Frank Willan

For the English rower, see Frank Willan (rower).

Group Captain Frank Andrew Willan CBE DFC DL (21 December 1915 – 12 November 1981), was an English pilot, Royal Air Force officer and Conservative politician. He was Chairman of Wiltshire County Council from 1973 to 1979.

Early life

The son of Brigadier Robert Hugh Willan DSO MC, and the grandson of Colonel Frank Willan of Thornehill Park, Bitterne, Hampshire, Willan was educated at West Downs School, Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford.[1][2] His grandfather, after whom he was named, was Colonel of the 3rd Oxfordshire Light Infantry, an alderman for Hampshire, a Justice of the Peace and a Deputy Lieutenant.[3]

Career

Willan was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as a Pilot Officer with effect from 25 October 1937,[4] and served the War of 1939–1945 with RAF Bomber Command, being promoted Flight Lieutenant with effect from 25 April 1940.[5] After the war, he was Commanding Officer of the Oxford University Air Squadron, 1951–1953, and of RAF Feltwell, 1958–1960, before retiring the service in 1960.[1]

Willan's brother Martin Stuart Willan was killed in action in northern France on 25 May 1940 at the age of 21, while serving with the King's Royal Rifle Corps as part of the British Expeditionary Force.[6]

On 11 October 1945, in the chapel of New College, Oxford, Willan married Joan, a daughter of Mr Leopold Wickham Legg, a fellow of the college, of Boar's Hill, and a grand-daughter of the ecclesiologist John Wickham Legg.[7]

Elected a member of Wiltshire County Council in 1961, he continued in that until his death in 1981. Willan was Chairman of the County Council's Education Committee from 1965 to 1968; Vice-Chairman of Council, 1968 to 1969; and Chairman, 1973 to 1979.[1] Between 1974 and 1981 he was also Chairman of the Wiltshire Victoria County History and was succeeded in both positions by Nigel Anderson.[8]

Willan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (Military Division) in the New Year Honours for 1961,[9] and a Deputy Lieutenant for Wiltshire in 1968.[10] He was also a Member of the Wessex Regional Hospital Board 1970–1974, Chairman of the Salisbury Diocesan Board of Finance, 1970–1981, and Chairman of the Joint Advisory Committee on Local Authorities’ Purchasing, 1970–77.[1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 'WILLAN, Group Captain Frank Andrew' in Who Was Who 1981–1990 (A. & C. Black, London)
  2. ↑ Old West Downs at westdowns.com
  3. ↑ Colonel Frank Willan (1846-1875) at douglashistory.co.uk
  4. ↑ London Gazette Issue 34452, 9 November 1937, p. 6969
  5. ↑ London Gazette Issue 34844, 7 May 1940, p. 2723
  6. ↑ Eton College Rolls of Honour at wakefieldfhs.org.uk
  7. ↑ The Aeroplane, vol. 69 (1945), p. 494
  8. ↑ From 'Editorial note', in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 12 (1983), p. XV: "Group Captain F. A. Willan, C.B.E., D.F.C., D.L., died in November 1981 shortly after being succeeded as Chairman of the Wiltshire Victoria County History Committee by Mr. N. J. M. Anderson, M.C., D.L., who had earlier succeeded him as Chairman of the County Council."
  9. ↑ London Gazette (Supplement) 31 December 1960, p. 8896 online
  10. ↑ London Gazette Issue 44520, 6 February 1968, p. 1489 online