ARMSTRONG, Herbert Benjamin John

1878 - 1955

Herbert Benjamin John Armstrong was born at Brome, Eye, Suffolk on 15 October 1878, eldest child of Revd Benjamin John Armstrong (18 October 1850-1 March 1924), then curate at Brome, and his wife Mary Pierce née Bell (1848-1927), who married at Great Snoring, Norfolk on 18 April 1876. In 1881, Herbert was a 2-year-old living at Quebec Road, East Dereham, Norfolk with his parents, 30-year-old Benjamin J., curate of Dereham, 32-year-old mother Mary P., born Cookham, with three indoor servants. Herbert matriculated at Selwyn College, Cambridge on 1 October 1897 and was ordained deacon in 1901 and priest in 1902 and a curate at Rowbarton, Somerset 1901-1909, at Lowestoft, Suffolk 1909-1916, vicar of St James with Pockthorpe, Norfolk 1916-1922, of West Hampstead, Middlesex 1922-1930 and rector of Thorpe Episcopi, Norfolk from 1930. He married at Lowestoft, Suffolk in 1931, Ruth Fonnereau Lillingston (6 June 1909-1986) and in 1939 they were living at The Vicarage, St Margaret's Place, King's Lynn, Norfolk with their children. In 1933 he exhibited at the Ipswich Art Club from Thorpe St Andrew, Norwich, a watercolour 'Scottish Drifters in Yarmouth, November'. Herbert Benjamin John Armstrong died at the Ranch House, Holt, Norfolk on 19 February 1955. Editor of his grandfather's 'Armstrong's Norfolk Diary' (1949).