30 Facts About Peregrine Worsthorne

Sir Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne was a British journalist, writer, and broadcaster.

Peregrine Worsthorne spent the largest part of his career at the Telegraph newspaper titles, eventually becoming editor of The Sunday Telegraph for several years.

Peregrine Worsthorne was born at Cadogan Square in Knightsbridge, London, the younger son of General Alexander Louis Koch Peregrine Worsthorne, a Belgian banker who had served his country in World War I, and Priscilla Reyntiens, an English Roman Catholic and the granddaughter of the 12th Earl of Abingdon.

Peregrine Worsthorne's mother divorced his father when he was five years old, and shortly afterwards married Sir Montagu Norman, then the Governor of the Bank of England.

Peregrine Worsthorne's biological father reverted his name to Koch de Gooreynd in 1937 and lived in Rhodesia for several years; Peregrine Worsthorne discovered in the early 1960s that a half-brother was born during this period.

Peregrine Worsthorne was educated at Stowe School, where, he wrote, he was once seduced on the art room chaise-longue by George Melly, a fellow pupil who was later a jazz singer and writer; Melly always denied it happened.

Welch had a career in journalism, and persuaded Peregrine Worsthorne to apply to Peterhouse, Cambridge.

Peregrine Worsthorne began his studies at the college in 1942, having won an exhibition to read history.

Peregrine Worsthorne returned to Peterhouse and took his degree a year early, gaining a second.

Peregrine Worsthorne entered the newspaper industry as a sub-editor on The Glasgow Herald in 1946, on a two-year training programme for Oxbridge graduates.

Peregrine Worsthorne then worked for The Times from 1948 on the Foreign Desk, again as a sub-editor in his first year there.

Peregrine Worsthorne became a correspondent in Washington, where his advocacy of Senator Joe McCarthy's pursuit of communist subversion in the United States government eventually led to a split with the more circumspect Times and in 1953, he joined The Daily Telegraph.

In 1961 Peregrine Worsthorne was appointed as the first deputy editor of The Sunday Telegraph; a job with fewer responsibilities than its title implies, and in his autobiography Peregrine Worsthorne expressed some regret that he rejected an offer to become editor of The Yorkshire Post.

Peregrine Worsthorne mourned the loss of the British Empire; he once argued that the public's acceptance of decolonisation was paralleled by their acquiescence to socialism.

Peregrine Worsthorne initially accepted Britain's entry into the European Economic Community.

Peregrine Worsthorne was critical of Margaret Thatcher's connection of domestic socialism with the form in the Eastern Bloc as he did not perceive this as being in line with the experiences of most of the population.

Peregrine Worsthorne defended the conduct of Pinochet's forces in the 1973 Chilean coup, and wrote that he hoped the British army would launch a coup in Britain if a radical minority socialist government should ever enter power.

In 1978 Peregrine Worsthorne did not see the potential for elements of his views to be reflected in the forthcoming change of government.

Peregrine Worsthorne's responsibilities were reduced to the three comment pages by the editor-in-chief Andrew Knight, who sacked Peregrine Worsthorne as editor over lunch in Claridge's.

In January 1990, Peregrine Worsthorne was the defendant in a libel case brought by Andrew Neil and The Sunday Times, over a March 1989 editorial "Playboys as Editors" in The Sunday Telegraph which claimed that as a result of Neil's involvement with Pamella Bordes, he and The Observers Donald Trelford should not serve as editors of their titles.

Peregrine Worsthorne long criticised homosexual activity, castigating Roy Jenkins in particular in a 1982 editorial for his tolerance of "queers".

Peregrine Worsthorne said on the programme that not being gay was "a close-run thing" for some of his contemporaries.

Peregrine Worsthorne claimed to have been seduced by Jazz musician George Melly.

In 1993, Peregrine Worsthorne criticised the legacy of Margaret Thatcher's government; during the 1980s, his ambivalence to what he saw as her "bourgeois triumphalism" resulted in Peregrine Worsthorne and the Telegraph being out of favour at 10 Downing Street for some time.

Peregrine Worsthorne added "For many of our people, life in the late 20th and in the 21st Century will be repulsive, brutal, and short as well".

From that point, Peregrine Worsthorne became critical of Conrad Black's wife, Barbara Amiel, and Black himself for his newspapers' uncritical support for Israel and the foreign policies of the United States.

In 1999, Peregrine Worsthorne said that only a federal Europe can stop the abolition of Britain, arguing that "the European Right has no fear of the strong state, no hang-ups about individual liberty, which is why it is as willing to use the power of the state to curb the excesses of free speech and a free media, as of free enterprise or free trade".

In 1950, Peregrine Worsthorne married Claudie Bertrande Baynham, with whom he had a daughter and stepson.

Peregrine Worsthorne publicly advocated for Lambton and her sisters to inherit properties and fortunes from their father.

Peregrine Worsthorne died at home on 4 October 2020, at the age of 96.