Armstrong, WILLIAM GEORGE, LORD ARMSTRONG, inventor of the Armstrong gun, was born in 1810 at Newcastle, where his father was a merchant. He was articled to a solicitor, and became a partner in the firm. But the bent of his mind lay in other directions. In 1840 he produced a much improved hydraulic engine, and in 1845 the hydraulic crane. In 1842 he brought to perfection an apparatus for producing electricity from steam. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1846; and shortly afterwards commenced the Elswick Engine-works, in the suburbs of his native city. This large establishment was at first chiefly employed in producing hydraulic cranes, engines, accumulators, and bridges, but was soon to be famous for the production of ordnance. During the Crimean war, Armstrong was employed by the War Office to make explosive apparatus for blowing up the ships sunk at Sebastopol. This led him soon afterwards to consider improvements in ordnance, and he devised the form of cannon that bears his name. The essential feature of the Armstrong gun, whether rifled or smooth bore, breech-loading or muzzle-loading, is that the barrel is built up of successive coils of wrought-iron, welded round a mandrel into a homogeneous mass of great tenacity, the breech being specially strengthened on similar principles. The actual results obtained by these guns, even of the earlier patterns, were almost incredible. An ordinary 32-pounder weighed 57 cwt.; Armstrong's 32-pounder weighed 26 cwt. The former required 10 lb. of powder as a charge; for the latter 5 lb. sufficed. The former would send a shot or shell 3000 yards; the range of the latter exceeded 9000 yards. In 1858 the Rifle-cannon Committee recommended the adoption of the Armstrong gun for special service; and the government proposed to secure the result of these experiments for the nation. Armstrong offered to the government all his inventions; and, till 1863, there existed a kind of partnership between the government and the Elswick firm, Armstrong being knighted in 1858, and appointed Chief-engineer of Rifled Ordnance. The Elswick firm, which has come to have in its employ some 18,000 workmen, has supplied many foreign governments with guns (see CANNON); and in 1888–90, with the support of the Italian government, established a branch (for military engineering) near Pozzuoli. Armstrong's reputation and commercial success depended largely on his skill as a constructor of hydraulic machinery. He was in 1863 president of the British Association, his address bringing about the Coal Commission of 1866. He also took an active part in the inquiries about the Patent Laws. Cambridge and Oxford conferred honorary degrees on Armstrong, who was admitted a member of several foreign knightly orders.
In 1887 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Armstrong.