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Norris McWhirter
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Norris McWhirter
Norris Dewar McWhirter CBE (12 August 1925 – 19 April 2004) was a British writer, right-wing political activist, co-founder of The Freedom Association, and a television presenter. He and his twin brother Ross were known internationally for founding the reference book The Guinness Book of Records (known since 2000 as Guinness World Records) which they wrote and updated annually together between 1955 and 1975. After Ross's assassination by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Norris carried on alone as editor.[citation needed]
Norris and Ross were the twin sons of William McWhirter, the editor of the Sunday Pictorial, and Margaret Williamson. In 1929, as William was working on the founding of the Northcliffe Newspapers chain of provincial newspapers, the family moved to Broad Walk, Winchmore Hill. Like their elder brother, Kennedy (born 1923), Norris and Ross were educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Oxford. Norris chose to complete his law degree in two years rather than the usual three. Between 1943 and 1946, Norris served as a sub-lieutenant with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on escort duty in Atlantic and on board a minesweeper in the Pacific.
McWhirter was an excellent athlete. He recorded a time of 10.7s for the 100 metres whilst a student and later represented Scotland. He and his brother became sports journalists in 1950. In 1951, they published Get to Your Marks and that year they founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, setting out, in Norris McWhirter's words: "to supply facts and figures to newspapers, yearbooks, encyclopedias, and advertisers". At the same time, he became a founding member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians.
McWhirter came to public attention while working for the BBC as a sports commentator. On 6 May 1954, he kept the time when Roger Bannister ran the first sub four-minute mile. After the race, he began his announcement:
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: 1st, No. 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which - subject to ratification - will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire, and World Record. The time was three...
at which the rest of McWhirter's announcement was drowned out in the enthusiastic uproar.
One of the athletes covered was runner Christopher Chataway, the employee at Guinness who recommended them to Sir Hugh Beaver. After an interview in which the Guinness directors enjoyed testing the twins' knowledge of records and unusual facts, the brothers agreed to start work on the book that became The Guinness Book of Records in 1954. In August 1955, the first slim green volume – 198 pages long – was at the bookstalls, and in four more months it was Britain's No. 1 nonfiction best-seller.[citation needed]
In 1954, the McWhirter brothers sued Daily Mail sports writer J. L. Manning for his critical piece about non-journalist (i.e. not members of the National Union of Journalists) sports writers. The McWhirters were awarded £300 in damages.
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Norris McWhirter
Norris Dewar McWhirter CBE (12 August 1925 – 19 April 2004) was a British writer, right-wing political activist, co-founder of The Freedom Association, and a television presenter. He and his twin brother Ross were known internationally for founding the reference book The Guinness Book of Records (known since 2000 as Guinness World Records) which they wrote and updated annually together between 1955 and 1975. After Ross's assassination by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Norris carried on alone as editor.[citation needed]
Norris and Ross were the twin sons of William McWhirter, the editor of the Sunday Pictorial, and Margaret Williamson. In 1929, as William was working on the founding of the Northcliffe Newspapers chain of provincial newspapers, the family moved to Broad Walk, Winchmore Hill. Like their elder brother, Kennedy (born 1923), Norris and Ross were educated at Marlborough College and Trinity College, Oxford. Norris chose to complete his law degree in two years rather than the usual three. Between 1943 and 1946, Norris served as a sub-lieutenant with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on escort duty in Atlantic and on board a minesweeper in the Pacific.
McWhirter was an excellent athlete. He recorded a time of 10.7s for the 100 metres whilst a student and later represented Scotland. He and his brother became sports journalists in 1950. In 1951, they published Get to Your Marks and that year they founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, setting out, in Norris McWhirter's words: "to supply facts and figures to newspapers, yearbooks, encyclopedias, and advertisers". At the same time, he became a founding member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians.
McWhirter came to public attention while working for the BBC as a sports commentator. On 6 May 1954, he kept the time when Roger Bannister ran the first sub four-minute mile. After the race, he began his announcement:
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: 1st, No. 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which - subject to ratification - will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire, and World Record. The time was three...
at which the rest of McWhirter's announcement was drowned out in the enthusiastic uproar.
One of the athletes covered was runner Christopher Chataway, the employee at Guinness who recommended them to Sir Hugh Beaver. After an interview in which the Guinness directors enjoyed testing the twins' knowledge of records and unusual facts, the brothers agreed to start work on the book that became The Guinness Book of Records in 1954. In August 1955, the first slim green volume – 198 pages long – was at the bookstalls, and in four more months it was Britain's No. 1 nonfiction best-seller.[citation needed]
In 1954, the McWhirter brothers sued Daily Mail sports writer J. L. Manning for his critical piece about non-journalist (i.e. not members of the National Union of Journalists) sports writers. The McWhirters were awarded £300 in damages.
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