1860 Sir Douglas Galton ; Lord Armstrong 383 



Director of Public Works and Buildings. He took much 

 interest in questions of sanitation. For many years he was 

 one of the secretaries of the British Association, an office which 

 in 1895 he exchanged for that of President. He was elected 

 F.R.S. in 1859, an d received the honour of K.C.B. in 1887. 

 He was the active Treasurer of the Club from 1867 to 1878. 



Sir William George Armstrong was another illustrious 

 inventive engineer. At first he took to law and was a 

 partner in a legal firm in Newcastle, but his mechanical 

 bent drew him into the engineering centre of the north. He 

 devised one invention after another, including the hydraulic 

 engine, the hydraulic crane, the hydro-electric machine, 

 and the hydraulic pressure accumulator. Subsequently he 

 was led to turn his attention to the construction of canron, 

 with the result that he entirely revolutionised the making 

 of guns of all kinds. He formed the barrel of successive 

 coils of wrought-iron thoroughly welded together round a 

 cylindrical rod, and the breech was correspondingly 

 strengthened. The Armstrong gun soon superseded every 

 earlier construction. His invention of rifle-bored breech- 

 loading cannon and all his other inventions he freely offered 

 to the nation. The works of Elswick under his supervision 

 grew rapidly in size and importance. In addition to the 

 manufacture of ordnance, as well as of many peaceful kinds 

 of mechanism, the construction of ships of war was eventually 

 undertaken by his firm, which thus became one of the chief 

 centres in the world for the manufacture of naval and 

 military iron-work of every kind. Sir William Armstrong's 

 great services were in the end fully recognised by his fellow- 

 countrymen, even including torpid and reluctant officialdom. 

 It is enough to mention here that besides the medals, honorary 

 degrees, presidentships and other tokens of respect con- 

 ferred on him, his eminence was recognised by the Royal 

 Society as early as 1846, when it elected him one of its 

 Fellows, many years before the date of the inventions with 

 which his name is generally associated. He was knighted 

 in 1859 an( i m J 887 he was made a peer. He died in 1900 

 at the age of ninety. 



