Armitage was born in 1925 on a homestead on March Road[6] in South March, Ontario to parents Godfrey and Joan Armitage (née Foote).[1] His family had lived in the area since around 1836.[7]
As a member of the 3rd Medium Regiment, he took part in the Normandy invasion and the liberation of France, and was part of the second wave to land on Juno Beach. Following the invasion, he was promoted to Sergeant.[6]
He bred and raced horses, and was track veterinarian at Connaught Park in Aylmer, Quebec. Armitage served as the president of the Canadian Standardbred Horse Society from 1972 to 1974 and the Canadian Trotting Association from 1976 to 1981.[7] He was general manager of Rideau Carleton Raceway for nine years.
He was named Canadian veterinarian of the year in 1982.[7]
Armitage was elected as mayor of West Carleton in the 1991 municipal election, defeating township councillor Keith Roe by over 2,200 votes.[11] As mayor, he also sat on Ottawa–Carleton Regional council.
In 1994, Ottawa–Carleton Regional Council adopted a ward system and councillors would need to be directly elected rather than be made up from the various mayors and city councillors in the region. In the 1994 Ottawa-Carleton Regional Municipality elections, Armitage chose to run for a seat in Ward 5, which covered the region's western rural townships. He ended up losing to former Goulbourn mayor Betty Hill by just 75 votes.[12] He ran on a platform of freezing taxes and phasing in the cost of regional policing in rural areas.[8]
In 2011, the hall at the West Carleton community complex was renamed the Dr. Roland Armitage Hall.[15] In 2019, he was named to the Order of Ottawa.[16] In 2021, he was named to the Order of Ontario.[17]
He died on June 19, 2024, at the age of 99[18] at the Perley Health Veterans Residence in Ottawa,[1] where he had taken up residence in 2023.[2]