In 1847, the engineer
William George Armstrong founded the
Elswick works at Newcastle, to produce hydraulic machinery, cranes and bridges, soon to be followed by artillery, notably the Armstrong breech-loading gun, with which the
British Army was re-equipped after the
Crimean War. In 1882, it merged with the shipbuilding firm of
Charles Mitchell to form
Armstrong Mitchell & Company and at the time its works extended for over a mile (about 2 km) along the bank of the
River Tyne. Armstrong Mitchell merged again with the engineering firm of
Joseph Whitworth in 1897. The company expanded into the manufacture of cars and trucks in 1902, and created an "aerial department" in 1913, which became the
Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft subsidiary in 1920. In 1927, it merged with
Vickers Limited to form
Vickers-Armstrongs.
Automobiles The
Armstrong Whitworth car was manufactured from 1904, when the company decided to diversify to compensate for a fall in demand for artillery after the end of the
Boer War. It took over construction of the
Wilson-Pilcher, designed by
Walter Gordon Wilson, and produced cars under the Armstrong Whitworth name until 1919, when the company merged with
Siddeley-Deasy and formed
Armstrong Siddeley. The Wilson-Pilcher was an advanced car, originally with a 2.4-litre engine, that had been made in London from 1901 until 1904, when production moved to Newcastle. When Armstrong Whitworth took over production, two models were made: a 2.7-litre
flat four and a 4.1-litre
flat six, the cylinders on both being identical with bore and stroke of 3.75in (95mm). The engines had the flywheel at the front, and the crankshaft had intermediate bearings between each pair of cylinders. Drive was to the rear wheels via a dual helical
epicyclic gears and helical bevel axle. The cars were listed at £735 for the four and £900 for the six. They were still theoretically available until 1907. According to
Automotor in 1904, "Even the first Wilson-Pilcher car that made its appearance created quite a sensation in automobile circles at the time on account of its remarkably silent and smooth running, and of the almost total absence of vibration". The first Armstrong Whitworth car was the
28/36 of 1906 with a water-cooled, four-cylinder
side-valve engine of 4.5 litres which unusually had "oversquare" dimensions of bore and stroke. Drive was via a four-speed gearbox and shaft to the rear wheels. A larger car was listed for 1908 with a choice of either 5-litre
30 or 7.6-litre
40 models sharing a bore but with strokes of and respectively. The
40 was listed at £798 in bare chassis form for supplying to coachbuilders. These large cars were joined in 1909 by the 4.3-litre
18/22 and in 1910 by the 3.7-litre
25, which seems to have shared the same chassis as the
30 and
40. In 1911, a new small car appeared in the shape of the 2.4-litre
12/14, called the
15.9 in 1911, featuring a
monobloc engine with pressure lubrication to the crankshaft bearings. This model had an wheelbase compared with the of the
40 range. This was joined by four larger cars ranging from the 2.7-litre
15/20 to the 3.7-litre
25.5.
Armaments The
Elswick Ordnance Company (sometimes referred to as Elswick Ordnance Works, but usually as "EOC") was originally created in 1859 to separate William Armstrong's armaments business from his other business interests, to avoid a conflict of interest as Armstrong was then Engineer of Rifled Ordnance for the
War Office and the company's main customer was the British Government. Armstrong held no financial interest in the company until 1864 when he left Government service, and Elswick Ordnance was reunited with the main Armstrong businesses to form Sir W.G. Armstrong & Company. EOC was then the armaments branch of W.G. Armstrong & Company and later of Armstrong Whitworth. Elswick Ordnance was a major arms developer before and during
World War I. The ordnance and ammunition it manufactured for the British Government were stamped EOC, while guns made for export were usually marked "W.G. Armstrong". The
28 cm howitzer L/10 which played a major role in the
Siege of Port Arthur in the
Russo-Japanese War was developed by Armstrong.
Locomotives 2-6-4T locomotive on Armstrong Whitworth-built
LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 45305 showing completion in 1936 After
World War I, Armstrong Whitworth converted its Scotswood Works to build railway locomotives. From 1919 it rapidly penetrated the locomotive market due to its modern plant. Its two largest contracts were 200 2-8-0s for the Belgian State Railways in 1920 and 327
Black 5 4-6-0s for the LMS in 1935/36. AW also modified locomotives. In 1926
Palestine Railways sent six of its
H class Baldwin 4-6-0 locomotives to AW for conversion into 4-6-2 tank locomotives to work the PR's steeply graded branch between Jaffa and Jerusalem. PR also sent another six H Class Baldwins for their defective steel fireboxes to be replaced with copper ones. AW went on to build 20 large three-cylinder "Pacific" type locomotives for the Central Argentine Railway (F.C.C.A) in 1930, with Caprotti valve gear and modern boilers. They were the most powerful locomotives on the F.C.C.A. AW obtained the UK license for Sulzer diesels from 1919, and by the 1930s was building diesel locomotives and railcars. An early example is the
Tanfield Railway's 0-4-0 diesel-electric shed pilot,
No.2, which was built by AW as works number D22 in 1933. In the same year, the company launched the UK's first mainline diesel locomotive, the 800 bhp "Universal". It was successful in trials, but not repaired after an engine crankcase explosion a year later. A total of 1464 locomotives were built at Scotswood Works before it was converted back to armaments manufacture in 1937. After much fighting between Harry Reid and then-Prime Minister of the dominion,
Richard Squires, the so-called Humber project (after the
Humber River) received support from the local government and
loan guarantees both from it and the UK; Squires even campaigned on it, making "Hum on the Humber" his slogan for the
1923 Newfoundland general election. The company was heavily involved with the establishment of the town of Deer Lake. The hydro-electric station there was built between 1922 and 1925, while the canal system used by the hydro-electric station helped to expand the forestry operations in the area. Some of the equipment used in the construction of the
Panama Canal was shipped to Newfoundland. The pulp and paper mill in
Corner Brook began operations in 1925. Overall, AW spent about £5M (equivalent to £ million in ) on the development, which went significantly over the original budget and led to an overdraft, only to witness a consistent decline in newsprint and pulp prices after 1923, which was caused by over-expansion of the Canadian industry that was not predicted by either party of the project, both lacking experience in the paper trade. Between 1885 and 1918 Armstrong built warships for the
Royal Navy,
Beiyang Fleet,
Imperial Russian Navy, Brazil Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy, and the
United States Navy. Amongst these were
HMS Glatton which, due to bodged construction, suffered a magazine explosion in Dover Harbour less than one month after commissioning. Armstrong Mitchell and later Armstrong Whitworth built many merchant ships, freighters, tank-ships, and dredgers; notable among them was the
ice-breaking train ferries in 1897 and in 1900, built to connect the
Trans-Siberian Railway across
Lake Baikal. The company built the first polar icebreaker in the world:
Yermak was a Russian and later Soviet icebreaker, having a strengthened hull shaped to ride over and crush pack ice. ==Mergers and demergers==