Stewart Blacker


Lieutenant-Colonel Latham Valentine Stewart Blacker OBE was a British Army officer and inventor of weapons; he invented the Blacker Bombard, from which was developed the Hedgehog anti-submarine spigot-mortar - and laid the basis of the PIAT anti tank weapon.
A descendant of Valentine Blacker, he was born in Cheshire to Major Latham Blacker of the Indian Army. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Bedford School, before going to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After passing out from the college in 1907, he was commissioned into the Indian Army himself.
He served in Afghanistan, Turkestan, and Russia, earning several mentions in dispatches. He served with the 69th Punjabis, Queen's Own Corps of Guides, and 57th Wilde's Rifles.
He had learned to fly in 1911, receiving Certificate No. 121 from the Royal Aero Club, and at the start of the First World War he was attached to the Royal Flying Corps. He was shot down and wounded in 1915, 1916 and 1917. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1921 for his service in Persia.
After the war he set himself up as a private developer of weapons funding his own research. He served on the Imperial General Staff between 1924 and 1928. He married Lady Doris Peel, the daughter of William Peel, 1st Earl Peel the former Secretary of State for India
After retiring from the Indian Army as a major in 1932, he was commissioned into the 58th Field Brigade, Royal Artillery.
In 1933 he was with the Lady Houston-funded expedition to fly over Mount Everest. He organized the event with Colonel Etherton and was the chief observer, writing a book First over Everest.
Home Guard prepare to fire a Blacker Bombard during training with War Office
At the start of the Second World War he was a lieutenant colonel. He took his weapons to his contacts at the War Office and was introduced to Major Millis Jefferis who engaged him and sent him to Coates Castle at Coates, West Sussex, 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.
Later one of his experimental guns based on the same principle was developed further by Jefferis and entered service as the PIAT for which he received £25,000.
Blacker retired from the Territorial Army in October 1942.

Published works