Background
Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth was born on 27 March 1885, the son of Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth Senior and Kate Box.
Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth was born on 27 March 1885, the son of Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth Senior and Kate Box.
He attended the first course at the Central Flying School, gaining his Aviator"s Certicate northern
Bigsworth received training as a Mercantile Marine officer, later joining the Royal Naval Reserve as a sub-lieutenant, being promoted to lieutenant on 19 January 1913. 396 on 21 January 1913. On 1 April 1918 he was appointed Officer Commanding Number.
10 Group Royal Air Force.
A year later he was awarded a permanent commission as a lieutenant colonel and was appointed Staff Officer First Class (Air) in Headquarters, Mediterranean District. At this point Bigsworth was awarded a Permanent Commission with the Royal Air Force and was removed from the Navy Lists while remaining in his post with Headquarters Mediterranean District, later Headquarters Mediterranean Group in 1920. In 1925 he returned to the United Kingdom, first to Royal Air Force Leuchars (1925), then as Senior Air Staff Office (Stability and Support Operations), Headquarters Coastal Area (1928), AOC Number.
10 Group and finally, until his retirement in September 1935, as Director of Equipment at the Air Ministry.
Immediately following his retirement from active service, Bigsworth was appointed to the Directorate of Aeronautical Production and in 1939 was for a short time AOC Number 42 (Maintenance) Group. Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth died on 24 February 1961.
lieutenant has been claimed that West. East. Johns based some aspects of his fictional hero Biggles (surname Bigglesworth) on the real-life Bigsworth, with whom he had worked at the Air Ministry.
After almost three years as Officer Commanding, Armament and Gunnery School at Eastchurch, he returned to the Mediterranean as Air Officer Commanding (AOC), Headquarters Royal Air Force Mediterranean, in which capacity he was appointed as a member of the Nominated Council of Malta.