in the world, employing at present 25,000 men, and paying 

 more than 30,000 a week in wages. Such has been the subsequent 

 history of the engineering works founded by Lord Armstrong in 1847. 

 He presided over Elswick, as Chairman of the Company, until the day 

 of his death, and up to the autumn of 1897 took a prominent share in 

 the policy if not in the actual management of the business. 



To revert to more personal matters, in 1863 Lord Armstrong was 

 President of the British Association, which held its meeting at 

 Newcastle, and in his presidential address, dealt with the coal supply 

 of the British Islands. His remarks upon this subject aroused con- 

 siderable interest, and led to the appointment of a Eoyal Commission, 

 under the chairmanship of the Duke of Argyll, to enquire into the 

 question. Lord Armstrong was a member of this Commission. 



Lord Armstrong was also upon more than one occasion associated 

 with the Ordnance Committee in certain special enquiries about 

 artillery. He was always accepted, as he deserved to be, as one of the 

 first authorities upon guns and mountings. After the conversion of 

 his business into a limited Company in 1882, he took the chair 

 annually at the shareholders' meetings, and the addresses which he 

 delivered show the closeness with which he followed the progress made 

 in the construction of war material. It will be remembered no doubt 

 that he especially insisted from time to time on the necessity of fast 

 protected cruisers for the protection of British commerce. 



