Sir Robert Perceval Armitage KCMG (21 December 1906 – 7 June 1990)[1] was a British colonial administrator who held senior positions in Kenya and the Gold Coast, and was Governor of Cyprus and then of Nyasaland during the period of decolonisation.

After the governor had said he was willing to consider the creation of an agricultural bank, Armitage said his government was "deeply committed in principle" to taking action and "would find it difficult to retreat".

Armitage was prepared to face opposition from cocoa producers, but prayed for five years of rising world prices to solve all economic problems.

[8] In his budget speech in 1953, Armitage explained the policy he had followed: "(Sterling) balances have accrued ... largely because the raw materials produced in the Gold Coast, mainly cocoa, have brought in large earnings and the Government ... increased taxation partly in an endeavor to lessen the amount of money which would exert an inflationary pressure ... and partly to build reserves.

"[9] Armitage did not mention that the project to build the Akosombo Dam over the Volta River was starting to seem feasible, and funds would be needed for that purpose.

[17] For several months Armitage tried to find a way to deport Archbishop Makarios and the Bishop of Kyrenia, both of whom publicly supported union with Greece.

He said that moving too quickly towards the status of a Dominion could "stimulate early and violent African opposition, which would at best discredit Federation and at the worst break it".

[24] Banda and Congress Party leaders started a campaign of direct action against federation, for immediate constitutional change and eventual independence.

These meetings coordinated plans to for mass arrests of members of the nationalist parties of each of the three territories, declaring a State of Emergency in any of them where this was considered necessary, and to send European troops from Southern Rhodesia to Nyasaland.

There is no evidence that such a plan existed, and the Nyasaland government took no immediate action against Banda or other Congress leaders but continued to negotiate with them until late February.

The stated aim of these measures was to allow the Nyasaland government to restore law and order after the increasing lawlessness following Dr Banda's return.

[30] In the debate in the House of Commons on 3 March 1959, Alan Lennox-Boyd, the Colonial Secretary, stated that it was clear from information received that Congress had planned the widespread murder of Europeans, Asians and moderate Africans, “…in fact, a massacre was being planned" and, later in the same debate, the Minister of State at the Colonial Office, Julian Amery, reinforced what Lennox-Boyd had said with talk of a “…conspiracy of murder" and "a massacre… on a Kenyan scale".

[31] Harold Macmillan decided to set up a Commission of Inquiry headed by Lord Devlin, which exposed the failings of the Nyasaland administration, and concluded it had lost the support of those it governed.

The Colonial Office obtained an early draft of the Devlin Commission's report and passed a copy to Armitage, which he used to prepare a document attacking its findings.

Armitage then joined a high level working party in London which drafted a despatch to counter the Devlin Report.

During the visit of Harold Macmillan to Blantyre in January 1960 as part of his African tour, a demonstration led by Malawi Congress Party activists against continued emergency restrictions and the Banda's imprisonment was witnessed by British and other journalists, some of whom reported that the police provoked a riot, which they suppressed with excessive and indiscriminate violence against demonstrators and spectators in which European officers were directly involved.

[36] Several British newspapers called for an impartial inquiry into the so-called "Blantyre riot", which Armitage resisted that the journalists had exaggerated, if not invented, claims of police brutality.

However, the Colonial Secretary, Ian Macleod agreed under parliamentary pressure to a judge-led inquiry and instructed Armitage to arrange it.

Southworth's stinging attacks, less on the integrity of the journalists involved than about their personalities and apparent preconceptions about the use of force damaged his claim to be impartial.