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. In 1922 he was employed by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as its General Manager; in 1923 he became its Managing Director and in 1927 he was employed as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting ...
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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. In 1922 he was employed by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as its General Manager; in 1923 he became its Managing Director and in 1927 he was employed as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation created under a Royal Charter. His concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organizations around the world.
Born at Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, Reith was the youngest, by ten years, of the seven children of the Revd Dr George Reith, a minister of the United Free Church of Scotland (later amalgamated with Church of Scotland, and not to be confused with the Free Church of Scotland). He was to carry the strict Presbyterian religious convictions of the Kirk forward into his...
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