Sir William George Armstrong (1810-1900), the first and last Baron Armstrong of Cragside, was an English industrialist who pioneered the use of hydraulic power to operate a wide variety of machinery, harnessing the power of water to feed the Industrial Age.
One of his first inventions using the 'resource of water was an improved rotary water motor, and soon after this innovation he designed a piston engine driven by water. He realized that his invention had the potential to be incorporated into a more' efficient design of crane than those then in operation.
The first of Armstrong's hydraulic cranes was built on Newcastle docks in 1846 and was tremendously successful. It utilized the pressure from the town's mains water supply, acting on a piston inside a cylinder, this in turn moving gears that drove the- crane. The design was so successful that the Newcastle Corporation ordered three more cranes, .soon afterward, and the success of the crane was secured.
Armstrong's original design, however,' proved somewhat limiting as it relied on high water pressure, which had to be supplied either by mains or by the use of high water towers. To remedy this limitation, for situations where neither of these options was feasible, Armstrong designed-the hydraulic, accumulator, a device that used a weighted plunger, on a large cylinder to generate the required pressure.
Armstrong's pioneering work in the-field-of- hydraulics led to a greatly increased use and understanding of water as a power source. Cranes and other heavy machines utilizing hydraulic components- continue to be used around the world to this day.
