Former Times editor Rees-Mogg dies

Dec 29 2012

Lord Rees-Mogg, the former editor of The Times, has died at the age of 84.

As William Rees-Mogg, he was editor from January 1967 to March 1981.

His son, the Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, told the paper that the peer had only discovered recently that he had inoperable oesophageal cancer.

Lord Rees-Mogg was also a former vice chairman of the BBC and chairman of the Arts Council.

After his tenure as editor, Lord Rees-Mogg was a columnist highly influential in Tory circles, particularly during the Thatcher and Major governments.

He received a life peerage in 1988 and sat as a cross-bencher, although he had twice in the 1950s stood for Parliament as a Conservative.

Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Times: "It has been a mercifully short illness. He died very peacefully and a member of his family was with him. He was very prepared for it."