Originally Posted by
Danny42C
"...navigation plot had to be maintained on a Bigsworth Board, a contraption apparently from the dawn of aviation history..." "Biggles", you may remember, was (in full): "Captain James Bigglesworth of the Camel Squadron". Did Capt. W.E.Johns adapt the name for his immortal creation from the Board, do you suppose, or was it the other way round ?
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Danny, it would seem the former. The Bigsworth Board was the creation of
Air Commodore Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth CMG, DSO and bar, AFC , a pioneer RNAS pilot in WW1, to wit;
Sir Peter Masefield, a great-nephew of the Poet Laureate John Masefield, speaking at the W E Johns Centenary Luncheon at the Royal Air Force Club on 6th February, 1993 said that he had discussed the question with Johns on several occasions and although Johns said the character was a ‘compendium’ the ‘first ingredient’ was Arthur Wellesley Bigsworth who had gone to sea with the Royal Navy in 1901 at the age of 16. In 1912 he was one of the first ten officers to train in what would become the Royal Naval Air Service. In 1915 he became the first pilot to damage a Zeppelin and to sink a submarine from the air, for which he received DSO and bar. Johns used both the Zeppelin and submarine incident in two of his Biggles books.