John Reith, 1st Baron Reith
John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith, KT, GCVO, GBE, CB, TD, PC (/ˈriːθ/; 20 July 1889 – 16 June 1971) was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In 1922, he was employed by the BBC, then the British Broadcasting Company Ltd., as its general manager; in 1923 he became its managing director, and in 1927 he was employed as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation created under a royal charter. His concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. An engineer by profession, and standing at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, he was a larger-than-life figure who was a pioneer in his field.[1]
The BBC's Reith Lectures were instituted in his honour.
Second World War[edit]
In 1940, Reith was appointed Minister of Information in Chamberlain's government. So as to perform his full duties, he became a member of parliament (MP) for Southampton. When Chamberlain fell, Churchill became Prime Minister and moved Reith to the Ministry of Transport. Reith was subsequently moved to become First Commissioner of Works which he held for the next two years, through two restructurings of the job, and was also transferred to the House of Lords by being created Baron Reith.
During that period, the city centres of Coventry, Plymouth and Portsmouth were destroyed by German bombing. Reith urged the local authorities to begin planning postwar reconstruction. He was dismissed from his government post at a very difficult time for Churchill in 1942, following the loss of Singapore. Pressured by Tory backbenchers who wanted a Conservative in the Information role, Reith was replaced by Duff Cooper.
It has been claimed that the sacking was due to Reith being difficult to work with. However, given the absence of direct contact between the two men during Reith's period in several ministerial positions, this is unlikely to be the true reason. More plausible, is the explanation given above, and the cleavage between Reithian management methods: energetic, thorough and highly organised, and the established style of the British civil service at that time: at best, calm and deliberative; at worst, ponderously slow.
Reith also frequently references in his autobiography departmental jealousies resulting from his ministerial activities, reported to him by colleagues such as Sir John Anderson, wartime Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Churchill coalition. Complaints to the latter from fellow ministers and MPs would appear to be the more likely cause of his fall. This came at a crucial stage in Reith's career. After the outbreak of war, several major figures had told Reith that he would soon join the War Cabinet itself, not least Beaverbrook, one of the Prime Minister's closest associates.
Reith's animosity towards Churchill continued. When offered the post of Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (a position he had long coveted), he could not bring himself to accept it, noting in his diary: "Invitation from that bloody shit Churchill to be Lord High Commissioner."[25]
He took a naval commission as a lieutenant of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) on the staff of the Rear-Admiral Coastal Services. In 1943, he was promoted to captain (RNVR), and appointed Director of the Combined Operations Material Department at the Admiralty, a post he held until early 1945.
Personal life[edit]
Aged 22, Reith met 15 year-old male Charlie Bowser. Reith had what has been variously described as "a deep affection"[46] and "love" for Bowser. Opinions have varied on the nature of Reith's relationship; in the view of both his biographer, and his daughter,[47] it was homosexual. Reith all but severed it, burning the correspondence from Bowser, after he married his wife Muriel in 1921. They remained married until his death in 1971; and Reith recorded Bowser's birthday in his diary for the rest of his life.[5] He and Muriel had two children, Christopher (1926–2017) and Marista (1932–2019).[48]
In popular culture[edit]
Reith was the protagonist of Jack Thorne's 2023 play When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, played by Stephen Campbell Moore; Bowser was played by Luke Newberry and Muriel Reith by Mariam Haque.[49]
He was commemorated in the Public Service Broadcasting album This New Noise, about the foundation of the BBC, with the song "An Unusual Man".[50]