| Sir Charles Wheeler, CMG | |
|---|---|
| Born | Selwyn Charles Cornelius-Wheeler 15 March 1923 Bremen, Germany |
| Died | 4 July 2008 (aged 85) London, United Kingdom |
| Education | Cranbrook School |
| Occupation | BBC News foreign correspondent |
| Notable credit(s) | Newsnight, Dateline London, Panorama |
Sir Charles Cornelius Wheeler CMG (Selwyn Charles Cornelius-Wheeler, 15 March 1923[1] – 4 July 2008)[2] was a British journalist and broadcaster. Having joined the BBC in 1947, he became the corporation's longest serving foreign correspondent, serving in the role until his death. Wheeler also had spells as presenter of several BBC current affairs television programmes including Newsnight and Panorama.
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Wheeler was born in Bremen, Germany, in 1923, where his father was working for the British Council.[3] The family later moved to Hamburg where his father was employed by a shipping company.[2] Educated at the Cranbrook School in Kent, his first job was as an errand boy at the Daily Sketch newspaper at the age of 17.[4] He enlisted in the Royal Marines in 1941,[2] rising to the rank of Captain. As part of a secret naval intelligence unit assembled by Ian Fleming - 30 Assault Unit, he participated in the Normandy Landings as second-in-command to Patrick Dalzel-Job.[5]
After leaving the Royal Marines in 1947, Wheeler joined the BBC, initially as a sub-editor at the Latin American division of the World Service.[1] Wheeler's long career as a foreign correspondent began with a three-year posting to Berlin in 1950, partly thanks to his fluency in German.[1] He subsequently returned to the UK, becoming a producer on the fledgling current affairs series Panorama in 1956.[1] As part of Panorama's team, he travelled to Hungary to cover what would become known as the Hungarian Uprising. Taking Panorama's camera into the country, despite being told not to, he filmed the jubilant Hungarian reaction to the rebellion. Just hours after Wheeler returned to Britain, Russia re-entered Hungary and crushed the revolt.[1] Having declined an offer to become the programme's editor,[3] he was later assigned to New Delhi (where he reported extensively on the 1959 Tibetan uprising) and Washington, D.C., where he covered the American Civil Rights Movement and the Watergate scandal between 1965 and 1973.[2] In the later years of his television career he was the American correspondent of Newsnight.
Wheeler was the first presenter of BBC World's Dateline London discussion programme. He remained active in his later years as a presenter of documentary series on Radio 4 and a contributor to the network's From Our Own Correspondent series. He had been working on a programme about the Dalai Lama until a few weeks before his death.[3]
He was appointed a CMG in 2001, and was knighted in the 2006 Birthday Honours, for services to broadcasting and journalism overseas. Wheeler was married to Dip Singh and the couple had two daughters - the barrister Marina Wheeler, the wife of the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and Shirin Wheeler, the BBC's Brussels correspondent.[6]
In June 2006 Charles Wheeler announced he had discovered that a painting by Alessandro Allori of Eleonora of Toledo, the wife of Cosimo de Medici, which had been given to him in Berlin as a wedding present in 1952, had been looted during World War II. Via the Commission for Looted Art in Europe it was returned to its legitimate owner, the Gemäldegalerie of Berlin, from whose possession it had been absent since 1944.[7]
Wheeler died of lung cancer at his Horsham home on 4 July 2008.[2]
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