Rothesay Stuart Wortley


Rothesay Nicholas Montagu Stuart Wortley, was a British World War 1 soldier, Royal Flying Corps fighter pilot and a journalist and author.

Early life

Nicholas Rothesay Montagu Stuart-Wortley was born at Highcliffe Castle, Dorset, on 9 January 1892, the first child and only son of Major-General the Honourable Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley, and his wife Violet. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford University, where he read History. On 25 March 1912 he received a commission as a Subaltern in the British Army's Hampshire Yeomanry, of the.

First World War

On 5 August 1914, the day after the United Kingdom declared war on Germany, Stuart-Wortley was appointed an aide-de-camp to serve on the personal staff of his father, General Officer Commanding of the 46th Division.
On 12 February 1917 Stuart-Wortley was transferred from the British Army to Royal Flying Corps, and after completing flight training was commissioned as a Flying Officer on 12 June 1917. On 30 June 1917 he was promoted to the rank of Captain, with seniority from 1 June 1916. He was posted as a pilot to join No.22 Squadron R.F.C., a fighter unit flying Bristol F.2's two-seaters. He gained his first aerial victories on 6 September 1917 by driving down two German aircraft. He destroyed two enemy fighters on 22 September 1917, and captured another on 17 October 1917. His sixth and final victory came on 28 January 1918, when he sent a German fighter down in flames.
He was awarded the Military Cross, which was gazetted on 19 April 1918, the citation reading:
He was appointed as Squadron Commander with the temporary rank of Major on 1 July 1918, with No.44 Training Depot Station at RAF Bicester until September 1918. He then returned to France where he commanded No.88 Squadron, Royal Air Force until the end of the war in November 1918.
On 1 May 1919 he was appointed as a Staff Officer 3rd Class at the Air Ministry, and was transferred to the unemployed list on 2 July 1919.

List of aerial victories

Post-war career

In 1919 Stuart Wortley married the Canadian opera singer Marie-Louise Martin, and worked as an aviation journalist until his death in the south of France from diabetes on 29 December 1926 at the age of 34.

Publications

Along with Canada's top World War 1 ace, Colonel Billy Bishop, Stuart-Wortley co-authored an adventure novel entitled The Flying Squad, which was published in 1927. His own novel Letters from a Flying Officer, a fictionalised account of his own experiences, was published in 1928. A book of short stories Tales of the Air, was published in 1932.