During the Second World War he served in the RNZAF, as station commander at Woodbourne near Blenheim and later Wigram at Christchurch, before being posted to India in 1944 and England in 1945, where he was promoted to acting Air Commodore, achieving full rank in 1946.
Military pilot training during World War I was undertaken by private contractors; principally the New Zealand Flying School of the Walsh Brothers in Auckland and the Canterbury Aviation Company formed by Henry Wigram in Christchurch.
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By the outbreak of World War II the more modest of these types had been formed into 1 Flying Training School (FTS) at Wigram, while advanced training on types such as the Oxford had been separated.
Wigram | George Wigram | Henry Wigram | Joseph Wigram (judge) | George Wigram Allen |
The first 6 ships were ordered from commercial yards (Money Wigram & Son, C J Mare & Co and J Scott Russell), with fitting out to be done in the Royal Dockyards at Chatham (first pair) and Woolwich (last 4).
In 1951 it was noted that samples of his work had been acquired by the Belfast Art Gallery, the Bank of Scotland, the Athenaeum Club, Colonel Lord Wigram and Princess Mary, the daughter of King George V.
Together with his brother, William Arthur Wigram, Henry bought a malthouse and brickworks business in the Heathcote Valley between Christchurch and Lyttelton.
Together they had three children: Major Andrew Wigram, who was married in 1974 to Gabrielle Diana Moore; Margaret Cherry Wigram, (born 1942), who in 1972 married Lieutenant Colonel Greville John Wyndham Malet, OBE, they divorced in 1993; Anne Celia Wigram, (born 1945), in 1973 married Major General Evelyn John Webb-Carter, KCVO, OBE, DL.
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In 1941, Baron Wigram married Margaret Helen Thorne (1917–1986), daughter of General Andrew Thorne.
At the coronation of King George IV at Westminster Abbey in 1820, Wigram was on duty, guarding one of the doors of the Abbey, when the new king's estranged wife Queen Caroline tried unsuccessfully to enter the Abbey by force.
The vicar of the group parish was Rev. Colin Perkins initially, then Rev. Andrew Wigram from 1995, and since 15 January 2006 Rev. Bronwen Gamble, who lives with her family in Cropwell Bishop.
Wigram Airfield Circuit was a temporary motor racing circuit at Wigram Aerodrome, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Wigram moved to Constantinople in 1912 to take up a chaplaincy position, and at the outbreak of World War I was interned; Turkey having allied itself with Germany.