Wow! eBook
William Armstrong: Magician of the North Reprinted 2011 Edition
Author(s): Henrietta Heald (Author)
- Publisher: Northumbria Press
- Publication Date: 30 Sept. 2010
- Edition: Reprinted 2011
- Language: English
- Print length: 320 pages
- ISBN-10: 1904794491
- ISBN-13: 9781904794493
Book Description
He created Cragside in Northumberland, the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity, and planted in its grounds seven million trees. At Cragside his guests included the Shah of Persia, the King of Siam, the Prime Minister of China and the future kings Edward VII and George V.
This book is much more, however, than the life of one man. It is the story of Britain at the height of empire, riding the crest of industrial success a country awash with scientific and technological achievements, bursting with hopes and dreams. It will appeal as much to lovers of romance as to more practically inclined readers. The Queen and the Prince Consort played a vital role in fostering the scientific ferment, but so did characters such as Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley. It was the era of the self-made man, and no one personified Samuel Smiles’s doctrine of self-help more clearly than William Armstrong.
Editorial Reviews
Review
…a fascinating new book about him demonstrates that he is just as relevant now as he was in Victorian times. –BBC North
William Armstrong was an engineering genius and perceptive scientist but his part in Britain’s 19th-century history has been shamefully neglected. So hooray for Henrietta Heald, who gives us a thoroughly researched, finely written and helpfully illustrated biography. (And let me add that her publishers, Northumbria Press, are to be congratulated on the peerless quality of this hard-cover edition.) Heald skilfully relates Armstrong’s story as an entertaining and gripping account of a grammar school boy who grew up in a book-filled home and ended up as the builder and owner of Cragside, which remains one of the most famous great houses of England. In an England of scheming, snobbery and jealousy, it was not an easy journey. Her book is essential reading for anyone interested in the the power and greatness of Victorian England for which Armstrong’s contribution was as great as that of the railway engineers such as Stephenson and Brunel. And do not assume that Henrietta would let us down on the technicalities of Armstrong’s inventions; she merely makes them explicit enough for people such as me to understand. –Len Deighton
…a fascinating new book about him demonstrates that he is just as relevant now as he was in Victorian times. –BBC North
William Armstrong was an engineering genius and perceptive scientist but his part in Britain’s 19th-century history has been shamefully neglected. So hooray for Henrietta Heald, who gives us a thoroughly researched, finely written and helpfully illustrated biography. (And let me add that her publishers, Northumbria Press, are to be congratulated on the peerless quality of this hard-cover edition.) Heald skilfully relates Armstrong’s story as an entertaining and gripping account of a grammar school boy who grew up in a book-filled home and ended up as the builder and owner of Cragside, which remains one of the most famous great houses of England. In an England of scheming, snobbery and jealousy, it was not an easy journey. Her book is essential reading for anyone interested in the the power and greatness of Victorian England for which Armstrong’s contribution was as great as that of the railway engineers such as Stephenson and Brunel. And do not assume that Henrietta would let us down on the technicalities of Armstrong’s inventions; she merely makes them explicit enough for people such as me to understand. –Len Deighton
