page_title: William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong
section_title: Hydraulic accumulator
hierarchical_section_title: William Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong / Hydraulic accumulator
caption_attribution_description: Grimsby Dock Tower Grimsby Dock Tower stands 300 feet high and was built in 1851, originally to provide high pressure water to hydraulic machinery around the lock gates of Grimsby Fish Dock. It is a Grade 1 listed building. Location 53°34'58.25"N, 0° 4'13.68"W For more information on the tower see Link
context_page_description: William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong CB FRS was an English engineer and industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor and philanthropist. In collaboration with the architect Richard Norman Shaw, he built Cragside in Northumberland, the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. He is regarded as the inventor of modern artillery.
  Armstrong was knighted in 1859 after giving his gun patents to the government. In 1887, in Queen Victoria's golden jubilee year, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Armstrong of Cragside.
context_section_description: Armstrong was responsible for developing the hydraulic accumulator. Where water pressure was not available on site for the use of hydraulic cranes, Armstrong often built high water towers to provide a supply of water at pressure - for instance, the  Grimsby Dock Tower. However, when supplying cranes for use at New Holland on the Humber Estuary, he was unable to do this because the foundations consisted of sand. After much careful thought he produced the weighted accumulator, a cast-iron cylinder fitted with a plunger supporting a very heavy weight. The plunger would slowly be raised, drawing in water, until the downward force of the weight was sufficient to force the water below it into pipes at great pressure. The accumulator was a very significant, if unspectacular, invention, which found many applications in the following years.
caption: Grimsby Dock Tower
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