Hugo Young
Encyclopedia
Hugo John Smelter Young was a British
journalist
and columnist and senior political commentator at The Guardian
.
on to an old recusant family, he was head boy at Ampleforth College
in North Yorkshire
during his youth; later, he read law at Balliol College, Oxford
, and worked for the Yorkshire Post
in Leeds
from 1961. In 1963, he spent a year as a Harkness fellow
in the USA and he spent the next year working as a congressional fellow.
. He was recruited by Denis Hamilton
of The Sunday Times
. In his second year there, he became chief leader writer, a position he kept until 1977.
From 1973 to 1984, Young was also the paper's political editor. He established a Sunday column, "Inside Politics", that made him famous. Beginning in 1981, he also held the position of joint deputy editor. However, Young's relationship with The Sunday Times cooled notably when Rupert Murdoch
took over the paper in 1981. The conflict culminated in a series of battles with editor Andrew Neil
, particularly over the US invasion of Grenada
in 1983. This ultimately led to Young's leaving The Sunday Times and joining The Guardian in 1984.
Young continued to write a twice-weekly political column at The Guardian until his death, and was widely acclaimed as one of the most important and influential figures in modern British journalism. Young was a strong proponent of European integration
, and sharply expressed his disappointment with the British government's eurosceptic
politics in his columns, including Prime Minister
Tony Blair
's decision to side with George W. Bush
instead of his EU
partners in the 2003 invasion of Iraq
.
Despite these differences, Young remained on good terms with British government officials, including Tony Blair
and Margaret Thatcher
, and wrote a critical biography of the latter, One of Us (1989). He wrote other books, including This Blessed Plot: Britain And Europe From Churchill To Blair, which was published in 1998.
From 1989 onwards, Young was the chairman of the Scott Trust
, which owns The Guardian and other news media, and helped the paper through important developments such as the purchase of The Observer
.
Young married twice. His first wife, Helen Mason
, with whom he had three daughters, including the film director Emily Young
, and one son, died in 1989 of lung cancer
. He remarried a year later, this time to American artist
Lucy Waring. He died at age 64 of colon cancer.
Obituaries
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and columnist and senior political commentator at The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
.
Early life and education
Born in SheffieldSheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
on to an old recusant family, he was head boy at Ampleforth College
Ampleforth College
Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest Roman Catholic co-educational boarding independent school in the United Kingdom. It opened in 1802, as a boys' school, and is run by the Benedictine monks and lay staff of Ampleforth Abbey...
in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
during his youth; later, he read law at Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, and worked for the Yorkshire Post
Yorkshire Post
The Yorkshire Post is a daily broadsheet newspaper, published in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England by Yorkshire Post Newspapers, a company owned by Johnston Press...
in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
from 1961. In 1963, he spent a year as a Harkness fellow
Harkness Fellowship
The Harkness Fellowships are a programme run by the Commonwealth Fund of New York City. They were established to reciprocate the Rhodes Scholarships and enable Fellows from several countries to spend time studying in the United States...
in the USA and he spent the next year working as a congressional fellow.
Journalistic career
In 1965, Young returned to the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. He was recruited by Denis Hamilton
Denis Hamilton
Charles Denis "C.D." Hamilton was an English newspaper editor.He was born in South Shields, County Durham, England, the son of an engineer from the Acklam iron and steel works who had retired early for health reasons. He joined the Boy Scouts and attained the rank of Eagle Scout...
of The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
. In his second year there, he became chief leader writer, a position he kept until 1977.
From 1973 to 1984, Young was also the paper's political editor. He established a Sunday column, "Inside Politics", that made him famous. Beginning in 1981, he also held the position of joint deputy editor. However, Young's relationship with The Sunday Times cooled notably when Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
took over the paper in 1981. The conflict culminated in a series of battles with editor Andrew Neil
Andrew Neil
Andrew Ferguson Neil is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster.He currently works for the BBC, presenting the live political programmes The Daily Politics and This Week...
, particularly over the US invasion of Grenada
Grenada
Grenada is an island country and Commonwealth Realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea...
in 1983. This ultimately led to Young's leaving The Sunday Times and joining The Guardian in 1984.
Young continued to write a twice-weekly political column at The Guardian until his death, and was widely acclaimed as one of the most important and influential figures in modern British journalism. Young was a strong proponent of European integration
European integration
European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe...
, and sharply expressed his disappointment with the British government's eurosceptic
EuroSceptic
EuroSceptic is the second album of British singer Jack Lucien. It was released in October 2009.Due to being an album influenced by Europop, it features songs with parts in different languages...
politics in his columns, including Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
's decision to side with George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
instead of his EU
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
partners in the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
.
Despite these differences, Young remained on good terms with British government officials, including Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
and Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, and wrote a critical biography of the latter, One of Us (1989). He wrote other books, including This Blessed Plot: Britain And Europe From Churchill To Blair, which was published in 1998.
From 1989 onwards, Young was the chairman of the Scott Trust
Scott Trust
The Scott Trust Limited is the British company which owns Guardian Media Group and thus The Guardian, The Observer and Auto Trader as well as various local newspapers, Smooth Radio and other radio stations, and various other media businesses in the UK...
, which owns The Guardian and other news media, and helped the paper through important developments such as the purchase of The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
.
Young married twice. His first wife, Helen Mason
Helen Mason
Helen Mason Young was a journalist and children's author.She gave up a successful journalistic career with the Daily Express after she married the political journalist Hugo Young and decided to devote her life to her four children.As they grew older, she grew back into work...
, with whom he had three daughters, including the film director Emily Young
Emily Young (film director)
Emily Young is an award-winning English film director and screenwriter. Her film Veronika Decides to Die, an adaptation of the book by Paulo Coelho and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar was released in 2009.-Early life:...
, and one son, died in 1989 of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
. He remarried a year later, this time to American artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Lucy Waring. He died at age 64 of colon cancer.
External links
- Hugo Young: 1938 - 2003 at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Column archive at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Column archive at the London Review of BooksLondon Review of BooksThe London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
- Conversations with Charlie RoseCharlie RoseCharles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
, videos
Obituaries
- Guardian columnist Hugo Young dies at BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
- Hugo Young, Donal Macintyre, The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
- Hugo Young, Leading British Columnist, Is Dead at 64, Warren Hoge, The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- Hugo Young - The Times obituary, The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...