Industrialist Sir William Armstrong on pollution: from the archive, 12 August 1869

At a meeting held in Newcastle, Armstrong claimed he stood up just as much for those who suffered from smoke as those who produced it

A town's meeting, presided over by the Mayor, was held at Newcastle-on-Tyne on Monday, "for the purpose of considering and adopting measures to remedy and prevent the injuries to health and the damage to vegetation arising from the escape of smoke and noxious vapours in the town and the country near to it." The meeting ended in the appointment of a committee to investigate and report on the nuisance complained of. Among the speakers was Sir William Armstrong, who said he stood up quite as much on behalf of those who produced smoke as for those who suffered from its effects. He was as great an enemy as any one to recklessly creating superfluous smoke, but he did think it would be very impolitic to institute anything like an indiscriminate crusade against smoke in general.

Very lately a friend from Spain had been on a visit to him - from the pure and smokeless air of Madrid, and he felt that the smoke of this country would be so shocking to his feelings that he (Sir William) considered an apology for it necessary. But his friend replied that it was quite unnecessary; that he liked the smoke, because beneath the smoke there lay so many ideas. - (Laughter.) He had a very pretty way of expressing the intelligence and enterprise that was associated with smoke, but he (Sir William) must say that in addition to that there were solid benefits associated with all those forms of manufacture which produce smoke so abundantly. There was not an artisan, a workman of any kind, not a shopkeeper, not a trade, nor a shareholder, nor a proprietor, who did not either, directly or indirectly, derive advantage from the present sources of smoke. Nevertheless, it was an undoubted fact that the quantity of smoke that was produced was far more than was necessary; and if they directed their efforts only against that which was unnecessary, he should join in the movement as heartily as anybody. He believed that so far as black smoke was concerned by far the greater portion of it was produced by steam boilers. He had himself at Elswick nearly fifty steam boilers in operation, and if there were no means provided for destroying the smoke of those fifty furnaces, the place would be a perfect pandemonium. But to every one was applied a smoke-consuming apparatus, and the effect was complete. - (Applause.)