Everything about Charles Douglas-home Journalist totally explained
Charles Cospatrick Douglas-Home (
1 September,
1937 –
29 October,
1985) was a
Scottish journalist who served as editor of
The Times from
1982 until his death.
Douglas-Home was the younger son of the Honourable Henry Douglas-Home (from his first marriage to Lady Margaret Spencer) and a nephew of the former
British Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home. He was educated at
Eton College (where he was a King's Scholar) and then went into the
British Army in
1956 in the
Royal Scots Greys. On leaving the Army he worked briefly selling books and
encyclopaedias, went to
Canada for a few months, and then served as
aide-de-camp to
Sir Evelyn Baring who was Governor of
Kenya.
When he returned to the UK he wanted to work in
television but was quickly rejected because his accent and approach appeared wrong and he'd no journalistic training. This took him to go into newspapers and he worked on the
Scottish Daily Express covering breaking news. Douglas-Home found the work dull and was about to resign before he was promoted to be the deputy to
Chapman Pincher, the respected Defence correspondent of the
Daily Express in
London. This job was fascinating to Douglas-Home, and confirmed him in his career.
After eighteen months, Douglas-Home became the principal political and diplomatic correspondent of the
Express. However he disagreed with the paper's opposition to British entry to the
European Communities and with relief in
1965 was appointed to succeed
Alun Gwynne-Jones as
The Times Defence Correspondent. He covered the
Six Days War and the
Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia. From
1970 he was Features editor, and in
1973 he became Home Editor.
William Rees-Mogg was impressed with Douglas-Home's approach and made him Foreign editor in
1978. He was a candidate for the editorship when
Rupert Murdoch took over the paper in
1981, but
Harold Evans was appointed instead. However a year later Murdoch and Evans had a spectacular falling-out over issues of
editorial independence, and Douglas-Home was finally appointed. He edited
The Times between
1982 and
1985.
He stabilised the paper, which was in a parlous state because of the year long closure it had suffered and the shock caused by the sacking of his predecessor, Harold Evans, and then began a steady process of improvement.
Although firmly Conservative in the editorial line he adopted in the paper's leaders, he was strongly committed to the tradition of impartial news reporting. He continued to edit the paper with great courage through a long and painful illness.
He died of
cancer aged only 48. He left a widow Jessica Gwynne and two sons Tara (born
1969) and Luke (born
1971). He was succeeded as editor by
Charles Wilson.
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