Today's Famous Brits Assembly was about Thomas Armitage. He was born at Tilgate in Sussex into a family of wealthy Yorkshire industrialists. He was raised at Avranches in France, and at Frankfurt and Offenbach in Germany. He attended the Sorbonne and King's College London. He became a physician, practising at the Marylebone Dispensary, in the Crimean War, and as a private consultant in London.
He was forced to abandon his medical career due to worsening eyesight and eventually became blind.
He wanted to make literature available to blind people through embossed type and worked hard for the Braille to be adopted.
In 1871 he helped to establish the Royal Normal College for the Blind (later the Royal National College for the Blind) in London.