Arthur Busby

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Arthur W. Busby was a UK fan from Birmingham active in the 1940s. He was on the committee of Midvention in 1943 and a member of the British Fantasy Society, serving as its treasurer.

The Midvention was originally slated for Birmingham and Busby along with fellow local fan Tom Hughes was charged with finding a location. Many years later, Harry Turner reported his contemporary reaction:

All we've gotta do is find a hall to hold fifty fans for three nights, and accommodation for visitors! With this bloody war on it's practically impossible to find any halls available locally.

The task proved insurmountable – although the ambition was also excessive as the eventual attendance was only about 14 – and the convention was relocated to Leicester at the last minute, 'Despite considerable efforts under difficult conditions on the part of Arthur Busby and Tom Hughes - for which we would like to thank them both sincerely' in the words of convention director R. Rowland Johnson.

He is mentioned several times in Futurian War Digest, as a contributor of material to the Science Fiction Exchange and setting a quiz in #10. He was a conscientious objector during the Second World War and was granted conditional exemption after which he received an enrollment notice for the National Fire Service, although he was in turn excused following a broken wrist.

He was an early member of the British Fantasy Society and its first official Bulletin distributed alongside Futurian War Digest #21 in June 1942 listed him as the Society's treasurer (he was by profession a Chartered Accountant). He maintained the role throughout the Society's existence but doesn't seem to have been fannishly active thereafter.

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