Gerard Evelyn Herbert "Gerry"
Mansell (16 February 1921 – 18 December 2010)
was a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
executive, most famous for reorganising
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...
into
Radio 2,
3 and
4 as controller of the
BBC Home Service
The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4.
History
1922–1939: Interwar period
Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...
, and for a political conflict early in
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
's tenure as Prime Minister.
Biography
Mansell was born in Paris to an English father and French mother. He was educated at the Lycée Hoche (Versailles), the Lycée Buffon (Paris) and l'Ecole des Sciences Politiques. As the German invasion of France proceeded in 1940, his family moved to the UK.
He joined the
Royal Norfolk Regiment
The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...
a few months after arriving in the UK. He served in Army Intelligence in the Western Desert, Sicily and northwest Europe. In 1945, he was awarded the
Croix de Guerre
The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
. Following demob, he attended the Chelsea School of Art for four years; his paintings were of sufficient quality to be exhibited at the Royal Academy.
He joined the BBC in 1951, starting in the foreign news department. He advanced by 1961 to head of the Overseas Service's features and talks section. In 1965,
Frank Gillard
Francis George Gillard (1 December 1908 – 20 October 1998) was a BBC executive, reporter and radio innovator.
Early years
Gillard was born in Tiverton in Devon and attended Wellington School, Somerset. He gained a bachelor's degree f ...
made Mansell controller of the Home Service. In 1965, he created ''
The World at One
''The World at One'', or ''WATO'' ("what-oh") for short, is BBC Radio 4's long-running lunchtime news and current affairs programme, produced by BBC News, which is currently broadcast from 13:00 to 13:45 from Monday to Friday. The programme de ...
'', installing
Andrew Boyle
Andrew Philip More Boyle (27 May 1919 – 22 April 1991) was a Scottish journalist and biographer. His biography of Brendan Bracken won the 1974 Whitbread Awards and his book ''The Climate of Treason'' exposed Anthony Blunt as the "Fourth M ...
as editor and
William Hardcastle as anchorman.
Mansell sought also to distance the station from the nostalgic war-time nickname "the good old Home" and make it more modern and informal. In 1963, to bring a "lighter and brighter sound" to the station, he replaced the Bow Bells theme with
Handel's ''
Water Music
The ''Water Music'' is a collection of orchestral movements, often published as three suites, composed by George Frideric Handel. It premiered on 17 July 1717, in response to King George I's request for a concert on the River Thames.
Struct ...
''. The desire for informality also affected news and current affairs programming, with more relaxed and informal conversation as part of the news output.
In 1956, he married Diana Sherar, with whom he had two sons, James and Francis.
In 1967, Gillard and Mansell reorganised BBC radio: the
Light Programme
The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...
became Radio 2, the
Third Programme
The BBC Third Programme was a national radio station produced and broadcast from 1946 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 3, Radio 3. It first went on the air on 29 September 1946 and quickly became one of the leading cultural and in ...
became Radio 3 and the Home Service became Radio 4. This move was controversial, in that it abolished the Features Department and moving talk elements of the Third Programme to Radio 4; his opponents called him "the butcher of the BBC".
In 1969, Gillard and Mansell wrote ''Broadcasting in the Seventies'', a proposal for "a more logical, more attractive and more solvent" pattern for BBC radio, establishing the present template for much of BBC radio: opening more local stations, cost-cutting (''e.g.'', by paring down BBC orchestras) and clearly demarcating the territories of Radio 3 and Radio 4.
In 1972, Mansell was made managing director of External Broadcasting, which later became the World Service. In 1977, he became deputy Director-General of the BBC.
In the
1977 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 1977 are appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 1977. The awards were announced on 30 December 1976 in the United Kingdom,United Kingdom: Australia,Australia: Ne ...
, Mansell was appointed
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(CBE).
[United Kingdom: ]
In October 1979, with the Director-General,
Ian Trethowan
Sir James Ian Raley Trethowan (20 October 1922 – 12 December 1990) was a British journalist, radio and television broadcaster and administrator who eventually became Director-General of the BBC from 1 October 1977 to 31 July 1982, having prev ...
, recovering from a heart attack, Mansell found himself in controversy. A television crew from ''
Panorama
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'' had filmed the
Provisional IRA
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...
manning a makeshift roadblock in
Carrickmore
Carrickmore () is a village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is situated in the historic barony of Omagh East, the civil parish of Termonmaguirk and the Roman Catholic Parish of Termonmaguirc between Cookstown, Dungannon and Omagh. It ha ...
. Newly elected Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
, determined to deny the "oxygen of publicity" to the IRA, complained to the BBC governors. Managing director of Television
Alasdair Milne
Alasdair David Gordon Milne (8 October 19308 January 2013) was a British television producer and executive. He had a long career at the BBC, where he was eventually promoted to Director-General, and was described by ''The Independent'' as "one ...
was on leave, so the governors called in Mansell and ordered him to discipline ''Panorama'' editor Roger Bolton. Shocked at the apparently casual manner in which the film unit operated, Mansell fired him.
The
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
Structure
There i ...
called a strike of BBC members and Milne quickly returned, but Mansell satisfied himself that the film was not meant to be used (and had not even been processed), and reinstated Bolton with a reprimand, to the fury of both the governors and the government.
Mansell retired from the BBC in 1981, at age 60. He produced a history of the World Service, ''Let Truth Be Told'' (1982). In 1988, he received a Sony gold award for services to radio.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mansell, Gerard
1921 births
2010 deaths
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
BBC executives
Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France)
French emigrants to the United Kingdom