Early Life and Career
Armstrong was born in May 1869 to a family of modest means in Newton Abbot, Devon. The family later moved to Edge Hill, Liverpool. He studied at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, gaining a degree in law, and qualified as a solicitor in February 1895. Initially practising in Liverpool, later Newton Abbot, he successfully applied for a vacancy in Hay-on-Wye, Breconshire, in 1906. He married Katharine Mary Friend of West Teignmouth, Devon, the following year; the couple would have two girls and a boy.
The Armstrongs moved into an imposing family home called Mayfield in the village of Cusop Dingle not far from Hay where Armstrong ran his law firm of Cheese & Armstrong. Armstrong was a hard working man and rose in the social community of the town. He was a leading member of the Freemasons and was appointed Clerk to the Justices. He joined the county Volunteer Force and rose to the rank of Captain. In 1914 he was called up in the First World War, where he eventually gained the rank of Major in the Royal Engineers Territorial Force, and served in France, May to October 1918. The award of the Territorial Decoration was published in the London Gazette, 4 November 1919. After the War, he was usually referred to as "Major Armstrong".
Read more about this topic: Herbert Rowse Armstrong
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