Christopher Chancellor


Sir Christopher John Howard Chancellor was a British journalist and administrator who was general manager of the news agency Reuters from 1944 to 1959. The Daily Telegraph credited him for keeping the company running under extremely difficult wartime circumstances, noting that "It was largely thanks to Chancellor that Reuters had survived the war intact, despite the loss for several years of the greatest part of its world market." By 1951, at the firm's 100th anniversary, Chancellor was credited with tripling the agency's correspondents and revenues.

Biography

Chancellor was son of Lt. Col. Sir John Robert Chancellor, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, a colonial administrator. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. Chancellor joined Reuters in 1930 and remained with the agency for 29 years.
Based in Shanghai from 1931 to 1939 with his young family, he kept the agency's China service operating after the Japanese invasion in 1932. He returned to London during World War II, and worked with William Moloney and William Haley in reorganising Reuters' news and business operations, succeeding Sir Roderic Jones as the general manager of Reuters in 1944.
Chancellor was knighted in the 1951 King's Birthday Honours List. He died at Wincanton in southwest England, aged 85 years old, and was survived by his widow, his two sons and two daughters.

Family

He was married in 1926 to Sylvia Mary Paget, eldest daughter of Sir Richard Arthur Surtees Paget, 2nd Bt by his wife Lady Muriel Finch-Hatton, only surviving child of granddaughter maternally of the 12th Earl of Nottingham & Winchilsea, who was himself descended from a sibling of Jane Austen. His wife Lady Chancellor was made OBE 1976 for her philanthropic activities.
Children:
  1. John Paget Chancellor, author, publisher and editor of Knowledge encyclopædia, married 1959 Hon Alice Jolliffe, British Prime Minister in the early 20th century. They had issue, one son and three daughters..
  2. # Isabel Rose Chancellor married 1982 Joseph Boothby, eldest and elder surviving son of Basil Boothby CMG, sometime Ambassador to Iceland, of the Boothby baronets, by his wife Susan Penelope Asquith, third daughter of Brigadier Arthur Melland Asquith, third son of H.H. Asquith. They have issue, two sons and a daughter. Isabel's sister-in-law Emily Boothby is wife of author Piers Paul Read.
  3. # Katherine Sylvia Anthony Chancellor married 1stly 1989 Will Self the novelist, by whom she has issue, one son and one daughter. She married 2ndly 1992 the chef Rowley Leigh.
  4. # Edward Chancellor, "Eddy", formerly a banker with Lazard Brothers in London, now an investment manager. He is the author of Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation. In February 2009 he married Antonia Phillips, former wife of Martin Amis.
  5. # Anna Chancellor, actress, best known as the Sloaney "Duckface" in Four Weddings and a Funeral. She married 1993 Nigel Willoughby, by whom she had no issue. Anna also has a daughter Poppy by a prior relationship.
  6. a daughter, died young of spinal meningitis in China.
  7. Teresa Chancellor married 1stly 1953 Edward Victor Gatacre; they had issue two sons and three daughters. She married 2ndly 1982 John Campbell Wells, artist, and had one daughter, Dolly Wells.
  8. Susanna Maria Chancellor married 1958 Nicholas Johnston; they had issue, one son and three daughters, of whom the eldest daughter married Percy Weatherall and the youngest daughter married his younger brother.
  9. Alexander Surtees Chancellor married 2 June1964 Susanna Elisabeth Debenham;, only daughter of Martin Ridley Debenham. They had issue, including
  10. # Elizabeth Beatrice Chancellor ; married 3 November 1990 Alexander Waugh, elder son of Auberon Waugh and his wife Lady Teresa Onslow, eldest daughter of the 6th Earl of Onslow. They have issue.
  11. # Cecilia Mary Chancellor, model; she has issue. In late 2005, she was reported to be engaged to John Powlett "Jo" Colman, publisher and CEO of Psychology Today and other formerly defunct magazines. Colman is the younger son of Sir Michael Colman, 3rd Bt.
Chancellor's sister Rosemary married Air Chief Marshal Sir William Elliot, and was the mother of Simon John Elliot who is married to Annabel Shand, sister of the Duchess of Cornwall.