Electrical
problems also engaged his attention, and in 1844 he lectured at the Lit.
and Phil. rooms on his hydro-electric machine, on which occasion the
lecture room was so tightly packed that he had to get in through the
window. In the following year he explained to the same society his
hydraulic experiments and achievements; in 1846 he was elected a Fellow
of the Royal Society; and the next summer, 1847, saw the Elswick Works
begun.

It is difficult to realize the fact, brought home to us on looking at
dates like these, that Lord Armstrong and Robert Stephenson were
contemporaries, and that both great engineers were engaged at the same
time on the works which were to bring them lasting fame. The life and
work of Robert Stephenson seem so remote, so much a part of bygone
history, that it strikes the mind with an unexpected shock to realise
that here is a life which began about the same time, yet has lasted
until quite recent years; for Lord Armstrong's long and successful
career only closed with the closing days of the nineteenth century.

In the later years of his life he was greatly interested in repairing
and partly re-building the historic castle of Bamburgh, which Mr.
Freeman calls "the cradle of our race," and which Lord Armstrong
purchased from Lord Crewe's Trustees. Of his personal character, the
writer above quoted says, "Apart from his intellectual gifts, Lord
Armstrong's character was that of a great man. His unaffected modesty
was as attractive as his broad-minded charity. In business transactions,
he was the soul of integrity and honour, while in private life his mind
was far too large to regard accumulated wealth with any excessive
affection. He both spent his money freely and gave it away freely. His
benefactions to Newcastle were princely, and his public munificence was
fit to rank with that of any philanthropist of his time."

Princely, indeed, were his gifts to his native town, as the list of them
will show; they embraced either large contributions to, or the entire
gift of, Jesmond Dene, the Armstrong Park, the Lecture Theatre of the
Literary and Philosophical Society, St. Cuthbert's Church, the
Cathedral, St. Stephen's Church, the Infirmary, the Deaf and Dumb
Institution, the Children's Hospital, the Elswick Schools, Elswick
Mechanics' Institute, the Convalescent Home at Whitley Bay, the Hancock
Museum--to which he and Lady Armstrong contributed a valuable collection
of shells, and L11,500 in mon