James Colin Ross Welch
(23 April 1924 – 28 January 1997) was an English political journalist. According to
Richard West in his obituary of Welch, he was a "strong and eloquent advocate of individual liberty against the power of government".
Welch, son of James William Welch and Irene Margherita (née Paton), was born at
Ickleton Abbey
Ickleton Priory was a Benedictine priory of nuns at Ickleton, Cambridgeshire, England. It was established in the middle of the 12th century and suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.
The priory's dedicatee was Saint Mary Magda ...
in Cambridgeshire, which his grandfather, also James Welch, had owned since 1900 and which estate the family farmed until 1933; they were also
Shire horse breeders. James William Welch was amongst the principal landowners at
Ickleton
Ickleton is a village and civil parish about south of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England. The village is beside the River Cam, close to where a southern branch of the Icknield Way crossed the river. The eastern and southern boundaries of the ...
in 1929.
Welch was educated at
Stowe
Stowe may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
*Stowe, Buckinghamshire, a civil parish and former village
**Stowe House
**Stowe School
*Stowe, Cornwall, in Kilkhampton parish
* Stowe, Herefordshire, in the List of places in Herefordshire
* Stowe, Linco ...
and
Peterhouse, Cambridge
Peterhouse is the oldest constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Today, Peterhouse has 254 undergraduates, 116 full-time graduate students and 54 fellows. It is quite ...
, and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1944, taking part in the Normandy landings in June and fighting until injured in March 1945. He joined the ''
Glasgow Herald'' in 1948, and then ''
The Daily Telegraph'' in 1950, when he became a parliamentary correspondent for the newspaper, advocating his economic liberal views for three decades.
He was appointed Deputy Editor of the newspaper in 1964, serving until 1980. He died in January 1997 in
Froxfield, Wiltshire.
He was known for being one of the harshest critics of
Enid Blyton in the 1950s and 1960s, especially her
Noddy series, which he believed was having a negative impact on child development in post-war Britain. In 1958 he published a scathing article in ''
Encounter'' in which he remarked that it was "hard to see how a diet of Miss Blyton could help with the 11-plus or even with the Cambridge English Tripos", describing Noddy as an "unnaturally priggish ... sanctimonious...witless, spiritless, snivelling, sneaking doll."
His granddaughter, by his son Nicholas Russell Welch, an advertising executive, is musician
Florence Welch.
Publications
*'Policies and Parliament', ''Rebirth of Britain : a Symposium of Essays by Eighteen Writers'', London : Pan, 1964, pp. 45–57.
*'Dear Little Noddy', ''Encounter'', January 1958, pp. 18–22.
*''Odd Thing About the Colonel and Other Pieces'', London : Bellew Publishing, 1997.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Colin
1924 births
1997 deaths
Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge
English economics writers
English literary critics
English political journalists
British political writers
People from South Cambridgeshire District
English social commentators