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.”  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.”