William Armstrong - Magician of the North by Henrietta Heald. Shortlisted for the Portico Prize and the H.W.Fisher Best First Biography Prize.
Magician of the North is the gripping, true-life story of a man who has a claim on the title 'inventor of modern living'. Born
to a merchant’s clerk and a coal-owner’s daughter in Regency Newcastle upon Tyne, and with little formal education, William Armstrong would
rise through the ranks to become – through the magic of science – one of the richest and most influential men in Europe