Norman C. Armitage

Norman Armitage (January 1, 1907, as Norman Cudworth Cohn – March 14, 1972) was an American patent lawyer, and chemical engineer who became an accomplished textile executive. He was an exceptional saber fencer who competed in six Olympics from 1928 to 1956 and won a bronze Team medal in Sabre in the 1948 London Olympics.

Early life Armitage, who was Jewish, was born on January 1, 1907, as Norman Cudworth Cohen in Albany, New York. He changed his name to Armitage after 1928. He later was affiliated with the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In the Class of 1927, he completed an A.B. a B.S., and later a Doctorate in Chemistry from Columbia.

He later attended New York University Law School, where in 1937 he earned a law degree, and in 1939 earned a Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) degree in patent law.

Marriage On September 20, 1941, at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston, Mass., he married Constance Roberta Dean Armitage of San Francisco, who became President of the National Federation of Republican Women from 1972-1975 and a leader in the Conservative movement. Mrs. Armitage later served on a number of government councils. The couple were married for over thirty years. She served as a professor of art history at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC, for 29 years, after moving there in 1960. She was also, for half that time, Wofford's fencing coach for both men and women in saber, epee, and foil. She first learned fencing while a student at the University of California, Berkeley, later completing a Masters in Arabic and English Literature and a PHd in Art History. Mrs. Armitage competed in national fencing contests, ranking as high as sixth place, and represented the United States in team world championships. The couple had a son and a daughter.

National sabre championships Norman Armitage won 10 times in 25 appearances at the National Sabre Championships: in 1930, from 1934 to 1936, from 1939 to 1943, and in 1945.

In Team competition, he was a member of the U.S. national three-weapon championship teams for the Fencers Club of New York four times (1929, 1932, 1933, and 1935), the team sabre champions in 1934 and the team epee champions in 1939. He remained in the New York area until 1960. As an honor, he carried the U.S. flag in the Olympic opening ceremony in 1952 in Helsinki, and in 1956 in Melbourne.

Armitage competed at the 1936 Summer Olympics in spite of severe chemical burns on his right hand suffered in January of that year. (He was a chemical engineer, a patent attorney and a textile executive.)

At the 1952 Summer Olympics, Armitage competed in the team sabre event but not the individual sabre. His American team finished fourth, just missing the bronze.

He died on March 14, 1972, at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, after being admitted two days earlier. He was buried at Greenlawn Memorial Gardens in Spartanburg. He was survived by a wife, daughter and son. His widow Constance Dean Armitage who he married in 1941, was President of the National Federation of Republican Women, and an art history professor at Wofford College in Spartanburg, where she served over ten years as the fencing coach.

Honors Armitage was the first person to be inducted into the USFA Hall of Fame, in 1963 and was inducted to the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2018. The New York Times called Armitage “one of the greatest fencing champions in modern competition,” and said that he had “probably participated in more Olympic Games than any other American athlete.”