Lieutenant-Colonel Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(1 October 1887 – 19 April 1964) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gur ...

officer and inventor of weapons; he invented the

Blacker Bombard The Blacker Bombard, also known as the 29-mm Spigot Mortar, was an infantry anti-tank weapon devised by Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart Blacker in the early years of the Second World War. Intended as a means to equip Home Guard units with an anti-ta ...

, from which was developed the

Hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduct ...

anti-submarine spigot-mortar – and laid the basis of the

PIAT The Projector, Infantry, Anti Tank (PIAT) Mk I was a British man-portable anti-tank weapon developed during the Second World War. The PIAT was designed in 1942 in response to the British Army's need for a more effective infantry anti-tank weapon ...

anti-tank weapon. A descendant of

Valentine Blacker Valentine Blacker CB (19 October 1778Burke, John (1835). ''A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, Enjoying Territorial Possessions Or High Official Rank, Vol. II.'' Publisher: R. Bentley for Henry Colbu ...

(1778–1823), he was born in Cheshire to Major Latham Blacker of the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four ...

. He was educated at

Cheltenham College ("Work Conquers All") , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent SchoolDay and Boarding School , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head , head = Nicola Huggett ...

and

Bedford School :''Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Girls' School, Bedford High School, Bedford Modern School, Old Bedford School in Bedford, Texas or Bedford Academy in Bedford, Nova Scotia.'' Bedford School is a public school (English i ...

, before going to the

Royal Military College, Sandhurst The Royal Military College (RMC), founded in 1801 and established in 1802 at Great Marlow and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England, but moved in October 1812 to Sandhurst, Berkshire, was a British Army military academy for training infantry ...

. After passing out from the college in 1907, he was commissioned into the Indian Army himself. He served in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

Turkestan Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan ( fa, ترکستان, Torkestân, lit=Land of the Turks), is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang. Overview Known as Turan to the Persians, western Turke ...

, and Russia, earning several mentions in dispatches. He served with the

69th Punjabis The 69th Punjabis were an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. They could trace their origins to 1759, when they were raised as the 10th Battalion Coast Sepoys. The regiment's first engagement was during the Carnatic Wars, this was foll ...

Queen's Own Corps of Guides The Corps of Guides was a regiment of the British Indian Army made up of British officers and Indian enlisted soldiers to serve on the North West Frontier. As originally raised in 1846, The Guides consisted of infantry and cavalry. It evol ...

, and 57th Wilde's Rifles. He had learned to fly in 1911, receiving Certificate No. 121 from the

Royal Aero Club The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) is the national co-ordinating body for air sport in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1901 as the Aero Club of Great Britain, being granted the title of the "Royal Aero Club" in 1910. History The Aero Club was fou ...

, and at the start of the First World War he was attached to the

Royal Flying Corps "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colors = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = , decorations ...

. He was shot down and wounded in 1915, 1916 and 1917. He was appointed Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1921 for his service in

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkme ...

. After the war he set himself up as a private developer of weapons funding his own research. He served on the

Imperial General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) has been the title of the professional head of the British Army since 1964. The CGS is a member of both the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Army Board. Prior to 1964, the title was Chief of the Imperial G ...

between 1924 and 1928. He married Lady Doris Peel, the daughter of

William Peel, 1st Earl Peel William Robert Wellesley Peel, 1st Earl Peel, (7 January 1867 – 28 September 1937), known as The Viscount Peel from 1912 to 1929, was a British politician, as a local councillor, a Member of Parliament and a member of the House of Lords. ...

the former

Secretary of State for India His (or Her) Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India, known for short as the India Secretary or the Indian Secretary, was the British Cabinet minister and the political head of the India Office responsible for the governance of ...

After retiring from the Indian Army as a major in 1932, he was commissioned into the 58th (Home Counties) Field Brigade, Royal Artillery ( Territorial Army). In 1933, he was with the

Lady Houston Dame Fanny Lucy Houston, Lady Houston, Baroness Byron ( Radmall; 8 April 1857 – 29 December 1936) was a British philanthropist, political activist and suffragist. Beginning in 1933, she published the '' Saturday Review'', which was best kn ...

-funded expedition to fly over Mount Everest. He organized the event with Colonel

Percy T. Etherton The English surname Percy is of Norman origin, coming from Normandy to England, United Kingdom. It was from the House of Percy, Norman lords of Northumberland, derives from the village of Percy-en-Auge in Normandy. From there, it came in ...

and was the chief observer, writing a book ''First over Everest''. At the start of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he was a lieutenant colonel. He took his weapons to his contacts at the War Office and was introduced to Major

Millis Jefferis Major-General Sir Millis Rowland Jefferis KBE MC (9 January 1899 – 5 September 1963) was a British military officer who founded a special unit of the British Ministry of Supply which developed unusual weapons during the Second World War. Ea ...

who engaged him and sent him to Coates Castle at

Coates, West Sussex Coates is a downland village in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England. Coates lies one mile (1.7 km) southwest from Fittleworth and four miles (6.8 km) south-east-by-south from Petworth. It is within the ancient divisions of ...

, from where his Blacker Bombard, a spigot mortar was developed. It was adopted briefly by the British Army before it was redeployed for use with the

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or military reserve force, reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the America ...

. Later one of his experimental guns based on the same principle was developed further by Jefferis and entered service as the

. For his contributions to the Bombard, PIAT, the Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar and Petard demolition mortar he received £25,000 interim payment and a further £7,000 by the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors (the body which determined the recompense to inventors whose ideas were used by the government during the war). Blacker retired from the Territorial Army in October 1942.

Published works

''On Secret Patrol in High Asia''
London: John Murray, 1922. * ''First over Everest: The Houston – Mount Everest Expedition 1933'', Cherry Tree (Withy Grove Press), GB (1938), Fellowes, P. F. M. with L. V. Stewart Blacker and P. T. Etherton and the Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale.

Notes

References

* * Blacker, Barnaby ''The Adventures and Inventions of Stewart Blacker'' Pen and Sword.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blacker, Stewart 1887 births 1964 deaths Military personnel from Cheshire British Army personnel of World War I British Army personnel of World War II British Indian Army officers 20th-century British inventors Corps of Guides (India) officers Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Bedford School People educated at Cheltenham College Royal Artillery officers Royal Flying Corps officers Weapon designers Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst Recipients of the MacGregor Medal