Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong R.E

[ianw]

I am reading an interesting book ("Dead Not Buried") which tells the fascinating story of this man who was hanged for murder in 1922. There are strong suspicions of a miscarriage of justice. Few details of his military career are given but it is suggested he was with 547th Field Company in France in 1918. Has anyone come across this officer.

[marina]

I don't know anything about Armstrong's military career, except that he was originally in the TA and later went to France. But the murder case is a famous one, and very very English. When he was arrested for the murder of his wife and the attempted murder of a fellow solicitor, they found 40 little neatly folded packets of arsenic, each containing a lethal dose. And another one in his pocket. When asked to explain himself ( his wife had just been exhumed and was loaded to the gunnels with arsenic) he maintained the little packets were for killing dandelions - apparently he went out and dosed each dandelion individually. With a syringe. Ah, an Englishman and his garden...

The attemped murder of Oswald Martin also had elements of farce. Poisoned choccies were sent to the Martin family, but the most famous scene was when Martin was invited to high tea by Armstrong. Scones were offered, and Armstrong committed the solecism of lifting a particular one with his fingers and dropping it on to Martin's plate with a polite 'Excuse my fingers.' Martin was already suspicious (the chocolates were in the process of being analysed), but this unEnglish grossness REALLY put him on his guard and he managed to escape. The matter became farcical when Martin was bombarded by invitations to tea by Armstrong and had to keep finding new excuses. The man nearly had a breakdown under the pressure of remaining polite, but was saved by the timely arrival of the poison analysis and the exhumation of Mrs. Armstrong.

I've never read an account of the case which doubted Armstrong's guilt (the medical evidence would seem to be overwhelming) but I'll look out for the one you're reading. It never hurts to read another point of view!

[marina]

PS - Who wrote 'Dead Not Buried'? I really would like to read it - this is one of my favourite cases.

[Will O'Brien]

Ian.......................Herbert Armstrong was mentioned in a programme on the History Channel within the last week or so. It was a programme about murder using poison...........I think it was called 'Infamous Murders' but cant be sure as I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention at the start.........Unfortunately the programme wasn't one of the greatest I've ever seen & crammed 3 'infamous' cases into half an hour..........as such very little was said about Herbert Armstrong's war service other than his rank & unit i.e Major, Royal Engineers & a Territorial.................His medal index card is available on-line here

[rflory]

Hope this is the right man:

Herbert Rowse Armstrong

Educated at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge University

Admitted to Bar in Feb 1895

Member of Cheese & Armstrong of Hay, Breconshire

Joined the 1st Wessex Field Company, RE as a Captain on 20 Oct 1914

Promoted to Substantive Major in June 1916

Served in France from May to October 1918, otherwise at home.

Awarded TD in London Gazette of 4 Nov 1919

Source: Record of Service of Solicitors and Articled Clerks, 1914-1919; The War List of the University of Cambridge, 1914-1919.

Regards. Dick Flory

[Guest Simon Bull]

Sorry Dick, you may have the right man but the details must be wrong. A solicitor is not admitted to the Bar, but to the roll of solicitors. A barrister is called to the Bar. Broadly speaking, someone cannot be both a solicitor and a barrister.

I assume that Armstrong was a solicitor.

Simon Bull

[rflory]

Simon wrote:

A solicitor is not admitted to the Bar, but to the roll of solicitors. A barrister is called to the Bar. Broadly speaking, someone cannot be both a solicitor and a barrister.

Please excuse the mistake - I inadvertently added "Bar" in the write-up. A mistake easily made by someone living in California - where we have no solicitors or barristers, but instead have a lawyer for every three people in the state - every one of them admitted to the Bar!

Regards. Dick Flory

[Jon Miller]

Because I can't remember the finer details, such as the title of the programme, this won't be terribly useful, but I watched a full hour-long programme about this murder case, and the main 'witness' for want of a better description, was the Major's daughter, who not surprisingly didn't think her father was to blame. This would have been four or five years ago. At least you are now aware there is a programme on the subject floating out there somewhere.