'Woodrow Lyle Wyatt, Baron Wyatt of Weeford' (
4 July 1918 –
7 December 1997), was a
British Labour Party politician, published author, journalist and broadcaster.
Wyatt was educated at
Eastbourne College and
Worcester College,
Oxford. He served throughout the
Second World War and rose to the rank of Major. Wyatt was mentioned in despatches from
Normandy.
He was elected to Parliament for
Birmingham Aston in 1945 which he served until 1955. Wyatt was briefly a junior minister in
Clement Atlee’s final administration in 1951 but thereafter was never in office. During his period out of parliament, Wyatt was a reporter for the BBC's ''
Panaroma'' current affairs programme, in which a November 1957 report of Wyatt's revealed ballot rigging in the then
communist influenced
Electricians Trade Union (ETU).
He was seen by some as a maverick, and by others as a man of firm convictions which made him temperamentally unsuited to 'toeing the party line'. He returned to Parliament in 1959 as member for
Bosworth,
Leicestershire. He rebelled in the 1964–1970 parliaments over steel nationalisation.
After ceasing to be an active politician he was appointed Chairman of the
Horserace Totalisator Board from 1976–1997. Wyatt was a prolific journalist, with a diverse range of interests, and by the late 1970s he had crossed the political spectrum and became an admirer of
Margaret Thatcher. During this period his ''
News of the World'' column 'The Voice of Reason', was regularly attacked by Thatcher's political opponents. His caustic, candid and mischievously indiscreet diaries were published posthumously in three volumes. He became a
Life peer as 'Baron Wyatt of Weeford', of Weeford in the County of
Staffordshire in 1987.
In
2000 the journalist
Petronella Wyatt, his daughter by his fourth marriage, published a book entitled ''Father, Dear Father: Life with Woodrow Wyatt'' (ISBN 0-09-929760-4) which is an "affectionate portrait of the last great English eccentric" and has many personal and historically significant anecdotes
[1].
Wyatt was married four times, including to:
★ Third (1957, dissolved 1966): Lady Moorea Hastings (a granddaughter of
Luisa Casati; one son: Hon. Pericles Wyatt)
★ Fourth (1966): Veronica (Verushka) Banszky Von Ambroz
External link
★
Lord Wyatt dies aged 79 - BBC News December 9, 1997