s continued to grow,
and business to increase, until, instead of the five and a half acres
originally purchased, the Company's works, in 1900, covered two hundred
and thirty acres, and the number of men on the pay-roll was over
25,000--that is, sufficient with their families to people a town three
times the size of Hexham. And the scope and extent of these works are
extending, and yet extending; and now Elswick and Scotswood form an
uninterrupted line of closely-packed dwellings, which stretch without a
break from Newcastle, and make a background for the immense works on the
river shore; and one would look in vain for any signs of the pretty
country lanes and village of sixty years ago.

The founder of this great enterprise, in the early days of the Company,
built for his workpeople schools, library, and reading rooms, as well as
dwellings, and met them personally at their social gatherings and
entertainments--generally provided by himself; but the increasing size
of the concern, the excellence and capability, amounting to genius, of
the various heads of departments chosen by him, and his own increasing
years and failing health, led to his gradual withdrawal from personal
attendance at Elswick. The last time he appeared there officially was
when the King of Siam visited the works in 1897.

One who knew him well has written of him, "His mind was at the same time
original and strictly practical; he noticed with a penetrating
observation, and drew conclusions with intuitive genius. Abstract
speculation had no charm for him; he never cherished wild dreams or
extravagant ideas. But if his conception was thus wisely restricted, his
execution of an idea was unrivalled in its thoroughness. Whether he was
founding an industrial establishment, or building a house, or making a
road, the hand of the man is quite unmistakable. There is the same solid
basis, the same enduring superstructure. Every stone that is laid at
Cragside or Bamburgh seems to be stamped as it were with the impression
of his great personality, and the thoroughness of his work." All his
life long, the thoroughness with which he was able to concentrate his
mind on the one subject which occupied it at the time, was a marked
feature of Lord Armstrong's character.

In the early period of his career, while he was still in a solicitor's
office, and when the study of hydraulics was absorbing all his leisure
hours, he was quizzically said to have "water on the brain."