Armstrong, Mitchell and Co

Sir Armstrong, Mitchell and Co of Elswick-on-Tyne, Newcastle

160-ton crane built by Armstrong, Mitchell & Co. in 1883, at the Arsenale, Venice

Closer view of 1883 crane

• 1882 W. G. Armstrong and Co merged with Charles Mitchell and Co to form Armstrong, Mitchell and Co. The company was launched with a capital of £1.575M.

• The vessel Esmerelda, a Chilean cruiser was the first fruit of the new company

• 1885 The ex-Mitchell Low Walker yard concentrated on merchant shipbuilding especially tankers.

• 1886 'Gluckauf' was completed in July as the world’s first ocean-going tanker; designed by Henry F. Swan to carry 3500 tons of oil from America or the Black Sea to Europe.

• 1889 HM First-class battleship 'Victoria'

• 1889 Italian cruiser 'Piemonte'

• The Deutsch-America Petroleum Company subsequently placed orders for many sister tankers and the yard completed over 100 tankers up to the outbreak of war in 1914.

• 1894 Antwerp Exhibition. Details of extensive exhibits

• 1894 The Chilean Cruiser 'Blanco Encalada'. Full details in 'The Engineer'

• 1895 Charles Mitchell died in August of this year.

• 1897 The Armstrong Whitworth company was formed in 1897 as a merger of the engineering firms of Armstrong, Mitchell and Co and Sir J. Whitworth's company, Joseph Whitworth and Co.

• 1898 Two Russian ice-breakers were completed with Sampo (1339/98) being fitted with hydraulic elevators for raising and lowering carriages and trucks for the different levels of the river Volga.

• 1899 Baikal (4200/99) was considered to be the most spectacular ship for the Russians. It was a train ferry and was sent overland in 7200 pieces and reassembled on the banks of Lake Baikal as part of the Trans-Siberian Railway!

• Over 35 dry-cargo liners were also ordered by German and British owners between 1880 and 1913

• The yard was willing to tackle anything that came its way including coastal passenger steamers, cable layers, large cargo ships, suction dredgers and floating cranes.

See Also

• Armstrong Whitworth

Sources of Information

• British Shipbuilding Yards. 3 vols by Norman L. Middlemiss
• The Imperial Journal 1852 Vol I. p55-57
• The Engineer of 15th Feb 1889 p152
• The Engineer of 26th April 1889 p354
• The Engineer of 21st September 1894 p248
• The Engineer of 14th December 1894 p503
• British Steam Locomotive Builders by James W. Lowe. Published in 1975. ISBN 0-905100-816