Professor W H G Armytage has brought distinction to the Institute and wisdom to the deliberations of its Council since he became a member of the latter body in 1975. He had, in the previous year, given the Galton Lecture at the (then) Eugenics Society’s eleventh annual symposium on education. His title was “The Docimological Dilemma: Quality Control or Quantity Surveying?”, a lecture characterised by that combination of learning, erudition and humour which informs both his writing and his conversation. The Institute liked Professor Armytage and he clearly approved of what the Institute was doing for, since joining its Council the following year, he has served it continuously fulfilling the role of President from 1976 to 1981. He was co-organiser of the Institute’s fourteenth annual symposium in 1977 and contributed papers at those in 1987, on Julian Huxley, and in 1991, on Sir Francis Galton.
Of Derbyshire parentage, Harry Armytage was born in South Africa returning to England as a bilingual child (in English and Afrikaans) to be educated at Redruth County School. From there he went to Downing College Cambridge in 1934 where he was contemporary with two subsequent fellow Councillors of the Galton Institute - David Hubback and Lord Goodman. After graduating first class in the Cambridge History Tripos, Harry Armytage taught in Bedford and in Rochdale before taking up a post at Dronfield Grammar School near Sheffield, beginning a connection with that city which, though temporarily interrupted by World War II, was to last a lifetime. From 1939 to 1945 he served as a captain in the London Irish Rifles in England and abroad where he was mentioned in despatches. Returning to Sheffield after the War he joined the staff of the university first as Lecturer (1946), then Senior Lecturer (1952) and finally Professor (1954) of Education. This latter post he held until retirement, as Professor Emeritus, in 1982. From 1964 to 1968 he was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield in a period when major decisions were being taken about the expansion and future shape of the University. This, too, was a period of difficult student-staff relationships in English universities and, in the words of the Public Orator in 1991, “Harry Armytage did more than anyone else to contribute to harmony on our own campus”.
Professor Armytage has held visiting teaching posts at a number of American and Australian Universities and has published widely on education and social history. Major works include: “Thomas Hughes: A Life of the Author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays”, “Four Hundred Years of English Education”, “Civic Universities: Aspects of a British Tradition”, “A Social History of Engineering”, “Heavens Below: Utopian Experiments in England”, “Yesterday’s Tomorrows: A Historical Survey of Future Societies” and “The Rise of the Technocracy”. He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the Universities of Ulster, Hull and Sheffield. When not teaching in America (where he has held the Chair of Education at Kent State University since 1982) or participating in the affairs of the Institute from his London flat, Harry Armytage continues to live in the Derbyshire hills looking down on his beloved city of Sheffield.