Herbert Francis (Frank) Bygott was the third son of Rev John Bygott and Emily (nee Ford). Growing up in Staffordshire near the potteries and coalmines, he intended to go into church ministry like his father. However, at Oxford University he encountered Frank Buchman and the ideas of the Oxford Group (later Moral Re-Armament) and dedicated himself wholly to the building of a new world. This took him to South Africa, the USA, many countries of Europe and especially to the industrial areas of Britain and Germany, where he befriended miners, steelworkers and managers alike, helping them to find a new sense of responsibility. A brilliant linguist and a gifted poet, he is above all remembered for his gifts of friendship which endeared him to the many hundreds of people he kept in touch with and nurtured.
In 1946 Frank married Elisabeth Burgess, daughter of a Midlands clergy family. They had two children, David born in 1948, Jane in 1952. Frank continued to pour his life out for his friends in the coalfields until his sudden death from leukaemia in South Wales in 1954.
