ABSTRACT
Mosley was born at London on 16 November 1896, the eldest of the three sons of Sir Oswald Mosley and Katherine Maud Mosley (formerly Edwards-Heathcote). From the age of five, however, he was brought up by his mother alone who had separated from his father. In 1909 he entered Winchester, where he became famed for his boxing and fencing skills, leaving in 1912. He then went to Sandhurst in January 1914, but was soon expelled. In October 1914, shortly after the beginning of the First World War, Mosley was commissioned in the Sixteenth Lancers and then joined the Royal Flying Corps as an observer from December 1914 until April 1915. He then injured an ankle in a crash whilst trying to obtain a pilot’s licence and then, after recuperation, returned to the Sixteenth Lancers. Because of the continuing problem of his ankle he was invalided out of the armed forces in March 1916, although recently released records suggest that the army felt that the debilitating nature of his condition was probably exaggerated.
