Author: Armstrong, William Henry
Biography:
ARMSTRONG, William Henry (c. 1791-1871: ancestry.co.uk)
No records have been found for his birth. He served in the 10th Royal Veteran Battalion and the 55th Regiment of Foot, purchasing first a lieutenancy and then a captaincy; verses in Idle Hours (1821) establish that he was in Europe and Spanish Town, Jamaica. On 10 Apr. 1822 he married Catherine Josephine Martinez by license; they had one child who died in 1844. The marriage was without the consent of her father, Sebastian Gonsalez Martinez, a Spanish merchant in Euston Square, London. Martinez paid Armstrong’s debts and installed the couple in Brighton where he supported them. However an 1832 report in the Morning Post stated that Armstrong attacked his father-in-law—punching him and knocking out some teeth when Martinez complained of continued extravagance. In 1851 Catherine’s uncertain mental state after the death of her son led to Martinez lodging her, for an annual fee of £900, in a Hampstead home under the care of Charles Lord, surgeon. This move had negative financial consequences for Armstrong who unsuccessfully petitioned the Court of Common Pleas to have her released into his care in 1854. Mr. Martinez died in early 1856; his will, proved on 24 Mar. 1856, appointed trustees to pay monthly instalments of a £2000 annuity to his daughter “free from any interference” from her husband. On 4 Aug. 1857 Armstrong petitioned the Court of Chancery to have his wife declared a lunatic, hoping to secure unimpeded access to her fortune. Although Catherine was found to be of unsound mind, her counter petition left her in the care of trustees. The 1861 Census shows her continuing to live in Lord’s establishment but by 1871 she was lodged with another surgeon, Henry Jacobs, in Kensington where she died in early 1877. Armstrong died in Bristol “of a lingering illness” on 3 Sept. 1871 and was buried in Arnos Grove cemetery. His other publications are Vox Populi (1830), A Few Plain and Plausible Hints on the Formation of a Royal Marine Rifle Legion (1835), Turkish Lovers (a play, 1853), and Lays of Love (after 1853). (ancestry.co.uk 22 June 2022; Saunder’s News-Letter 30 Jan. 1822; Morning Post 15 Apr. 1822; Morning Post 10 Nov. 1832; Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser 29 May 1834; Sussex Advertiser 19 Oct. 1847; Morning Herald 12 June 1854; The English Reports: Chancery [1904]; Globe 6 Mar. 1858) SR
Other Names:
- Caleb
- Captain Armstrong
- W. H. Armstrong