George Frederick Armstrong

George Frederick Armstrong MA FRSE (Cambridge), MICE, FGS, FRSSA, FRSE, (1842-1900) was a distinguished British engineer.

Life

Born on 15 May 1842 in Doncaster, Yorkshire, the son of George Armstrong.

He was initially educated privately. From 1857 he was trained in engineering at King's College, London, and then took his degree at Cambridge University (St John's College, and then Jesus College). From 1863 he was assistant engineer under Richard Johnson, the Chief Engineer of the Great Northern Railway; by 1869 he was working back in Doncaster at the company's locomotive works. He was engaged by the Isle of Man Railway Company as their Engineer from 1868 until 1871.

He then moved to academia, with appointment as the first Professor of Civil Engineering in the Applied Science School of McGill University, Canada. In this role he had to organise a completely new university department, including the engineering courses offered to students. For five years he involved himself fully in the life of the university, and found time to become a member of its militia corps. In 1876 he returned to Britain to the new Chair of Engineering at the Yorkshire College (which later became the University of Leeds in 1904), before finally serving as Regius Professor of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh from 1885 to 1900.

At Edinburgh University, and perhaps under the influence of the writer Charles Kingsley, Armstrong inaugurated courses of lectures on sanitary engineering for the benefit of medical students studying public health. These led to the foundation of a separate university department with a new professor of public health at its head. He also carried out his predecessor's (Fleeming Jenkin) plans to set up courses on electrical engineering, which later developed as a sub-discipline of engineering.

George Armstrong served as convener of the Engineering and Machinery Committee of the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1885, and as Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1890. He was honorary local secretary for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Iron and Steel Institute, and the British Association, as well as Honorary President of the East of Scotland Engineering Association. He was elected President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts in 1896, and a Fellow of King's College in 1899. In his final years he was the engineering adviser to the Local Government Board for Scotland, and external examiner in engineering to the University of Wales. His permanent home was in Grasmere, Westmorland, where he was Justice of the Peace for the County of Westmorland, and Chairman of the Grasmere District Council.

Throughout 1879 he undertook elaborate observations and experiments to determine the diurnal variations in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the results were then published through the Royal Society.^[1]

As Regius Professor at Edinburgh from 1885 to 1900,^[2] his inaugural lecture was entitled "The Progress of Technical Education at Home and Abroad". By all accounts it made a great impression, being quoted in a debate by the leader of the House of Commons, and leading to the endowment by a wealthy brewer of the eponymous Fulton Laboratory at the university. Attested as a methodical but genial teacher, Armstrong was popular among engineering students at Edinburgh University and supported the athletic endeavours of the university. He sang at the students' union reception for Oliver Wendell Holmes, and supported the university's Reid Concerts.

Suffering from heart problems, George Armstrong died at his home in Grasmere on 16 November 1900, leaving a wife (Margaret Brown), a daughter and three sons.^[3][4]

References