Greatest Jerseyman/woman

[fritz]

Vernon Tomes

[overandout]

Still not got it. I'll give it a coupe of days yet.

[overandout]

OK - this is only my opinion you understand, and it perhaps should be titled the 'Greatest Jerseyman/woman You've Never Heard Of', but anyway.

Sir William John Haley was born in Jersey in 1901, and was educated at Victoria College. He then joined the merchant navy before going on to work for the Times newspaper in Europe.

He moved from the Times to work for the Manchester Evening News, moving up from sub-editor to managing director by the age of just 29.
It was while working in Manchester that Lord Reith recommended him as his successor as director general of the BBC. With an impending war on the horizon on Haley initially refused, but the BBC held the job open for him and he became the corporation's second director general in 1944 until 1952. He was knighted in 1946.

In 1952 he became the editor of the Times and, among other things, was responsible for the Times New Roman typeface, and he was the first Times editor to put photographs on the front page. He left the Times in 1966 and became editor-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Haley only stayed there for a year before coming back to live in Gorey, Jersey, where he remained until he died.

As well as all his other achievements he was responsible for preserving the Press Association as the country's national independant news organisation, and his actions were fundamentally important in making Reuters the news company we know today. He was director of both the PA and Reuters.

He was known in Fleet Street as being the 'man with two glass eyes' so stern did he appear, although it actually hid an inherent shyness - in fact, rather than having meetings with people that worked for him he would leave little notes for them instead.

He kept reviewing books for the Times well after he left the paper, and when Rupert Murdoch tried to buy the Times it was Haley that Harry Evans, then the editor of the Sunday Times, turned to for advice.

Haley died in 1987.

Haley was a great man, and a real Jerseyman - but have you ever heard of him?

[eastrock]

Sounds like a great man. Have to confess, I have never heard of him.

[overandout]

I never had either, until I went to uni and happened to read Harold Evans's book about the Murdoch take-over of the Times. In it Evans says he flew over to Jersey to ask Haley what he thought he should do.

Considering how quickly the island latches onto the coat-tails of passing-celebrity non-entities, it's amazing how disinterested it is when real islanders have real achievements. DG of the Beeb, editor of the Times, etc, etc, Haley couldn't really have achieved much more in his career.

[jerzy]

What about Painal "The beast of jersey?" he was famous around the world for a time.

[crappogre]

We'd run out of room!