Armour was born at Lisboy, near Ballymoney, Co Antrim on 20 January 1841. A Presbyterian farmer's son, he entered Queen's College, Belfast, in 1860. His father wanted him to become a clergyman, but Armour had other ideas and taught for a time before completing his degree at Queen's College, Cork. Armour hoped to practise law, but after his father's death he promised a dying brother that he would study for the ministry. In 1869, he was called to the Second (now Trinity) Presbyterian Church in Ballymoney.

In 1883, Armour married Jennie Hamilton, whose great-grandfather had ministered to the United Irishman William Orr at his execution in 1797. A new church was begun in 1884; some saw its unusual octagonal spire as evidence of popery, and this may have contributed to Armour failing to become professor of church history at Magee College, Londonderry, in 1890.

Armour was an active Liberal; he advocated land reform, and believed Tories were exploiting Unionism for the benefit of Anglican landlords. In the 1892 general election, he supported a Liberal Home Ruler in North Antrim, but there and elsewhere Ulster's Protestants declared for the Union, and Armour faced ostracism and intimidation.

His own congregation remained almost entirely loyal however, respecting his adherence to principle even when they disagreed with him. When he collected over 3,500 Presbyterian signatures commending Gladstone's Home Rule policy, Unionists made every effort to discredit him. Always sympathetic to Catholic aspirations, he supported the founding of the National University (in effect, a successor to Newman's Catholic University) in 1908, despite preferring secular education.

Although warned of a heart condition, Armour remained an active opponent of Unionism, describing the signing of the 1912 Ulster Covenant as 'Protestant Fools' Day'. He laid much of the blame for the 1916 Easter Rising on the Unionists' gun-running and readiness to resist an Act of Parliament by force, and argued strongly against Partition. He died on 25 January 1928.

Read:
W. S. Armour, Armour of Ballymoney (1934).

From the Appletree Press title: Famous Irish Lives.
Also from Appletree: Irish Museums and Heritage Centres.