Educated at
Fettes College in
Edinburgh and at the
Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Whigham was
commissioned into the 1st Battalion of the
Royal Warwickshire Regiment as a
lieutenant on 9 May 1885, where the future field marshal,
William Birdwood, was a fellow student. In January 1892 he was appointed an
adjutant and was promoted to
captain in March. He was seconded for service with to the
Egyptian Army in December 1897, where he served in the Nile Expedition of 1898 with the 12th Sudanese Battalion. He was later at army headquarters in South Africa, and for his service was awarded the
Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902. and then became
brigade major for the
10th Brigade,
5th Division, then part of the
2nd Army Corps, on 1 November 1902. He was then made a deputy assistant adjutant general at the
War Office in October 1906 and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in February 1908. After relinquishing his assignment as a deputy assistant adjutant general at the
War Office, he then succeeded Colonel
Edward Perceval as a
general staff officer, grade 2 at the
Staff College, Camberley. He was promoted to colonel in October 1911 and in April 1912 became a GSO1 at the War Office. (front row, centre, arms folded), GOC I Corps, and members of his corps staff in France, c. 1915. To Monro's right is his BGGS, Brigadier General Robert Whigham. Whigham served in the
First World War, initially with the
British Expeditionary Force on the
Western Front. On 27 December he was promoted to temporary rank of brigadier general and became brigadier general, general staff of
I Corps. which he relinquished in July 1915 when he took up the position of sub-chief of the general staff at the general headquarters of the BEF from Major General Edward Perceval, and for which he remained a temporary brigadier while also being a substantive colonel. Promoted to temporary major general in September, he was appointed
deputy chief of the imperial general staff (DCIGS) at the
War Office in December 1915, taking over from
Launcelot Kiggell. Promoted to the substantive rank of major general in January 1916 "for distinguished service in the Field", he became
general officer commanding (GOC)
59th (2nd North Midland) Division in June 1918 and GOC
62nd (2nd West Riding) Division in August. After the war Whigham became GOC of the
Light Division in the
British Army of the Rhine. promoted to lieutenant general in August 1921 was
Adjutant-General to the Forces in 1923, and was appointed colonel of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, in succession to Lieutenant General Sir Launcelot Kiggell, in June 1925. He then served as GOC-in-Chief for
Eastern Command in March 1927. He was promoted to general in January 1928. He was appointed
aide-de-camp general to King
George V in August 1930, in succession to General
Sir John Asser, and relinquished Eastern Command in March 1931, the same month he retired from the army. ==Family==