David Gilford Armstrong

David Gilford Armstrong FRSE FRIC FIB (1926–2000) was a British biochemist and expert in animal nutrition.

Biography He was born in Whitley Bay on 9 July 1926, the son of Arthur Armstong (d. 1930), a bank clerk. He was educated at Whitley Bay Grammar School. He then studied agricultural chemistry at King's College, Durham graduating BSc in 1946 and then gained an MSc before gaining a doctorate (PhD) in 1951. He then became a lecturer at the Newcastle University, spending a year lecturing at the University of Illinois working with H. H. Mitchell.

Returning to the UK he was placed on the staff of the Hannah Dairy Research Institute in Ayrshire joining their Nutrition Department in 1954, working with Kenneth Blaxter FRS replacing Blaxter as Head of department in 1963.

He left the institute in 1967 to return to Newcastle University, first as a Reader in Agricultural Biochemistry, rising to Professor in 1968, remaining in that role until 1991. He was awarded the Sir John Hammond Memorial Prize in 1968.

In 1987, he won both the Hoffman La Roche Prize for Animal Nutrition and the Italian Society of Zootechnia Uovo D'Oro award. In 1988 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium and the Massey Ferguson Award for Contribution to the Agricultural Industry in UK. In 1990 he won the National Dairy Science Award and from the American Dairy Science Association.

He married Sarah Hannah, granddaughter of the founder of the Hannah Dairy Research Institute.