Albert Kingsley Armstrong

1884 - 1965

Albert Armstrong was a pioneering pastor in Great Britain, where he served for 56 years. He was born in Ulceby, North Lincolnshire, England, on February 19, 1884, one of five sons of Edward Edmund and Frances Hunter Armstrong, the earliest converts to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in England. He is thought to be the first Adventist born in Britain.

He was baptized at age seventeen and attended Duncombe Hall College, renamed Stanborough Park Missionary College by the time he graduated in 1908. Name changes for the school would continue until 1945 when it was located to Binfield, Birkshire, England in 1945 and named Newbold College in 1961.

Armstrong married Eunice Annie Lane in 1908 and then traveled to Ireland, where they began their ministry. Five years later he was assigned to the North England Conference, serving as pastor in the Birmingham, Northampton, and other churches and conducting evangelistic campaigns for sixteen years.

Three of his brothers, Arthur Douglas, Harry E., and Herbert Walter, also became ordained ministers in the church and sang with him as a quartet that was in great demand for special gatherings in the churches. He composed two of the hymns in The New Advent Hymnal released in Great Britain in 1952: “One There Came from Heaven,” #104, and “Tender Shepherd,” #523.

In 1929 he was transferred to the South England Conference, where he worked for 35 more years. Armstrong's final service in that conference was at the Stanborough Park SDA church, headquarters for the church in Great Britain, where he served as pastor for ten years and chaplain for seven. He was living there when he died on January 23, 1965, at age eighty.  

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Sources: Obituaries for Albert K. Armstrong, British Advent Messenger, February 26, 1965, pg. 16 and Northern Light, April 1965, pg.7. L. Murdoch, “Discovering North England – No. 2, Early Days,” British Advent Messenger, May 8, 1942, pgs. 3,4; Obituary for Eunice Annie Armstrong, British Advent Messenger, February 12, 1972, pg. 6; Obituary for Arthur Douglas Armstrong, Messenger, March 24, 1978, pg. 7; The New Advent Hymnal, 1952, Stanborough Press, available at the Heritage Room, James White Library, Andrews University; Arthur Douglas Armstrong Family Tree, Ancestry.com.