Ella Sophia Armitage

Ella Sophia Armitage (3 March 1841 – 20 March 1931) was an English historian and archaeologist.

Life Armitage was born Ella Sophia Bulley in Liverpool, the second daughter of Samuel Marshall Bulley, a cotton merchant, and Mary Rachel Raffles, daughter of Congregational minister Thomas Raffles. In October 1871 she was one of the first students to enter Newnham College, Cambridge. Two of her sisters also attended Newnham, including Amy Bulley who sat the tripos. A brother was Arthur Bulley.

In 1874 Armitage became the college's first research student. In the same year she married the Reverend Elkanah Armitage, with whom she had two children. From 1877 to 1879 she taught history at Owens College, Manchester with her sister Amy, In Manchester she developed her interest in mediaeval earthworks and castles.

She was also known as a hymnwriter, apparently saying "I believe I was intended by nature for an archaeologist, but life has made me a hymn writer, and I shall be content to be known as such when my archaeology is forgotten." In 1881 she published sixteen hymns in the collection The Garden of the Lord.

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