Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Armstrong, George Francis
ARMSTRONG, George Francis, M.A., born in the county of Dublin, May 5, 1845, is the third surviving son of the late Mr. E. J. Armstrong, and Jane, daughter of the late Rev. Henry Savage, of Glastry, in the Ardes, co. Down. He received his early education partly in Dublin and partly in Jersey. In 1862 he made a long pedestrian tour in France with his elder brother, the poet, Edmund Armstrong. In the same year he obtained a civil appointment in Dublin, and matriculated in Dublin University. In 1864 he won the First Composition Prize and the Medal for Oratory in the University Philosophical Society. In 1865 he gained the Vice-Chancellor's Prize for a poem on the subject of "Circassia"; and in the same year, on the decease of his brother Edmund, he was elected his successor in the Presidential Chair of the Philosophical Society, and he brought out the First Edition of his brother's "Poems." In 1866 he won the Gold Medal for Composition in the Historical Society. In 1867 he was re-elected President of the Philosophical Society, and won its Gold Medal for Essay Writing. In 1869 he published a volume of "Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic." In 1870 appeared "Ugone: a Tragedy." In 1871 he was appointed Professor of History and English Literature in Queen's College, Cork, and a Professor of the Queen's University in Ireland; and the next year he was presented with the degree of M.A. by Trinity College, Dublin, in recognition of his "high literary character and attainments." In 1872 he published "King Saul" (the first part of the "Tragedy of Israel"), and new editions of "Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic," and "Ugone." In 1874 these were followed by "King David" (the second part of the "Tragedy of Israel"), and in 1876, by "King Solomon," which completed the Trilogy. In 1877 he published "The Life and Letters" of his brother Edmund John, together with a volume of his "Essays," and a new and enlarged edition of his "Poetical Works." In 1879 Mr. Armstrong married Marie Elizabeth, younger daughter of the late Rev. John Wrixon. In 1882 he was presented with the degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, by the Queen's University, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal University of Ireland; and in the spring of the same year he published a new volume of poems, under the title of "A Garland from Greece."