Author: ARMSTRONG, John
Biography:
ARMSTRONG, John (c. 1708-79: ODNB)
Although most of John Armstrong’s verse was published well before 1770, his Miscellanies (1770) includes some earlier work which had not previously been printed: a tragedy, The Forc’d Marriage, from 1754, and some verse imitations of Shakespeare which he had written in his youth. Miscellanies also includes a revised version of the stanzas he contributed to The Castle of Indolence (1748) by his friend James Thomson. Armstrong was born in Castleton, Roxburghshire, Scotland, to Robert Armstrong, Presbyterian minister, and his second wife Christian Mowatt. ODNB gives a birth year of 1708 or 1709 but documents from the kirk sessions at Castleton record two children of the same name, one baptised in 1708 and one in 1710. He studied at the University of Edinburgh and took his MD degree in 1732. Although he was not licensed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, he began practising in London and he published several medical papers in the 1730s. His long poem, The Oeconomy of Love, was issued anonymously in 1736 and The Art of Preserving Health—also a poem—appeared in 1744. He was appointed physician to the London hospital for sick and wounded soldiers in 1746. Armstrong befriended other writers including Tobias Smollett, John Wilkes, and Frances Burney (qq.v.); later in life he and Wilkes quarrelled. Under the pseudonym Noureddin Alraschin, “formerly of Damascus, now of Datchet-Bridge,” he published a mock almanac, Muncher’s and Guzler’s Diary in 1749, and he also wrote verse epistles and essays which were issued as by Laurence Temple. He served as physician to the English army in Germany 1760-62 but his medical career ended in 1765 when the College finally decided to sue him for practising unlicensed. For the rest of his life he lodged in Russell Street, Covent Garden, where his sister Margaret was his housekeeper. In 1770 he travelled to Europe for his health and his Short Ramble Through Some Parts of France and Italy was issued in 1771. Armstrong’s final publication was Medical Essays in 1773. He died at home on 7 Sept. 1779 several days after suffering a fall. His will, dated 4 Sept. and proved on 23 Sept. 1779, left Margaret an annuity of £30 but the rest of his estate went to his brother George and, after his death, to George’s daughters. (ODNB 27 Dec. 2024; ancestry.co.uk 27 Dec. 2024; NA PROB 11/1056/317) SR