Thomas Rhodes Armitage was a British physician, and founder of the Royal National Institute of Blind People.
Born in Sussex to the landed Armitage family of Farnley Hall (Yorkshire) he was raised at Avranches in France, and at Frankfurt and Offenbach in Germany. He attended the Sorbonne and King's College London. He became a physician, practising at the Marylebone Dispensary, in the Crimean War, and as a private consultant in London. He was forced to abandon his medical career because of deteriorating vision, eventually becoming blind.
His wife, Harriet Black, brought him the Noan estate in Co. Tipperary, and the couple divided their time between London and Noan.
Armitage decided to help make literature available to blind people through embossed type: in Britain this had become complicated by the proliferation of different standards. He formed the "British and Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind", later the "British and Foreign Blind Association for Promoting the Education and Employment of the Blind" and (after his death) the "National Institute for the Blind". This group decided to adopt the system of Louis Braille, and Armitage worked tirelessly for the adoption of Braille.
In 1871 he helped to establish the Royal Normal College for the Blind (later the Royal National College for the Blind) in London.
He died on 23 October 1890 at Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, following a riding accident. He is buried in Magorban, County Tipperary.
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Credit for this entry to: Steve Roffey
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