Frank Robert Johnson (20 January 1943 – 15 December 2006) was an English journalist and editor.

Education

Johnson was born in London. He failed his

11-plus The eleven-plus (11+) is a standardized examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools which use academi ...

examination, and was educated at a state secondary school in Shoreditch in East London, which he left at the age of 16. Unlike many senior journalists of his time, he did not have a background in further or higher education, and instead, had taken a job as a 'messenger' on a national newspaper.

Career

He was a junior reporter at the ''

North-West Evening Mail ''The Mail'', known previously as the ''North-West Evening Mail'' (1987–2017), is a daily, local newspaper in the United Kingdom, printed every morning. It is based in Barrow-in-Furness. ''The Mail'' was founded as the ''North-Western Daily Ma ...

'' in

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

from 1965 to 1966. One of the duties of news staff was to cover sport, which was an unwelcome intrusion into the weekend. Johnson once reported the score of a Barrow

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 11 ...

match inaccurately and was robustly criticised by his editor on the Monday morning. However, he never had to cover sport again. Later, Johnson wrote for the ''

Nottingham Evening Post The ''Nottingham Post'' (formerly the ''Nottingham Evening Post'') is an English tabloid newspaper which serves Nottingham, Nottinghamshire and parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire. The ''Post'' is published Monday to Saturday ...

'', the ''

Liverpool Echo The ''Liverpool Echo'' is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales – a subsidiary company of Reach plc and is based in St Paul's Square, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Sunday, and is Liver ...

'', '' The Sun'', '' NOW!'', and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'', where he was a parliamentary sketch writer and leader writer. He wrote for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' as a parliamentary sketch writer, then as a foreign correspondent in Paris and

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

, from 1981 to 1988, before moving to ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', kn ...

'' as a columnist and editor from 1988 to 1995. He was the editor of the conservative '' Spectator'' magazine from 1995 to 1999, before returning to ''The Daily Telegraph''.

Personal life

He married Virginia Fraser, the widow of

Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat Simon Augustine Fraser, Master of Lovat (28 August 1939 – 26 March 1994) was the son of 15th Lord Lovat and the former Rosamond Broughton. He predeceased his father, and his son Simon inherited the Lordship of Lovat in 1995. He died of a heart a ...

, in 1998. He died from cancer in London on 15 December 2006.Frank Johnson dies
telegraph.co.uk

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Frank 1943 births 2006 deaths 20th-century British journalists Deaths from cancer in England English magazine editors English male journalists English newspaper editors British foreign correspondents Journalists from London People from Shoreditch The Daily Telegraph people The Spectator editors The Times journalists