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Man who 'democratised'
Royal family gets title
LONDON, Wednesday
(AAP). — Mr William
Heseltine, the Australian
farmer's son credited with the
"democratisation" of the Royal
family's relations with the Press,
has been knighted in the New
Year's honours list.
, Mr Heseltine, 50, has been ap
pointed a Knight Commander of the
Royal Victorian Order.
' At present he is deputy private
secretary to the Queen, and is con
sidered certain to succeed Sir Philip
Moore, 60, as the Queen's top right
hand man when Sir Philip retires.
But it was as assistant information
officer at the Palace in 1960 and
1961, then as then as assistant press
secretary from 1965 to 1967 and
press secretary from 1968 to 1972 to
the Queen that Mr Heseltine made
his name. ,
Hitherto, the Royal family had
been comparatively remote from the
media, protected by a number of
autocratic liaison officers.
Mr Heseltine, the first Com
monwealth citizen to establish
himself in the upper ranks of the
palace hierarchy, was credited with
a leading role in humanising and
democratising the Royal family
through discreet, firm but friendly
press relations.
It was he who conceived and ar
ranged a ground-breaking interview
Prince Philip gave in the early 1960s
to the national news agency, the
Press Association, about Prince
Charles's education.
Later, he was the man behind
Prince Charles's own first radio in
terview and the first television
documentary about the Royal
family.
Mr Hcseltinc was bom in East
Fremantle, descendant of a family of
Yorkshire boat-builders one of
whom helped build Captain James
Cook's Endeavour.
Scholarships took him to second
ary school and the University of
Western Australia, where he gradu
ated with honours in history in 1951
and joined the Prime Minister's De
partment in Canberra.
At the age of only 25 lie became
private secretary to the Ja.te Prime
Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, who
five years later put his name forward
when the Queen asked for a nomi
nation from Australia to be assistant
information officer at the palace.
He returned to Australia after his
two-year assignment to become as
sistant federal director of the Liberal
Party, but then returned to London
in 1965 as assistant press secretary.
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