Harold Evans
Sir Harold Matthew "Harry" Evans (28 June 1928 – 23 September 2020) was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title The Times for a year from 1981, before being forced out of the latter post by Rupert Murdoch.[3] While at The Sunday Times, he led the newspaper's campaign to seek compensation for mothers who had taken the morning sickness drug thalidomide, which led to their children having severely deformed limbs.
For other people named Harold Evans, see Harold Evans (disambiguation).
Sir Harold Evans
23 September 2020 (aged 92)
British and American
Journalist
5
In 1984, he and his wife Tina Brown moved to the United States where he became an American citizen, retaining dual nationality. He held positions in journalism with U.S. News & World Report, The Atlantic Monthly, and the New York Daily News. In 1986, he founded Condé Nast Traveler. He wrote books on history and journalism, such as The American Century (1998).[4] In 2000, he retired from positions in journalism to spend more time on his writing. From 2001, he served as editor-at-large of The Week magazine and, from 2005, he was a contributor to The Guardian and BBC Radio 4. Evans was invested as a Knight Bachelor in 2004, for services to journalism. On 13 June 2011, Evans was appointed editor-at-large of the Reuters news agency.[5] From 2013 until 2019, he served as chairman of the European Press Prize jury panel.
Early life and education[edit]
Evans, the eldest of four sons, was born at 39 Renshaw Street, Patricroft, Eccles, to Welsh parents, Frederick and Mary Evans (née Haselum), whom he described in his 2009 memoir as "the self-consciously respectable working class".[3][6] His father was an engine driver, while his mother ran a shop in their front room to enable the family to buy a car.[7] He failed the eleven-plus, needed to gain entry to grammar schools, and attended St Mary's Central School in Manchester and a business school for a year to learn shorthand, a requirement to become a journalist.[8]
Career[edit]
Early career[edit]
Evans began his career as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, at 16. During his national service in the Royal Air Force (1946–1949),[3] he passed an intelligence test to become an officer, but did not hear anything further and served as a clerk.[8] He entered University College, Durham University, after contacting every one of the fourteen universities in Great Britain at the time.[6] While a student, he edited the university's independent newspaper, Palatinate.[9] After studying economics and politics, he graduated in 1952.[3]
Following his appointment as a sub-editor on the Manchester Evening News, he was chosen by the International Press Institute to teach newspaper technique in India.[8] Evans won a Harkness Fellowship in 1956–1957 to travel and study in the United States, spending periods at the universities of Chicago and Stanford.[3][6] After his return, to the UK, he became an assistant editor on the Manchester Evening News.[8] Nicholas Lemann observed that he "joined a long line of British journalists" who did similar studies, from Alistair Cooke to Andrew Sullivan.[6] Evans was appointed editor of a regional daily, The Northern Echo, in 1961.[10] While at the Darlington title, he successfully campaigned for cervical smear tests to become more readily available and a pardon for Timothy Evans, wrongly convicted and hanged for murders in Notting Hill, London.[11] The Northern Echo was able to demonstrate that there had been a miscarriage of justice.[7]
In 1966, Harold Evans moved to London to become assistant to the editor of The Sunday Times. The owners of the newspaper, the Thomson Organisation, acquired The Times not long afterwards, and Evans' editor, Denis Hamilton was promoted to editor-in-chief of the Times group. He recommended Evans to the board as the next editor of The Sunday Times.[11]
Personal life and death[edit]
In 1953, Evans married fellow Durham graduate Enid Parker, with whom he had a son and two daughters; the marriage was dissolved in 1978.[18] The couple remained on good terms; Enid Evans died in 2013.[27] In 1973, Evans met Tina Brown, a journalist 25 years his junior. In 1974, she was given freelance assignments with The Sunday Times in the UK, and in the U.S. by its Colour magazine.[28] When a sexual affair emerged between the married Evans and Brown, she resigned and joined the rival The Sunday Telegraph. On 20 August 1981, Evans and Brown married at Grey Gardens, in East Hampton, New York, the home of Ben Bradlee, then The Washington Post executive editor, and Sally Quinn.[28] Evans and Brown had a son and daughter.[18]
Evans died in New York City on 23 September 2020 at the age of 92.[3] The cause of death given was congestive heart failure.[29][30]