[4] His mother was the daughter of academic Sir Monier Monier-Williams, and she was "one of the five or six little girls in Oxford on whom Lewis Carroll modelled his Alice in Wonderland".

[3] After completing his undergraduate degree, Bickersteth spent a year teaching English in the British Raj.

[3] In 1915, one year after the start of the First World War, Bickersteth returned to England with the intention of becoming a military chaplain.

[4] He ended the war as a deputy assistant chaplain-general (equivalent in rank to lieutenant colonel) attached to the XV Corps.

That year, during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, he stood side by side with one of his brothers as they were both awarded the Military Cross by George V.[4] Having reached the rank of chaplain to the forces third class (equivalent to major), he relinquished his commission on 20 February 1920 and was allowed to keep his rank on an honorary basis.

In 1919, he was offered the position of headmaster of The Collegiate School of St Peter in Adelaide, Australia, which he accepted without ever attending an interview.

Following his arrival at the school in 1920, he increased pupil numbers from 550 to 720, and "built a war memorial hall, science laboratories, and several boarding-houses".