Gerard Mansell
| Gerard Evelyn Herbert Mansell | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 16, 1921 |
| Died | December 18, 2010 (aged 89) |
| Employer | BBC |
| Spouse(s) | Diana Sherar |
| Children |
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| Awards |
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Gerard Evelyn Herbert "Gerry" Mansell CBE (16 February 1921 – 18 December 2010) was a BBC executive, most famous for reorganising BBC radio into Radio 2, 3 and 4 as controller of the BBC Home Service, and for a political conflict early in Margaret Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister.
Mansell was born in Paris to an English father and Parisian mother. He was educated at the Lycée Hoche (Versailles), the Lycée Buffon (Paris) and l'Ecole des Sciences Politiques. He moved to the UK in the late 1930s and attended the Chelsea School of Art; his paintings were of sufficient quality to be exhibited at the Royal Academy.
He joined the Royal Norfolk Regiment in 1940. He served in Army Intelligence in Sicily, northwest Europe and the western desert. In 1945, he was awarded the croix de guerre.
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 made Mansell controller of the Home Service. In 1965, he created The World at One, installing Andrew Boyle 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, in order to bring a "lighter and brighter sound" to the station, he replaced the Bow Bells theme with Handel's Water Music. 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.
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