Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams is most famous as a magazine editor and journalist. He was one of the founders of "Private Eye", the fortnightly satirical magazine which has become a British institution since its inception in 1961, and became its second editor in 1963, replacing Christopher Booker.

During the original run of the series, Fawlty Towers (1975), as television critic of "The Spectator" magazine, he wrote a scathing review of the program. John Cleese, whom he criticized personally in the same review, was a friend of Peter Cook, who was the owner of "Private Eye", the magazine which Ingrams edited, and took great exception to the review. Cleese's revenge was to write in a character called Mr Ingrams into a later episode, a guest whom Basil discovers blowing up an inflatable sex doll.

In 1976, he was the subject of a private prosecution for criminal libel, brought by the multi-millionaire James Goldsmith. It was the first such prosecution to take place in Britain for 53 years. It was Goldsmith's avowed aim to close down the magazine "Private Eye", which Ingrams edited and in which, Goldsmith claimed, he had been libeled. Ingrams could theoretically have been imprisoned in the event of a successful prosecution. However, the case attracted many criticisms of Goldsmith from journalists, and he was subsequently foiled in his efforts to become the owner of various British newspapers. The case was eventually settled out of court.

He remained in this post until 1986, when he astonished his own staff by abruptly announcing his resignation.

He subsequently started a quite different kind of magazine, "The Oldie", whose first issue appeared in 1992.

His maternal grandfather was a famous 19th-century surgeon and the most senior of Queen Victoria's medical advisers.