Cecil Hamilton Armitage

Armitage was an officer with the 3rd Battalion of the South Wales Borderers. In April 1894, he sailed from Liverpool to Accra, having been seconded from his regiment to serve with the Hausa Constabulary on the Gold Coast. He held the rank of Captain at the time and served in the Anglo-Ashanti wars under Sir Francis Scott from 1895 to 1896. Afterwards, he was dispatched to survey a trade route from Geji to Gambaga, in the north of the Gold Coast. Upon arriving in Gambaga county, he offered the protection of the United Kingdom to the local chief at Tamale. However, that evening, the chief and the residents deserted the village, leaving Armitage and his police officers under siege in Tamale for a week.[3]

In 1899, Armitage became the private secretary to Sir Frederick Hodgson, then the Governor of the Gold Coast. He accompanied Hodgson during the Siege of Kumasi from April to June 1900, when he was Acting Resident. When the British forces were able to break out of Kumasi, Armitage led the advance force. Armitage later became Commissioner in Ashanti, and in 1910 he was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Northern Territories, a position he held until 1920. That year, he became Governor of the Gambia, succeeding Sir Edward Cameron.[3]

As Governor, Armitage founded the Gambia Agricultural Department in 1924, and also the Armitage School in 1927. Upon his retirement in 1927, Armitage commented to the Western Morning News: "I feel very much the severance of the association of almost a lifetime. I have always been absorbed in my official duties in Africa, and now the time has come when I come home, probably for the last time."[3]

• The Ashanti Campaign of 1900. London: Sands & Co. 1901.
• The Tribal Markings and Marks of Adornment of the Natives of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast Colony. Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 1924.

• Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London