He played Captain Mainwaring in the British sitcom Dad's Army from 1968 until 1977, was nominated for seven BAFTAs and became one of the most recognised faces on UK television.

Despite increasingly poor health in his final years, he maintained a busy professional schedule until his death from a stroke on 15 April 1982, aged 66.

[4] In 1916, Big Arthur took up a job as clerk at London Road Station, Manchester, shortly before being called up for First World War service.

The family rented a house in Hemmons Road, in the Manchester suburb of Levenshulme,[5] where Little Arthur (as he was known) attended Chapel Street School.

His first job after leaving school was as a barrow boy for the Manchester branch of motor accessory company Brown Brothers.

He described his job of progress chaser as "a sort of time and motion man chivvying the fellows along and seeing that they produced a certain amount of work each day".

[10] In February 1939, Lowe joined the Territorial Army, which meant several months later he was among the first men called up to serve in the Second World War.

[11] Lowe was medically regraded due to his poor eyesight and after training in wireless and as a radar technician transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

He was known among the troopers for his impressions of officers and crooners, and when radio equipment was stolen, he read the BBC News over his camp's PA system.

[20] In 1945, Lowe's father was organising special railway trips and excursions, including private trains for circuses and theatre companies.

[30] An early brief film role was as a reporter for the Tit-Bits magazine, near the end of the Ealing Studios dark comedy classic Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949).

[31] Lowe became known for his character roles, which in 1952 included a breakthrough part as Senator Brockbank in the musical Call Me Madam at the London Coliseum.

[32] Other roles in musicals included a part in the 1954 London revival of Pal Joey and eighteen months as the salesman in the first West End production of The Pajama Game, from 1955 to 1957.

[33] His name first appeared in lights in 1957, at the Piccadilly Theatre, with the part of Bert Vokes in the murder melodrama A Dead Secret.

[38] In 1960 Lowe took up a regular role as draper and lay preacher Leonard Swindley in the northern soap opera Coronation Street, in which he appeared until 1965.

[39] During the months he was not playing Swindley, he remained busy on stage or making one-off guest appearances in other TV series such as Z-Cars (1962) and The Avengers (1967) (episode entitled "Dead Man's Treasure").

[41] Lowe did not relish work on Coronation Street and was happy to give it up,[42] but viewer responses to his character led to him reprising Swindley for starring roles in the spin-off series Pardon the Expression (1966) and its sequel Turn Out the Lights (1967).

In 1968, Lowe was cast in his best remembered role, as Home Guard platoon leader Captain Mainwaring in the BBC sitcom Dad's Army (1968–1977).

Frank Williams said he felt this perception was unfair: "He certainly didn't suffer fools gladly and always knew his own mind, but he also had an ability to laugh at himself.

In the same year he appeared as Ben Jonson alongside Gielgud's Shakespeare in Edward Bond's Bingo at the Royal Court Theatre.

[49] On television, Lowe appeared twice as a guest performer on The Morecambe and Wise Show (1971 and 1977), alongside Richard Briers in a series of Ben Travers farces for the BBC, as the pompous Dr Maxwell in the ITV comedy Doctor at Large (1971) and as Redvers Bodkin, a snooty, old-fashioned butler, in the short-lived sitcom The Last of the Baskets (1971–72).

[53] In an interview for a Dad's Army retrospective on BBC television in 2010, Clive Dunn described him sitting at the bar in the evenings when they were filming on location, consuming a drink which Lowe named 'Amazon' after his yacht.

[54] Lowe seldom made public political statements, but his face appeared on posters and other advertising in support of the "Voting Yes" campaign for the 1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum.

[61] Despite his generally declining health, including worsening narcolepsy, he maintained a busy professional life;[62] Derek Benfield described him as a workaholic.

[69] In 1981 Lowe reprised his role as Captain Mainwaring for the pilot episode of It Sticks Out Half a Mile, a radio sequel to Dad's Army.

[71] In January 1982, Richard Burton had his private aeroplane fly Lowe to Venice to film a cameo role in the television miniseries Wagner.

[73][75] Lowe was cremated and his ashes were scattered at Sutton Coldfield Crematorium, following a small funeral of which few people were notified and fewer than a dozen attended.

Tom Cole wrote in the Radio Times: "There are few actors who charmed viewers both young and old with such ease, and fewer still who could be trusted with the task of bringing classic literary characters like Charles Pooter and A.J.

[89][90] It depicts Lowe in the character of Captain Mainwaring, sitting upright on a simple bench in Home Guard uniform, with his swagger stick across his knees.

[91][92][93] Robert Daws portrayed Lowe in the BBC Radio 4 drama Dear Arthur, Love John by Roy Smiles, first broadcast in 2012.