Aidan Crawley
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Aidan Merivale Crawley, MBE (10 April 1908 Benenden, Kent – 3 November 1993 Banbury, Oxfordshire)[1] was a British journalist, television executive and editor, and politician who was elected to the House of Commons as a Labour Party member from 1945 to 1951, and as a Conservative party member from 1962 to 1967.
Educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford, he played cricket for Oxford University and Kent, even playing for the latter whilst an MP in 1947. He was also a prisoner of war.[2]
He was Labour Member of Parliament for Buckingham from 1945 to 1951, when he lost to the Conservative candidate Frank Markham, himself an ex-Labour MP.
In 1955, he was the first editor-in-chief of Independent Television News and was responsible for introducing American-style newscasters to British media and pledged to transform television's attitudes to politicians. [3] He left ITN after a row when the company tried to trim down the news operations and rejoined the BBC. [4]
In 1962, he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative, winning the by-election in West Derbyshire. He held the seat through two general elections,[5] before resigning in 1967 to become Chairman of London Weekend Television where he remained until 1973.
Crawley authored several books, including biographies of Konrad Adenauer and Charles De Gaulle.
- De Gaulle: A Biography (London: Collins, 1969)
- Escape from Germany 1939-1945
- Spoils of the War: The Rise of Western Germany 1945-1972
- Patterns of Government in Africa
- Leap before you look: a memoir, 1988.
Aidan Crawley was Under-Secretary of State for Air in Clement Attlee's Labour Government; in the 1960s he was Conservative MP for West Derbyshire, and finally, from 1969 to 1973, chairman of London Weekend Television
[edit] Family
Aidan Crawley was son of (Arthur) Stafford Crawley, himself the youngest son of a successful railway contractor, George Baden Crawley (1833-1879) and his wife Inez, who married as her second husband Rear-Admiral JE Pringle. His mother was the former Anstice Gibbs (usually known as Nancy), sixth of the ten children of Antony and Janet Gibbs of Tyntesfield, Somerset. Stafford Crawley was the brother-in-law of the Earl of Cavan; his wife was related to the Lords Wraxall, of Tyntesfield and the Lords Aldenham and Hunsdon. Stafford Crawley was chaplain to the Archbishop at Bishopthorpe and later Canon of St George's Chapel, Windsor. The Crawleys had three sons and two daughters, of whom Aidan was the middle son.[6]. One of his sisters was Anstice, Lady Goodman. [7]
In 1945, he married the sometime war correspondent Virginia Cowles OBE (24 August 1910 Brattleboro, Vermont-6 September 1983 near Biarritz in a car crash)[8][9] with whom he had 3 children; however, he lost both his sons tragically. Both his sons died in a plane crash together, leaving issue and widows who were seven months pregnant. At the time of his death, Crawley was virtually penniless, having lost heavily in the Lloyds crash.[10] He was survived by his daughter Harriet, his daughters-in-law and several grandchildren. The elder son The younger son
Children:
- Andrew (1947-10 September 1988). Andrew left issue, one son and a daughter born after his death.
- Randall (1950-10 September 1988), who was married to Marita Crawley. Randall left issue, two sons (one born after his death) and a daughter. His widow Marita, sister of the Duchess of Abercorn and the Duchess of Westminster, recently remarried in 2006 Andrew Knight (b. 1939), former journalist and editor.
- Harriet Crawley (b. 1958) married 1stly 1993 firstly, Gleb Chestekov. She married 2ndly circa 2001 Julian Ayer (1939-2004)[11][12]. They had no issue. Harriet also has issue one son
- Spencer Henry Crawley, now a promising cricketer.[13][14][15]
Crawley's niece Penelope Crawley married Lord Guernsey (b. 1947, the heir to the 11th Earl of Aylesford and has issue, including one son.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Aidan Merivale Crawley entry in Cricinfo database online. [1], Retrieved 18 September 2007.
- ^ Hansard debates for 22 May 1997. [2]. Retrieved 18 September 2007. "Aidan Crawley was elected as the first Labour Member of Parliament for Buckingham in 1945. He lost the seat and was elected elsewhere as a Conservative Member of Parliament."
- ^ " Boring old blokes on TV - an A to Z: The changing culture of the political interview" The Guardian Saturday November 11, 2000 [3] and [4]. Also see "A Brief History of Broadcast Journalism: The Early Years" [5]. Retrieved 18 September 2007.
- ^ Aidan Crawley profile. "He appeared on 'In the News' and 'Viewfinder' on BBC, and became Independent Television News's first editor-in-chief, but later rejoined the BBC. [6]. See also [7]. Retrieved 18 September 2007.
- ^ Phillip Whitehead obituary notes that he was defeated by the former Labourite, now Conservative, Aidan Crawley in 1966. "Whitehead's first attempt at Parliament was in the 1966 general election when as vice-chairman of the Young Fabian Group he was selected to take on Aidan Crawley in West Derbyshire. It was a particularly acrimonious campaign. Crawley was well known on the television screen and had been a much-favoured young minister in the Attlee government when he was a Labour MP for Buckingham, 1945-51, as Under-Secretary for Air. In 1957 he had resigned from the Labour Party and had been adopted as Conservative candidate in 1959. Crawley won by 18,383 votes to Whitehead's 13,791 with Mrs M.V. Edwards for the Liberals gaining 4,874." [8]. Retrieved 18 September 2007.
- ^ Crawley family papers. [9]. Retrieved 10 September 2007.
- ^ Lady Goodman obituary. The Daily Telegraph. [10]. Retrieved 18 September 2007
- ^ "Virginia Cowles1 (F) b. 24 August 1910, d. 16 September 1983" The Peerage database, last edited 31 January 2005. [11]. Retrieved 18 September 2007
- ^ Virginia Cowles [12]
- ^ " Ayer's adopted son dies" The Daily Telegraph, 2004. [13] Harriet Crawley loses her husband Julian Ayer, adoptive son of the philosopher Freddie Ayer, in the 2004 tsunami.
- ^ Julian Ayer, whom she met in 1999, was the adoptive son of the philosopher Sir Alfred Jules Ayer, or "Freddie" Ayer (1910-1989), and apparently (per the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), the elder child of philosopher Sir Stuart Newton Hampshire (1914-2004) by (Grace Isabel) Renée Ayer, née Orde-Lees (d. 1980), who was Ayer's wife at the time. Hampshire married Renee in 1961, twenty years after her first husband divorced her. However, Ayer acknowledged the child Julian as his. See A. Ryan, ‘Hampshire, Sir Stuart Newton (1914–2004)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Jan 2008 [14], accessed 12 Feb 2008 from then publicly available page
- ^ "14 ordinary lives remembered from the 125,000 who perished" The Times 31 December 2004. [15]
- ^ Harriet Crawley speaks about the Crawley Gap Year Scholarships in memory of her brothers.[16] Retrieved 18 September 2007.
- ^ " Ayer's adopted son dies" The Daily Telegraph, 2004. Ibid.
- ^ Spencer Crawley's father is allegedly Douglas Percy Codrington Nation (1942-2001), father of Tanya Marie Nation, now married to the Marquess of Hamilton. Hamilton is the nephew of Harriet's sister-in-law Marita Crawley, nee Phillips.
[edit] References
- Daily Telegraph, 14/06/67
- Matthew Parris, ‘Crawley, Aidan Merivale (1908–1993)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, first published Sept 2004, 1660 words, with portrait illustration. Subscription required.
- Photograph of Aidan Crawley down the page.
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Lionel Berry |
Member of Parliament for Buckingham 1945–1951 |
Succeeded by Frank Markham |
| Preceded by Edward Wakefield |
Member of Parliament for West Derbyshire 1962–1967 |
Succeeded by James Scott-Hopkins |
