Arthur Bignold

Who was Arthur Bignold?

Sir Arthur Bignold was a Unionist Party politician in Scotland who served as the Member of Parliament for Wick Burghs from 1900 to 1910.

Bignold was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1873 he was a founding member of The Kennel Club. He won his seat in the House of Commons at the 1900 general election, when he defeated the sitting Liberal Party MP Thomas Hedderwick. Bignold was re-elected in 1906, but lost his seat at the January 1910 general election. He stood again in December 1910, but lost again.

He was knighted on 5 July 1904. He was proprietor of Lochrosque and Strathbran Estates in Ross Shire, near to Achnasheen and Achanalt and served as President of the Ross and Sutherland Benevolent Society as well as a magistrate of Ross and Cromarty and Chief of the Gaelic Society. A bagpipe march Arthur Bignold of Lochrosque is named after him.

In September 1914 Winston Churchill, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty was travelling past Bignold's home, Lochrosque Castle, to inspect the fleet at Loch Ewe. Churchill noticed a light on the roof used for lamping deer and assumed that it was being used to communicate with German spies.