Armitage, Thomas

ARMITAGE, THOMAS; Baptist; b. at Pontefract (20 m. s.s.w. of York), Yorkshire, England, Aug. 2, 1819; d at Yonkers, N. Y., Jan. 20, 1896 He became a Methodist preacher at the age of sixteen; emigrated to America in 1838; joined the Baptists in 1848 and was pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York (then located on Norfolk Street and known as the Norfolk Street Church), from that year till Jan. 1, 1889. He was one of the founders of the American Bible Union (1850) and its president 1856-75. He published Preaching, its Ideal and Inner Life (Philadelphia, 1880); A History of the Baptists Traced by their Vital Principles and Practices from the Time of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to the Present (New York, 1887; revised and enlarged ed., 1890).