"The factory specialising in hydraulic cranes begun in 1847 by William G. Armstrong at Elswick, west of Newcastle upon Tyne, had become before 1900 the ordnance, armour, naval and merchant shipbuilding and commercial engineering giant, Armstrong Whitworth. The firm was prominent among the half-dozen world-ranking armament concerns. After the extensions and exertions of the Great War, it was faced with collapse. It then became one of the earliest subjects for Bank of England involvement in industrial reconstruction."