Background
Armour was born at Lisboy, near Ballymoney, County Antrim, and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Queen"s College, Belfast and Queen"s College, Cork, where he studied classics.
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James Armour
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Armour founded Ballymoney Intermediate School and lectured at Magee College in Derry. He was politically outspoken in support of Home Rule, the Tenant Right movement and the controversial proposal for a Catholic university. He was known throughout Ulster for his leadership of the local farmers in the Tenant Right campaign of the 1870s.
The group was called the Route Tenants" Defence Association, the name referring to the area of Country Antrim which was known as The Route.
Its aims were called the "Ballymoney program". Armour also supported the controversial proposal for a Catholic university.
Armour served on the Senate of Queen"s University, Belfast, where he favoured the teaching of the Irish language and scholastic philosophy. He was made honorary chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant during the First World War.
Armour married Jennie Stavely Hamilton, a widow who already had two sons, and had three sons with her, one of whom was William Staveley Armour, who founded the Young Farmers" Clubs of Ulster in 1929.
He died of pneumonia.
