Ronald Armour, former DLP government minister and attorney at law, died on Sunday 6th August 2017

He was a son of the late Dr Reginald Fitzroy Armour and his wife Marjorie. He obtained a law degree at University of London in 1961, and a diploma in Economics & Social Administration from London School of Economics in 1963, and immediately thereafter, he returned to Dominica.
 
In 1964 he was elected to the Roseau Town Council, and joined the Dominica Labour Party. Under the leadership of Edward Oliver Le Blanc, he successfully contested the general election of 7th January 1966. He became the MP for Roseau South, and was appointed Minister of Communications and Works.
 
Armour remained loyal to Edward Le Blanc, when the DLP got engulfed in a political crisis in September 1970, when three ministers of LeBlanc’s government were fired. Armour became Minister of Education & Health for the one month left before the next general election. Armour was again successful in Roseau South, in that general election of 26th October 1970, as a member of the renamed Le Blanc Labour Party with its new party symbol, the shoe.Le Blanc then appointed Ronald Armour as Minister of Finance, Trade & Industry, and he remained as Deputy Premier. On 1st January 1973 he was redeployed to the Ministry of Finance & Development, and maintained the designation of Deputy Premier.  
 
Meanwhile, newly elected member for Roseau North, Patrick Roland John, became Minister of Communications & Works, and allegedly began an internal campaign to secure more leadership prominence in the DLP, knowing that Premier Le Blanc was into his last term. By 1973, Armour succumbed to pressure from Patrick John and his faction, and resigned from the government on 13th July 1973, but remained a member of parliament, and a member of the Le Blanc Labour Party.
 
When Edward Le Blanc resigned as Premier on 9th July 1974, Patrick John was able to secure the support of the majority of the DLP delegates and was elected as party leader, at a DLP delegates conference at Goodwill on Sunday 14th July 1974, and he became Dominica’s new Premier. Armour lost the Roseau South seat after a general election on 24th March 1975.
 
He ran as a candidate of his short-lived Progressive Labour Party, but was defeated by the new DLP candidate Eustace Hazelwood Francis, one of Patrick John’s ‘dynamic 21’. Armour was only able to secure 54 votes in that election, and his political career was effectively over.
 
Armour subsequently focused on his private law practice based in Portsmouth, and served as district magistrate. He also looked after his land interests on the agricultural estates of Hodges and Blenheim in the north of Dominica. During the Dominica Freedom Party Government in the 1980s,Armour was appointed to various boards and commissions, and thereby continued his service to Dominica.