James Colin Ross Welch (23 April 1924 – 28 January 1997) was an English political journalist. According to Richard West in his obituary of Welch, he was a "strong and eloquent advocate of individual liberty against the power of government". Welch, son of James William Welch and Irene Margherita (née Paton), was born in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, England, at Ickleton Abbey, which his grandfather, also James Welch, had owned since 1900 and which estate the family farmed until 1933; they were also

Shire horse The Shire is a breed of draft horse, draught horse originally from England. The Shire has a great capacity for weight-pulling; it was used for agriculture, farm work, to tow barges at a time when the Canals of the United Kingdom, canal system ...

breeders A breeder is a person who selectively breeds carefully selected mates, normally of the same breed, to sexually reproduce offspring with specific, consistently replicable qualities and characteristics. This might be as a farmer, agriculturalist, ...

. James William Welch was among the principal landowners at Ickleton in 1929. Welch was educated at Stowe and

Peterhouse, Cambridge Peterhouse is the oldest Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England, founded in 1284 by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Peterhouse has around 300 undergraduate and 175 graduate stud ...

, and joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment in 1944, taking part in the Normandy landings in June and fighting until injured in March 1945. He joined the ''

Glasgow Herald ''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...

'' in 1948, and then ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' in 1950, when he became a parliamentary correspondent for the newspaper, advocating his economic liberal views for three decades. He was appointed Deputy Editor of the newspaper in 1964, serving until 1980. He died in January 1997 in Froxfield, Wiltshire. He was known for being one of the harshest critics of

Enid Blyton Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have been tra ...

in the 1950s and 1960s, especially her Noddy series, which he believed was having a negative impact on child development in post-war Britain. In 1958 he published a scathing article in '' Encounter'' in which he remarked that it was "hard to see how a diet of Miss Blyton could help with the 11-plus or even with the Cambridge English Tripos", describing Noddy as an "unnaturally priggish ... sanctimonious...witless, spiritless, snivelling, sneaking doll." His granddaughter, by his son Nicholas Russell Welch, an advertising executive, is musician

Florence Welch Florence Leontine Mary Welch
(born 28 ...

Publications

*"Policies and Parliament", ''Rebirth of Britain : a Symposium of Essays by Eighteen Writers'', London: Pan, 1964, pp. 45–57. *"Dear Little Noddy", ''Encounter'', January 1958, pp. 18–22. *''Odd Thing About the Colonel and Other Pieces'', London: Bellew Publishing, 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Colin 1924 births 1997 deaths Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge British Army personnel of World War II British political writers English economics writers English literary critics English political journalists Military personnel from Cambridgeshire People from South Cambridgeshire District Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers soldiers