Thornycroft’s bronze memorial statue of William George Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Cragside, at the Barras Bridge, Newcastle, portrays Armstrong looking thoughtful and quite without pomposity. The base and setting were designed by the architect, William Henry Knowles. At the unveiling in 1906, in the presence of a large crowd, the Duke of Northumberland described the monument movingly as a “noble tribute to the genius of Newcastle’s greatest benefactor and one of England’s most brilliant and honoured masters of industry.”
This life-size bronze of Lord Armstrong depicts him with a little Scottish terrier at his feet and a sheaf of drawings in his hand. The bronze sits on an ashlar pedestal with two bronze low-relief panels depicting his work, and places to sit, on either side. The panel on the left shows a hydraulic crane lowering a gun onto a battleship.
The panel on the right depicts a ship being towed through the Newcastle Swing-Bridge, with Stephenson’s High-Level Bridge standing out clearly in the background.
Related material
Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
University of Newcastle Upon Tyne's SINE (Structural Images of the North East) project.
The Public Monument and Sculpture Association National Recording Project.
Created 21 July 2007
Last modified 24 February 2020