Sir Hugh Carleton Greene KCMG, OBE (15 November 1910 - 19 February 1987) was a British journalist and television executive. He was the director-general of the BBC from 1960 to 1969, and is generally credited with modernising an organisation that had fallen behind in the wake of the launch of ITV in 1955. On the Orders insignia, St Michael is often depicted subduing Satan. ... The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority, these are Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross (GBE) Knight Commander... is the 319th day of the year (320th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1910 (MCMX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday [1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... [[Media:Italic text]]{| style=float:right; |- | |- | |} is the 50th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year 1987. ... For other uses, see Journalist (disambiguation). ... TV redirects here. ... The Director-General is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the BBC. The position is appointed by Board of Governors of the BBC. Sir John Reith (1927-1938) Sir Frederick Ogilvie (1938-1942) Sir Cecil Graves and Robert W. Foot (joint Director-Generals, 1942-1943) Robert W. Foot (1942... This article is an overview article about the Crown chartered British Broadcasting Corporation formed in 1927. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... For other uses, see ITV (disambiguation). ... Year 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1955 Gregorian calendar). ...

Early life and work

Hugh was one of the four sons and two daughters of Charles Henry Greene, then the Headmaster of Berkhamsted School. He was the brother of the famous writer Graham and Raymond, a distinguished physician and Everest mountaineer. (The eldest brother, Herbert, was a relatively little-known poet perhaps best remembered for leading a march at BBC Broadcasting House in protest against one of his brother's actions as Director-General.) In the UK and elsewhere, a head teacher is the most senior teacher in a school. ... Berkhamsted Collegiate School is a public school in Hertfordshire, England, formed in 1997 by the amalgamation of the original Berkhamsted School, founded in 1541 by John Incent, Dean of St Pauls Cathedral, Berkhamsted School for Girls, established in 1888, and Berkhamsted Preparatory School. ... This article is about the writer. ... Charles Raymond Greene (1901-1982) was a Doctor of Medicine and mountaineer, brother of the novelist Graham Greene and the broadcaster Hugh Greene. ... Everest redirects here. ... Broadcasting House is also the name of a BBC Radio 4 programme. ...

After education at Berkhamsted School and Merton College, Oxford, Greene came to prominence as a journalist in 1934 when he became the chief correspondent in Nazi Berlin for the Daily Telegraph newspaper. He and several other British journalists were expelled from Berlin as an act of reprisal for the removal of a Nazi propagandist in England. Greene, however, went on to report from Warsaw on the opening events of the Second World War and continued to follow its progress through the early stages. He served briefly with the Royal Air Force in 1940 as an interrogator, but was encouraged by the military authorities to join the BBC later that year. Berkhamsted Collegiate School is a public school in Hertfordshire, England, formed in 1997 by the amalgamation of the original Berkhamsted School, founded in 1541 by John Incent, Dean of St Pauls Cathedral, Berkhamsted School for Girls, established in 1888, and Berkhamsted Preparatory School. ... and of the Merton College College name The House of Scholars of Merton Named after Walter de Merton Established 1264 Sister college Peterhouse, Cambridge Warden Prof. ... Year 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... This article deals with The Daily Telegraph in Britain, see The Daily Telegraph (Australia) for the Australian publication The Daily Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper founded in 1855. ... For other uses, see Warsaw (disambiguation) and Warszawa (disambiguation). ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... RAF redirects here. ... Year 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ...

Wartime and post-war work

Greene entered the BBC as head of the German Service at the age of 29. He made significant improvements to their transmissions following a risky flight in a De Havilland Mosquito aircraft over occupied Norway to study the effects of Nazi radio jamming. He also presented news and discussion programmes and became fairly well-known in Europe for this role. From 1941, Greene also helped to smooth the relationship between the BBC and the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) whose goals were somewhat at odds (the BBC strove for accurate, unbiased journalism whereas the PWE was largely concerned with propaganda). The de Havilland Mosquito[1] was a British combat aircraft that excelled in a number of roles during the Second World War. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see 1941 (disambiguation). ... During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale. ...

Following the war, Greene helped with the rebuilding of German broadcasting infrastructure in the British Occupied Zone. As the Cold War got underway, he was given the task of leading the BBC's East European service and later produced propaganda for the British Army in Malaya during the Communist uprising of 1947 (see History of Malaysia). The C-Pennant Occupation zones in Germany (1945) Capital Berlin (de jure) Political structure Military occupation Governors (1945)  - UK zone F.M. Montgomery  - French zone Gen. ... For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation). ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... The Malayan Union was formed on April 1, 1946 by the British. ... This article is about the form of society and political movement. ... Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The history of Malaysia is a relatively recent offshoot of the history of the wider Malay-Indonesian world. ...

Greene returned to the BBC in the 1950s where his reputation and ability caught the attention of Director-General Sir Ian Jacob. (It was probably during this period that he began using his middle name, Carleton, presumably to distinguish him from the popular ITV presenter Hughie Green.) He started as Director of Administration but in 1958 he swapped jobs with the unpopular Tahu Hole to become Director of News and Current Affairs. He succeeded Jacob as Director-General two years later in 1960. Mere days after his promotion, Greene made arrangements for Hole to receive a golden handshake to persuade him into early retirement. Indeed, according to one of his biographers, Greene thought one of his greatest contributions to broadcasting was the restoration of order to Hole's austere news department which had come to be known as the Kremlin of the BBC. It later materialised that Hole had leaked a secret BBC document to the competing Independent Television Authority (ITA) in which concerns were voiced about the financial interests of newspapers in ITV companies. Greene learned of the leak from a displeased Ivone Kirkpatrick, then chairman of the ITA. (Kirkpatrick had previously been a member of the Political War Executive, Head of the BBC's wartime European Services and High Commissioner of the British Occupied Zone in Germany and had worked with Greene many times before.) The leak would have led to Hole's immediate dismissal but in actual fact it was only detected shortly after his retirement. The 1950s decade refers to the years 1950 to 1959 inclusive. ... Sir Ian Jacob was Director-General of the BBC from 1952 to 1959, succeeding Sir William Haley and giving way to Sir Hugh Greene. ... For other uses, see ITV (disambiguation). ... Hughie Green (February 2, 1920 - May 3, 1997), was the host of numerous British television shows. ... Jan. ... Tahu Ronald Charles Pearce Hole (29 March 1908 - 22 November 1985) was a New Zealand born journalist who worked as the BBCs television news editor during the period immediately following the Second World War. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A golden handshake or golden parachute is a clause in an executive employment contract that provides the executive with a significant severance package in the case that the executive loses their job through firing, restructuring, or even scheduled retirement. ... The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was a body created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of Independent Television (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. ... For other uses, see ITV (disambiguation). ... Sir Ivone Augustine Kirkpatrick (1897 – May 25, 1964) was a British diplomat. ...

Director-General of the BBC

Greene kept the BBC in pace with the major social changes in Britain in the 1960s, and through such series as Steptoe and Son, Z Cars and That Was The Week That Was, he moved the corporation away from Reithian middle-class values and deference to traditional authority and power. Controversial, socially concerned dramas such as Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home were broadcast as part of The Wednesday Play strand, which also gave Dennis Potter his breakthrough as a dramatist with, among other works, the "Nigel Barton" plays. As a result of Greene's breaking down of Reithian cultural mores, the BBC also greatly increased its standing as a broadcaster of pure light entertainment, proving that it could achieve ratings in the main-stream, populist market comparable to those achieved by ITV. Hugh Greene also strongly opposed pressure from the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, a stance not always followed by future director-generals. Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherds Bush, London. ... Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars, and always pronounced zed, never zee) was a British television drama series centred around the work of regular beat police officers in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. ... That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme that aired on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. ... Sir John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith KT GCVO GBE CB TD PC (20 July 1889–16 June 1971) was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. ... Up The Junction was the third single released from Squeezes second album, Cool for Cats. ... Carol White as Cathy at the beginning of the play. ... The Wednesday Play was a British television drama anthology series, which ran on BBC ONE from 1964 to 1970. ... Liber Amoris Dennis Christopher George Potter (17 May 1935—7 June 1994) was a controversial British dramatist who is best known for several widely acclaimed television dramas which mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. ... Light entertainment is a term used to describe a broad range of usually televisual performances. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

The tone of BBC radio overall changed less radically in the Hugh Greene era than that of BBC television, with reforms of the networks not coming until 1970 (by which time Sir Charles Curran was Director-General). However it was in 1967, under Greene's directorship, that the corporation embraced pop radio for the first time with Radio 1, taking most of its DJs and music policy from off-shore radio (on the notorious pirate ships), which had just been banned by the government. BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. ...

Greene's undoing followed the appointment of the former Conservative minister Lord Hill as chairman of the BBC governors from September 1, 1967, by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who had criticised Hill's appointment as chairman of the Independent Television Authority by a Conservative government in 1963. A more cautious and conservative atmosphere then took hold in the corporation, typified by the axeing (until 1972) of Till Death Us Do Part, one of the series most despised by Mary Whitehouse, but conversely one of its most popular in the ratings. In July 1968 the BBC issued the document Broadcasting In The Public Mood without Greene's significant involvement, seeming to question the continued broadcasting of the more provocative and controversial material (one of Greene's allies at the top level of the corporation described this document as "emasculated and philistine") and in October 1968 Greene announced that he would be retiring as Director-General. He was succeeded the next year by the more conservative Sir Charles Curran. This move was welcomed by a great many MPs, Governors of the BBC, Churchmen and the National Viewers and Listerners Association, as Greene was regarded as a man of low moral fibre and as the person responsible for the increasing volume of sex, violence and pornography on television. Today, some people still attribute the fall in moral standards and society disintegration to Greene and those who shared his beliefs. Charles Hill, Baron Hill of Luton (15 January 1904 —22 August 1989) M.D., was an English administrator, doctor and television executive. ... is the 244th day of the year (245th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... For other persons named Harold Wilson, see Harold Wilson (disambiguation). ... The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was a body created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of Independent Television (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. ... This article is about the BBC TV series. ...

Echoes of the removal of Hugh Greene could be heard in the departure in 2004 of Director-General Greg Dyke in the wake of the Hutton Inquiry. Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a journalist and broadcaster. ... The Hutton Inquiry was a British judicial inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton, appointed by the British government to investigate the death of a government weapons expert, Dr. David Kelly. ...

Other roles

Hugh Greene then became one of the BBC governors, a position he held until 1971. He has remained a divisive figure in what have been called the British "culture wars" (after the American term for the liberal-conservative divide in US society); he has frequently been attacked by those of a conservative bent, especially the writer Peter Hitchens, for his part in the erosion of, what they see as, a better Britain. But he has been praised by some of liberal and Leftish leanings for opening up an, as they claim, ossifying institution, and creating a more tolerant and open-minded society. The fact remains that one's opinion of Sir Hugh Carleton Greene can depend entirely on one's opinion of the social changes — less deference to traditional authority and the traditional establishment — that are most frequently associated with the 1960s. Sir Hugh Greene's influence on British society — both on those who approve of what he stood for and on those who despise it — remains, as does the influence of those social changes more generally. Recently, in the wake of the Hutton Report, there has been some further debate about the relationship between the government, the Establishment and the BBC. Peter Hitchens Peter Jonathan Hitchens (born 28 October 1951 in Sliema, Malta) is a British journalist, author and broadcaster. ...

Beyond his broadcasting and journalistic work, Greene was also known for his appreciation of beer and eventually became a director of the Greene King Brewery, originally established by his great-grandfather, Benjamin Greene, in 1799. He also once bested his famous brother in a writing contest. For other uses, see Beer (disambiguation). ... Greene King logo Greene King is a British brewery established in 1799 in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. ... 1799 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... This article is about the writer. ...

Sir Ian Jacob was Director-General of the BBC from 1952 to 1959, succeeding Sir William Haley and giving way to Sir Hugh Greene. ... The Director-General is chief executive and editor-in-chief of the BBC. The position is appointed by Board of Governors of the BBC. Sir John Reith (1927-1938) Sir Frederick Ogilvie (1938-1942) Sir Cecil Graves and Robert W. Foot (joint Director-Generals, 1942-1943) Robert W. Foot (1942...

Portrayals in Popular Culture

In 2008 the role of Greene was played by the actor Hugh Bonneville in the BBC drama Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story. The play focused on Greene's war with Whitehouse (played by Julie Walters) and latterly with Lord Hill (played by Ron Cook) in the period while he was BBC Director General in the 1960s. The script, and Bonneville's performance, brought out many of the character's personal eccentricities, as well as his firm principles in withstanding calls for censorship. 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. ... Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams, known professionally as Hugh Bonneville, (born 10 November 1963 in London, England) is an acclaimed English stage, film and television actor. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... Julia Mary Walters, OBE (born February 22, 1950) is an English Golden Globe-winning actress. ... Ron Cook (born in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom) is a British actor, who has been active in the theatre, film and television since the 1970s. ...

Sources

• Miall, Leonard (1994). Inside the BBC: British Broadcasting Characters. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 103-110. ISBN 0-297-81328-5. 
• Tise Vahimagi, 'Sir Hugh Greene (1910-1987)', screenonline: the definitive guide to Britain's film and TV history
• Greene King Brewery website