Why William Armstrong still matters 200 years on
William Armstrong has been described as a genius, an inspiration and a warmonger.
, but the legacy of Tyneside industrialist William Armstrong is still being debated today.
For many he's an inspiration, but for others he has a darker side.
I've been digging into the remarkable history of Armstrong for a film about whether he's purely an historical figure, or someone with something to say to people today.
A leaf through a fascinating new book about him demonstrates that he is just as relevant now as he was in Victorian times.
catalogues the astonishing breadth of his interests.
He was an innovator; generating the world's first hydro-electric power, developing the science of hydraulics and even speculating on a future where we'd have to replace coal with solar and wind power.
But he also had a keen business mind, turning his inventions into a global business which employed 25,000 people in Newcastle.
He was a social climber. His grandfather was a cobbler, but by the end of his life as Lord Armstrong, he was hosting the Royal Family at his home.
Armstrong created the beauty of the Cragside estate.
He also loved nature, collecting many of the exhibits in the collection at .
And of course he created the amazing landscapes of in Newcastle, and .
But he also invented modern weaponry.
Before he began developing guns in the 1850s, the British army's artillery was crude and limited, and had barely been improved since the Napoleonic wars.
, and by the end of his life, .
And so his legacy has been both claimed and condemned.
Conservative peer Lord Michael Bates quotes him as a modern-day example to those who say the North East can't generate its own jobs.
He points to Armstrong as a local man who created a global business and thousands of jobs on Tyneside without any government grants.
Indeed, he wants to see a trip to Cragside made compulsory for every primary school pupil to see what could be achieved by an entrepreneur.
Environmentalists also want to claim his legacy.
Even in the 19th Century, Armstrong was talking about the need to move away from burning coal to using renewables.
He harnessed the rivers around Cragside to power the new electric lights in his house.
Armstrong hoped his guns would never be used in anger.
But he also raises the hackles of those who oppose the arms industry.
Valerie Anthony from the Newcastle , would love to have seen Armstrong spend more time helping humanity, and less developing lethal weapons.
She sees him as all too typical of too many great minds who get diverted into the arms industry.
And there is an irony that this creator of beautiful landscapes also developed guns that would destroy them.
He didn't see himself as a warmonger though.
Instead, he thought bigger and bigger guns would act as a deterrent. He believed "civilised" leaders would be too wise to use the guns against each other.
On that at least he was wrong. Within 15 years of his death in 1900, Armstrong's guns would be killing thousands of men in the First World War.
It's all a far cry from the tranquility and beauty of Cragside - perhaps the greatest monument to the uncontentious side of his genius.
And of course all of this means, Armstrong will be remembered for many more generations yet.
* book, William Armstrong - The Magician of the North, is published by .
I'm Richard Moss, the 91Èȱ¬'s Political Editor for the North East and Cumbria. Welcome to my irreverent - but hopefully insightful - northern take on reporting politics for Look North and the Politics Show.
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