Huw Wheldon - Private Life

Private Life

Wheldon was knighted in 1976. Following his retirement from the BBC he became Chairman of the Court of the Governors of the London School of Economics, where he had read economics before the war. He disarmed potential sponsors of the school by eschewing flattery and opening negotiations with the bald statement that what he was after was their cash. He was also a formidable and active President of the Royal Television Society (RTS). An RTS Memorial Lecture in his name by a distinguished broadcaster is televised annually. In 2011 Bettany Hughes gave the lecture, and Brian Cox gave the lecture in 2010. Other speakers have included David Attenborough, Jeremy Isaacs, and, in 2005, the writer Paul Abbott. In addition to this, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) dispenses a Huw Wheldon Award for Specialist Factual Programme. There are also Wheldon bursaries and awards at the LSE and the University of Wales, Bangor.

Sir Huw's lasting influence, other than as a programme maker, which was considerable, probably lies in the ways in which he articulated the needs and requirements of public service broadcasting. "To make the popular good and the good popular", "the aim is not to avoid failure, but to attempt success", "multiplicity does not mean choice", were among his favourite sayings. He also coined the term "narrowcasting".

Wheldon died of cancer in 1986. His ashes were spread anonymously in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where he had served as a Trustee, and which he had loved.

Sir Huw Wheldon was highly regarded in the United States, where he had many friends, one of whom, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, caused Norman Podhoretz's obituary of his friend Wheldon, a version of which had first appeared in Podhoretz's syndicated column, to be entered into the Congressional Record.

Wheldon was married to the novelist Jacqueline Wheldon. They had three children. Sir Huw's son, Wynn Wheldon (named after his grandfather), is his biographer.