William Rees-Mogg

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William Rees-Mogg, Baron Rees-Mogg (14 July 192829 December 2012) was a British newspaper journalist who was Editor of ''

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 ...

'' from 1967 to 1981. In the late 1970s, he served as High Sheriff of Somerset, and in the 1980s was Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain and Vice-Chairman of the

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's Board of Governors. He was the father of the politicians

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...

and Annunziata Rees-Mogg.

Early life

William Rees-Mogg was born in 1928 in

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He was the son of Edmund Fletcher Rees-Mogg (1889–1962) of Cholwell House in the parish of

Cameley Cameley is a village in the civil parish of Temple Cloud with Cameley, within the Chew Valley in Somerset, and on the northern slopes of the Mendip Hills, in the Bath and North East Somerset Council area just off the A37 road. It is located fr ...

in Somerset, an Anglican by Christian denomination, and his Irish American

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

wife, Beatrice Warren, a daughter of Daniel Warren of New York. William Rees-Mogg was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. He was educated at

Clifton College ''The spirit nourishes within'' , established = 160 years ago , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent boarding and day school , religion = Christian , president = , head_label = Head of College , hea ...

Preparatory School in Bristol and

Charterhouse Charterhouse may refer to: * Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order Charterhouse may also refer to: Places * The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery * Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey Londo ...

in Godalming, where he was Head of School. Not yet eighteen, Rees-Mogg went up to Balliol College, Oxford, as a

Brackenbury Scholar Hannah Brackenbury (1795–1873) was an English philanthropist. She was unmarried and had inherited wealth from James Brackenbury, a solicitor from Manchester, England, who had made money through involvement with the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railwa ...

to read history in January 1946 as a place had fallen temporarily vacant. By the end of the Trinity (summer) term, he had been elected to the library committee (the junior committee) of the

Oxford Union Society The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...

and was due to be an officer of the Oxford University Conservative Association under Margaret Roberts (the future 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 from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

), President for Michaelmas (autumn) Term 1946.Rees-Mogg 2011, pp75-81. However, having spent 5 months at Oxford he did not return in October as he was forced to give up his place to a disabled ex-serviceman. From 1946 to 1948, beginning with an exceptionally bitter winter, he did his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

education department rising to the rank of sergeant. His duties included teaching illiterate recruits to read and write, and his reference from his commanding officer stated that he was competent to perform simple tasks under supervision. He returned to Oxford to complete his degree, and became President of Oxford University Conservative Association in Michaelmas Term 1950 and President of the Oxford Union in Trinity term, 1951. He graduated that term with a second-class degree.

Career

Rees-Mogg began his career in journalism in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

at the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

'' in 1952 becoming chief leader writer in 1955 and, in addition, assistant editor in 1957. During this period, he was

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

candidate for the safe Labour seat of Chester-le-Street in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

on 27 September 1956, losing to the Labour candidate

Norman Pentland Norman Pentland (9 September 1912 – 28 October 1972) was a British Labour Member of Parliament. Pentland was educated at Fatfield County School, then in 1926 became a miner, based at the Harraton Colliery. In 1949, he was elected as a c ...

by 21,287 votes, as he did in the subsequent general election by a similar margin. He moved to ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

'' in 1960, later becoming its Deputy Editor from 1964 where he wrote "A Captain's Innings", which many believe convinced Alec Douglas-Home to resign as Tory leader, making way for

Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...

, in July 1965. Rees-Mogg was editor of ''

'' from 1967 to 1981. In a 1967 editorial entitled "Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?", he criticised the severity of the custodial sentence for

Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...

on a drugs offence. With colleagues, he attempted a buyout of Times Group Newspapers in 1981 to stop its sale by the

Thomson Organisation International Thomson Organization (ITO) was a holding company for interests in publishing, travel, and natural resources, that existed from 1978 to 1989. It was formed as a reorganisation of the Thomson Organization, which had been founded by Ro ...

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

, but was unsuccessful. Murdoch replaced him as editor with

Harold Evans Sir Harold Matthew Evans (28 June 192823 September 2020) was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title ''The Times'' for a year f ...

. Rees-Mogg wrote a comment column for ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' from its foundation in the autumn of 1986 until near the end of 1992, when he rejoined ''The Times'', where he remained a columnist until shortly before his death. In his ''Memoirs'', published in 2011, he wrote of Murdoch: "Looking back, he has been an excellent proprietor for the Times, but also for Fleet Street." Rees-Mogg was a member of the BBC's

Board of Governors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

and chairman of the Arts Council, overseeing a major reform of the latter body which halved the number of arts organisations receiving regular funding and reduced the Council's direct activities. Having been High Sheriff of Somerset from 1978 to 1979, he was appointed a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...

in the 1981 Birthday Honours and knighted by

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

in an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 3 November 1981. In the

1988 Birthday Honours Queen's Birthday Honours are announced on or around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The dates vary, both from year to year and from country to country. All are published in supple ...

, Rees-Mogg was made a life peer on 8 August that year as Baron Rees-Mogg, of

Hinton Blewett Hinton Blewett is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, north of Wells and south of Bristol on the northern slope of the Mendip Hills, within the designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and in the Chew Valley near the ...

in the

County of Avon Avon () was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in the west of England that existed between 1974 and 1996. The county was named after the River Avon, which flows through the area. It was formed from the county boroughs of Bristol and Bat ...

, and sat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

as a

cross-bencher A crossbencher is an independent or minor party member of some legislatures, such as the British House of Lords and the Parliament of Australia. They take their name from the crossbenches, between and perpendicular to the government and oppositi ...

, having twice attempting to become a

MP in the 1950s. He was a member of the European Reform Forum. The

University of Bath (Virgil, Georgics II) , mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind , established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...

awarded him an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) in 1977. He co-authored, with James Dale Davidson, three books on the general topic of financial investment and the future of capitalism: ''Blood in the Streets'', ''The Great Reckoning'', and ''

The Sovereign Individual ''The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age'' is a 1997 non-fiction book by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson. Later republished on 26 August 1999 by Touchstone, it forecasts the development of the twenty ...

''. Published in 1997, ''The Sovereign Individual'' argues that in an internet age the nation state will become outmoded, and an era of the individual will develop.

Peter Thiel Peter Andreas Thiel (; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American billionaire entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in F ...

, the co-founder of

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

, stated in 2014 that ''The Sovereign Individual'' was the most influential book he had read. ''The Sovereign Individual'' has had a strong influence on neoreactionnary (NRx) politics. Writing in ''The Times'' in 2001, Lord Rees-Mogg, who had a house in Somerset, described himself as "a country person who spends most of his time in London", and attempted to define the characteristics of a "country person". He also wrote that

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

was as unpopular in rural England as Mrs Thatcher had been in Scotland. By now his liberal attitude to drugs policy had led to his being mocked as " Mogadon Man" by '' Private Eye''. The magazine later referred to him as "Mystic Mogg" (a pun on " Mystic Meg", a tabloid astrologer) because of the perception that his economic and political predictions were ultimately found to be inaccurate. Rees-Mogg served as the chairman of the London publishing firm

Pickering & Chatto Publishers Pickering & Chatto is an imprint of Routledge which publishes in the humanities and social sciences, specializing in monographs, critical editions (works, diaries, correspondence) and thematic source collections. Pickering & Chatto's academic monog ...

and of

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and wrote a weekly column for ''

The Mail on Sunday ''The Mail on Sunday'' is a British conservative newspaper, published in a tabloid format. It is the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the UK and was launched in 1982 by Lord Rothermere. Its sister paper, the ''Daily Mail'', was first pub ...

''. He also collected 18th-century literature.

Personal life

Rees-Mogg and his wife Gillian Shakespeare Morris (b.1939) married in 1962. She is the daughter of Thomas Richard Morris who was a lorry driver and later a car salesman. He became a Conservative councillor and Mayor in the Borough of St Pancras, and later councillor for the Kings Cross ward of the London Borough of Camden. He was also a JP. They had five children. They are: * Emma Beatrice Rees-Mogg (born 1962),Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. who married David William Hilton Craigie, son of Major Robin Brooks, in 1990. The couple have four children: Maud, Wilfred, Myfanwy and Samuel. She is a novelist under the name Emma Craigie * Charlotte Louise Rees-Mogg (born 1964) * Thomas Fletcher Rees-Mogg (born 1966), who married Modwenna Northcote in 1996. The couple have four children: former president of the Oxford University Conservative Association William, Beatrice, David and Constance * Jacob William Rees-Mogg (born 24 May 1969), who was elected Conservative MP for the new constituency of North East Somerset in 2010 after having stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the 1997 and 2001 general elections (in Central Fife and

The Wrekin The Wrekin is a hill in east Shropshire, England. It is located some five miles (8 km) west of Telford, on the border between the unitary authorities of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. Rising above the Shropshire Plain to a height of 4 ...

respectively). He married Helena de Chair in 2007. The couple have six children: Peter, Mary, Thomas, Anselm, Alfred and Sixtus. In July 2019, he was appointed

Leader of the House of Commons The leader of the House of Commons is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom whose main role is organising government business in the House of Commons. The leader is generally a member or attendee of the cabinet of t ...

and Lord President of the Council in the Johnson ministry. * Annunziata Mary Rees-Mogg (born 25 March 1979), who stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election in Aberavon, and in Somerton and Frome at the 2010 election. She was elected as a

Member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

for the

Brexit Party Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was briefly a significant ...

in 2019. Rees-Mogg, a Roman Catholic, argued that the image of an ultra-conservative

papacy The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

is false and that the Vatican must overhaul its PR machine (as of 2009). In 1964, Rees-Mogg purchased Ston Easton Park near Bath, Somerset, the former home of the Hippisley family. The house had been threatened with demolition and Rees-Mogg partially restored it. He sold the house to the Smedley family in 1978.

Death

Afflicted by

oesophageal cancer Esophageal cancer is cancer arising from the esophagus—the food pipe that runs between the throat and the stomach. Symptoms often include difficulty in swallowing and weight loss. Other symptoms may include pain when swallowing, a hoarse voi ...

, he became seriously ill just before Christmas of 2012, and died in London on 29 December at the age of 84. Rees-Mogg's funeral was held at Westminster Cathedral on 9 January 2013, with his body being buried in the graveyard of the Church of St James at

in the county of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

Books

* ''The reigning error: The crisis of world inflation (1975)'' * ''Blood in the Streets: Investment Profits in a World Gone Mad'' (1987, with James Dale Davidson) * ''Picnics on Vesuvius: Steps towards the millennium'' (1992) * ''The Great Reckoning: How the World Will Change Before the Year 2000'' (1992, with James Dale Davidson) * '' The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age'' (1997, with James Dale Davidson)

Sources

Notes

References

External links

* *
Profile
at ''

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''
Profile
at LevelBusiness {{DEFAULTSORT:Rees-Mogg, William 1928 births 2012 deaths Journalists from Bristol English people of Irish descent English people of American descent

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford BBC Governors Deaths from cancer in England Deaths from esophageal cancer English male journalists English newspaper editors English Roman Catholics High Sheriffs of Somerset Crossbench life peers Members of the Bow Group Presidents of the Oxford Union Presidents of the Oxford University Conservative Association People educated at Charterhouse School The Times people Conservative Party (UK) politicians Knights Bachelor 20th-century British journalists English memoirists Member of the Mont Pelerin Society