Christopher Chataway

British runner, broadcaster and politician (1931–2014)

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The Right Honourable Sir

Christopher Chataway

Chataway in 1972

Minister of Posts and Telecommunications
In office
24 June 1970 – 7 April 1972
Prime Minister| Edward Heath
Preceded by| John Stonehouse
Succeeded by| John Eden
Member of Parliament
for Lewisham North
In office
8 October 1959 – 10 March 1966
Preceded by| Niall MacDermot
Succeeded by| Roland Moyle
Member of Parliament
for Chichester
In office
22 May 1969 – 20 September 1974
Preceded by| Walter Loveys
Succeeded by| Anthony Nelson
Personal details
Born| (1931-01-31)31 January 1931
Chelsea, London, England
Died| 19 January 2014(2014-01-19) (aged 82)
St John's Wood, London, England
Political party| Conservative
Education| Sherborne School
Alma mater| Magdalen College, Oxford
Profession| Politician, athlete, broadcaster

Medal record

Men's athletics
Representing  Great Britain
European Championships
| 1954 Bern | 5000 metres
Representing  England
British Empire and Commonwealth Games
| 1954 Vancouver | 3 miles

Sir Christopher John Chataway (31 January 1931 – 19 January 2014) was a British middle- and long-distance runner, television news broadcaster and Conservative politician.

## Education

[edit]

Chataway was born in Chelsea, London, the son of James Denys Percival Chataway (died 1953) and Margaret Pritchard, née Smith (died 1988).[1][2] He spent his childhood in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan as his father was a district commissioner in the Sudan Political Service.[3][4][5] He was educated at Sherborne School — where he excelled at rugby, boxing and gymnastics but did not win a race until he was 16.[4] — and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he gained a philosophy, politics and economics degree,[6] His studies were outshone by his success on the athletics track as a long-distance runner.

## Athletics career

[edit]

Chataway had a short but distinguished athletics career. At the Helsinki Olympic Games of 1952, in the 5000 metres final, after being passed on the last bend by the Czech long-distance runner, Emil Zátopek, France's Alain Mimoun, and West Germany's Herbert Schade, Chataway's foot brushed the curb and he crashed headlong to the ground. Chataway managed to finish the race in fifth place. On leaving university he took an executive job with Guinness. When Sir Hugh Beaver of Guinness came up with the idea for the Guinness Book of Records, it was Chataway who suggested his old university friends Norris and Ross McWhirter as editors, knowing of their liking for facts.

Chataway continued with his running. When Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track, Chataway and Chris Brasher were his pacemakers. He finished in second place in the 5000m at the European Athletics Championship of 1954, 12.2 seconds behind the winner Vladimir Kuts, but two weeks later turned the tables at a London v. Moscow athletics competition at White City, setting a world record time of 13 minutes 51.6 seconds. The contest was televised via the Eurovision network and made Chataway a sporting celebrity: that December he won the first BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. After competing in the 1956 Olympics, Chataway retired from international athletics, though he continued to race for Thames Hare and Hounds.

## Broadcasting and politics

[edit]

Soon after leaving Oxford with a degree in politics, philosophy and economics, he decided to aim for a political career. He thought a suitable job in the rapidly expanding world of television might help.[citation needed] He refused offers in sports TV and with panel and quiz shows but secured a job in August 1955 with ITN. He and Robin Day were its first two newscasters. After six months, when loss-making ITV cut back on its news output, Chataway switched to the BBC and was for three and a half years one of Panorama's team of reporters with a different assignment each week, sometimes at home but usually abroad. By this time, he was also considering another career, this time in politics. He had been narrowly elected as a Conservative to the London County Council in 1958 in Lewisham North, and was then selected to stand for Parliament in the same seat. Lewisham North was a highly marginal seat won by Labour in a by-election in 1957, but Chataway won the seat with a majority bigger than it had been in the previous general election.

His maiden speech expressed the hope that the England cricket team would refuse to play a tour in apartheid South Africa, a highly unusual opinion for a Conservative. In Parliament, Chataway took up the issue of refugees, especially in Africa, and campaigned so hard during World Refugee Year that he was awarded a Nansen Medal. He served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary before being appointed as a junior Education Minister in July 1962. In the 1964 election, his majority was slashed to 343 and the seat looked distinctly vulnerable; in 1966 he lost.

### ILEA

[edit]

In 1967 the Conservatives unexpectedly won control of the Inner London Education Authority and the party leadership was horrified to discover that their newly elected councillors were going to try to break up comprehensive schools and replace them with secondary modern and grammar schools. Chataway, with relevant ministerial experience, was persuaded to take over. He was elected an alderman and appointed leader of the education committee. Eventually cajoling his colleagues into a more moderate line, he avoided a head-on collision with Edward Short (the Labour Education Secretary) and proceeded with those schemes for secondary reorganisation that he regarded as well founded.[citation needed]

### Heath government

[edit]

Chataway was keen to return to Parliament, and the opportunity came in a byelection in Chichester in May 1969. He then resigned as ILEA Leader. With the return of a Conservative government in 1970, and after refusing the offer of sports minister, he was appointed by Edward Heath as Minister for Posts and Telecommunications and made a privy counsellor. In this post he took charge of introducing commercial radio for the first time, ending the BBC monopoly. He also introduced to parliament the complete end to the restrictions on broadcasting hours on television and radio. The restrictions on broadcasting hours were gradually eased from early 1971 and lifted fully in January 1972.[7] After a reshuffle in April 1972 he was Minister for Industrial Development.

## Business career

[edit]

When the Conservatives were defeated in the February 1974 election, Chataway announced his retirement from politics (at the age of 43) and did not seek re-election in October 1974. He then went into business becoming a managing director of Orion Bank,[8] a consortium bank later acquired by one of its shareholders, the Royal Bank of Canada. He stayed with Orion, later as vice chairman, for 15 years. He held various non-executive directorships and was also the first chairman of Groundwork, the environmental charity, and hon. treasurer of the National Campaign for Electoral Reform.

His principal outside interest was ActionAid, a small overseas development charity, of which he became treasurer in 1974 and later chairman. By the time he left the board of trustees in 1999 ActionAid's annual turnover had grown to nearly £100 million. When Chataway's son Adam decided to launch a water project in Ethiopia in memory of his fiancée killed in a road traffic accident he chose to do it in partnership with ActionAid. Vicky's Water Project, opened in 2010, has transformed the lives of 20,000 people.

In 1991 Chataway was appointed chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority – a job he relished not least because his father had been one of the early aviators. He supported his friend Chris Brasher when he established the London Marathon, and was President of the Commonwealth Games Council for England from 1990 to 2009. He was knighted in the 1995 Birthday Honours for services to the aviation industry.[9]

In the 2005 general election his stepson Charles Walker was elected as Conservative MP for Broxbourne.

## Personal life

[edit]

He was married twice; firstly, to Anna Lett (1959; divorced 1975), with whom he had two sons and a daughter; and secondly, to Carola Walker (1976 to his death), with whom he had two further sons.

His stepson is the Conservative MP Charles Walker and his brother-in-law the former Conservative MP Peter Hordern.

## Death

[edit]

Chataway suffered from cancer for the last two and a half years of his life. He died at St John's Hospice in north west London on 19 January 2014, twelve days before his 83rd birthday.[10]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-107602?rskey=aw4KcG&result=1
2. ^ People of Today, Debrett's Ltd, 2002, p. 352
3. ^ https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-107602?rskey=aw4KcG&result=1
4. ^ a b "Sir Christopher Chataway - obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 19 January 2014.
5. ^ Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: 1945–1979. Harvester Press. 1981. p. 59.
6. ^ Sir Chris Chataway: Former British athlete dies Chris Chataway dies at BBC Sport. Retrieved 19 January 2014
7. ^ "TELEVISION AND RADIO BROADCASTING (Hansard, 19 January 1972)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
8. ^ Roberts, Richard & Christopher Arnander. (2001) Take Your Partners: Orion, the Consortium Banks and the Transformation of the Euromarkets. Palgrave Macmillan. p.14. ISBN 978-0333947746
9. ^ The United Kingdom:"No. 54066". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 16 June 1995. p. 1.
10. ^ Sir Christopher Chataway dies at Daily Telegraph Sport. Retrieved 19 January 2014

* Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Chris Chataway". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 24 January 2010.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Christopher Chataway.

* Christopher Chataway at IMDb
* Sunday Times article 13 December 2009

Parliament of the United Kingdom

Preceded by

Niall MacDermot

|  Member of Parliament for Lewisham North
1959 – 1966 | Succeeded by

Roland Moyle

Preceded by

Walter Loveys

|  Member of Parliament for Chichester
1969 – October 1974 | Succeeded by

Anthony Nelson

Educational offices
Preceded by

Ashley Bramall
as Chair

|  Leader of the Inner London Education Authority
1967 – 1969  | Succeeded by

Lena Townsend

* v
* t
* e

Commonwealth Games champions in men's 5000 metres

3 miles
(1930–1966)|

* 1930:  Stan Tomlin (ENG)
* 1934:  Wally Beavers (ENG)
* 1938:  Cecil Matthews (NZL)
* 1950:  Len Eyre (ENG)
* 1954:  Christopher Chataway (ENG)
* 1958:  Murray Halberg (NZL)
* 1962:  Murray Halberg (NZL)
* 1966:  Kip Keino (KEN)

5000 metres
(1970–present)|

* 1970:  Ian Stewart (SCO)
* 1974:  Ben Jipcho (KEN)
* 1978:  Henry Rono (KEN)
* 1982:  David Moorcroft (ENG)
* 1986:  Steve Ovett (ENG)
* 1990:  Andrew Lloyd (AUS)
* 1994:  Robert Denmark (ENG)
* 1998:  Daniel Komen (KEN)
* 2002:  Sammy Kipketer (KEN)
* 2006:  Augustine Kiprono Choge (KEN)
* 2010:  Moses Ndiema Kipsiro (UGA)
* 2014:  Caleb Ndiku (KEN)
* 2018:  Joshua Cheptegei (UGA)
* 2022:  Jacob Kiplimo (UGA)

* v
* t
* e

BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award

* 1954: Christopher Chataway
* 1955: Gordon Pirie
* 1956: Jim Laker
* 1957: Dai Rees
* 1958: Ian Black
* 1959: John Surtees
* 1960: David Broome
* 1961: Stirling Moss
* 1962: Anita Lonsbrough
* 1963: Dorothy Hyman
* 1964: Mary Rand
* 1965: Tom Simpson
* 1966: Bobby Moore
* 1967: Henry Cooper
* 1968: David Hemery
* 1969: Ann Jones
* 1970: Henry Cooper
* 1971: HRH The Princess Anne
* 1972: Mary Peters
* 1973: Jackie Stewart
* 1974: Brendan Foster
* 1975: David Steele
* 1976: John Curry
* 1977: Virginia Wade
* 1978: Steve Ovett
* 1979: Sebastian Coe
* 1980: Robin Cousins
* 1981: Ian Botham
* 1982: Daley Thompson
* 1983: Steve Cram
* 1984: Torvill and Dean (Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean)
* 1985: Barry McGuigan
* 1986: Nigel Mansell
* 1987: Fatima Whitbread
* 1988: Steve Davis
* 1989: Nick Faldo
* 1990: Paul Gascoigne
* 1991: Liz McColgan
* 1992: Nigel Mansell
* 1993: Linford Christie
* 1994: Damon Hill
* 1995: Jonathan Edwards
* 1996: Damon Hill
* 1997: Greg Rusedski
* 1998: Michael Owen
* 1999: Lennox Lewis
* 2000: Steve Redgrave
* 2001: David Beckham
* 2002: Paula Radcliffe
* 2003: Jonny Wilkinson
* 2004: Kelly Holmes
* 2005: Andrew Flintoff
* 2006: Zara Phillips
* 2007: Joe Calzaghe
* 2008: Chris Hoy
* 2009: Ryan Giggs
* 2010: Tony McCoy
* 2011: Mark Cavendish
* 2012: Bradley Wiggins
* 2013: Andy Murray
* 2014: Lewis Hamilton
* 2015: Andy Murray
* 2016: Andy Murray
* 2017: Mo Farah
* 2018: Geraint Thomas
* 2019: Ben Stokes
* 2020: Lewis Hamilton
* 2021: Emma Raducanu
* 2022: Beth Mead
* 2023: Mary Earps

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
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People|

* Trove
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*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[ENG]: England
*[NZL]: New Zealand
*[KEN]: Kenya
*[SCO]: Scotland
*[AUS]: Australia
*[UGA]: Uganda