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{{short description|British soldier, literary agent, and publisher}}{{Infobox person
| name = Neville Spearman Armstrong
| birth_date = 20 October 1913
| birth_place = [[British Ceylon]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2008|09||1913|10|20|df=y}}
| nationality = British
| occupation = soldier
}}
{{Use Oxford spelling|date=August 2021}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
'''Neville Spearman Armstrong''' (20 October 1913 – September 2008<ref name="obit" />) was a British soldier, literary agent, and publisher. In the 1940s and early 1950s he was in partnerships with others, then from 1955 he operated his own publishing company called '''Neville Spearman'''.

==Early life==
The son of a tea planter in [[British Ceylon]], Armstrong was born there in 1913.<ref name=obit/> His parents, John Spearman Armstrong and Dora Mary Brooke Booth, only daughter of John Brooke Booth, had married in January 1913 at [[Colombo]].<ref>''St. George's Gazette'', Vol. 31 (1913), p. 3</ref> His grandfather, [[Charles Spearman Armstrong]], born in 1847, had been a pioneer in growing tea and [[cinchona]], the source of [[quinine]], and had planted 750 acres of tea on an estate called Rookwood, near [[Hewaheta]].<ref name=ST>Royston Ellis, [https://www.sundaytimes.lk/970907/plus10.html Rookwood: memories of a forgotten pioneer], [[The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)|''The Sunday Times'']] (Sri Lanka), 7 September 1997, accessed 27 July 2021</ref>

When he was five, Armstrong was sent to England to be brought up by an unmarried aunt, while his parents stayed in Ceylon with their other three children.<ref name=obit/> He arrived at [[Tilbury]] on the SS ''Herefordshire'' on 8 August 1919.<ref>[https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/1518/images/30807_A000661-00263 Master Neville Armstrong] in ''UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878–1960'', ancestry.co.uk, accessed 27 July 2021 {{subscription}}</ref> His Armstrong grandparents had already retired and settled in England at [[West Byfleet]], and his grandfather died there in 1924.<ref>“Charles Spearman Armstrong, deceased” in ''[[The London Gazette]]'', Issue 32934, 9 May 1924, [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/32934/page/3801 p. 3801]</ref><ref name=ST/> Armstrong subsequently had a public school education, but he passed no examinations, and on leaving school he joined the [[Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]]. After struggling to become an actor for four years, he left the theatre. [[Margaret Rutherford]] commented on this: "You mean, dear boy, the theatre left you."<ref name=obit>Ian Miller, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/sep/26/pressandpublishing Other lives: Neville Armstrong], ''[[The Guardian]]'', 26 September 2008, accessed 27 July 2021</ref>

In October 1939, Armstrong and his wife were [[National Registration Act 1939|registered]] at 17 [[Marloes Road]],
Kensington; he was a journalist, she was a guest house manager.<ref>[[National Registration Act 1939]], [https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/61596/images/tna_r39_0314_0314b_007 Marloes Road, Kensington], ancestry.co.uk, accessed 28 July 2021 {{subscription}}</ref> In 1940, he enlisted in the British Army and for two years was a clerk in the [[Western Desert (Egypt)|Egyptian western desert]].<ref name=obit/> On 21 July 1943, Armstrong was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the [[British Indian Army|Indian Army]],<ref>''[[The London Gazette]]'', Issue 36501, 5 May 1944, [https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/36501/page/2077 p. 2077]</ref> after revealing his origins in Ceylon, although unable to speak [[Urdu]].<ref name=obit/> Given command of a [[Rajputana Rifles]] platoon with a [[Bren light machine gun]], he fought at the [[battle of Monte Cassino]] in the spring of 1944. After that, he was posted to the Indian Army's Intelligence Corps in [[Delhi]].<ref name=obit/>

==Career==
After the war, Armstrong became an impresario at Bolton's Theatre, [[South Kensington]]. This made little money, and he next tried his hand at working as a [[literary agent]], which led him into book publishing. He went into a short-lived partnership with [[John Calder]] as Spearman Calder,<ref name=obit/> then in 1948 Armstrong formed a publishing partnership with [[Peter Owen (publisher)|Peter Owen]] called Peter Neville. Owen was then aged only 21.<ref>“MEET THE PUBLISHERS” in ''Colophon'', Vol. 1, Issues 1–11 (1950), p. 34: “Peter Nevill was founded by two young men, Peter Owen and Neville Armstrong. The former, then twenty-one, and the youngest publisher in Britain...”</ref> In 1955, Armstrong launched his own London publishing house, under the name of Neville Spearman Publishers.<ref name=obit/> One of his first publications under that name was the collected poems of [[Trevor Blakemore]].<ref>''Poems by Trevor Blakemore'', ed. [[Robert Gittings]] (London: Neville Spearman, 1955)</ref>

An obituary described Armstrong as “one of the last of the gentlemen publishers, who produced books mirroring their own whims and tastes”. Over forty years, he published more than five hundred books, with a wide range of subjects, which included chess, cookery, espionage, fiction, flying saucers, poetry, reincarnation, sex, spiritualism, and wrestling. They included a translation of [[Jean-Paul Sartre|Sartre's]] ''Intimacy'' and [[J. P. Donleavy]]’s ''[[The Ginger Man]]''.<ref name=obit/> In publishing Donleavy’s work in 1956, Armstrong insisted that it needed to be heavily censored, to avoid the author, publisher, and printer from being prosecuted under the [[Obscene Publications Acts]].<ref>Dawn B. Sova, ''Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds'' (Infobase Publications, 2006), [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8VAIbXY8rUUC&pg=PA89 p. 89]</ref>

Armstrong was managing director of Neville Spearman Ltd. and Neville Spearman (Educational) Ltd. He was also a director of The Holland Press Ltd. and R. & B. Advertising Associates Ltd.<ref>“Armstrong, Neville Spearman” in ''Who's Who in Publishing'' (1965), p. 8</ref><ref>“Holland Press Ltd., The” in ''Writers' and Artists' Year-book'' vol. 63 (1970), p. 178</ref> He sold the Neville Spearman companies in 1985.<ref name=Wormwoodiana/>

==Personal life==
In 1937, at [[Westminster]], Armstrong married firstly Margaret Gosschalk (1909–1999).<ref>“Neville S. Armstrong” in ''England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916–2005'': Name: Neville S Armstrong / Date: Oct 1937 / Registration District: Westminster / Spouse: Margaret J Gosschalk / Volume Number: 1a / Page Number: 1086”</ref> There was a child of this marriage, but the couple separated about 1958.<ref name=obit/>

In 1964, Armstrong's mother killed herself. He then joined the [[Samaritans (charity)|Samaritans]] as a volunteer and was trained by [[Chad Varah]].<ref name=obit/>

Armstrong lived in [[Jersey]], [[Channel Islands]], from 1973 to 1976, after which he lived part-time in [[Suffolk]].<ref name=Wormwoodiana>Douglas A. Anderson, Mark Valentine, "Arkham House reprints from Neville Spearman", in ''Wormwoodiana'', 23 June 2017</ref> He shared his life with Lili Munk for more than thirty years, and in 1999, after the death of his wife, they were married in a Buddhist religious ceremony on the lawn of the house at [[Great Waldingfield]], Suffolk, where they had lived since the late 1970s.<ref name=obit/>

Armstrong died in September 2008 at age 94.<ref name="obit" />

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armstrong Nevill}}
[[Category:1913 births]]
[[Category:2008 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art]]
[[Category:British Indian Army officers]]
[[Category:English publishers (people)]]
[[Category:People of British Ceylon]]
[[Category:Indian Army personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:British Buddhists]]
[[Category:Sri Lankan people of British descent]]

Neville Armstrong - Revision history

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