TRIBUTES have been paid following the death of a former Northern Echo editor.

Mark Barrington-Ward, who was 93, spent a year in charge of the Northern Echo, before he was succeeded by the Sir Harold Evans in 1961.

He then edited the Oxford Mail between 1961 and 1979 during his lengthy career of running regional press titles.

After his stint in Oxford, he served as London editor of the newspaper’s then-owner Westminster Press, before retiring in 1993.

Current Northern Echo editor Karl Holbrook said: “Mark Barrington-Ward was, by all accounts, a formidable and committed editor with a long, distinguished career.

“Although he was only here for a short time, he edited The Northern Echo during a prolific period in our illustrious history and helped set the stage for his successor, the legendary Sir Harold Evans.

“He will forever be part of our story and we are saddened to hear of his loss.”

The son of Robin Barrington-Ward, who edited The Times between 1941 and 1948, Mark was educated at Eton College and read modern history at Balliol College, Oxford.

He joined the Manchester Guardian in 1951, but moved to Kampala as founding editor of the Uganda Argus in 1955, returning five years later to take his post with the Darlington-based Echo.

An obituary in The Times states: “By his own account he was a risk-averse character, insufficiently hard-nosed for the rough and tumble of national newspapers.

“Nevertheless, he was involved in plenty of battles in Oxford, where he amassed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city’s history and planning.

“He was no nimby, pleading the cause for good design, yet little got past his gimlet eye and lightly worn erudition.”

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In his later role with Westminster Press, where his leaders on national and international events were syndicated to local newspapers across the country, Mark was described as “a master of weighing up the pros and cons of a subject”.

The Times obituary adds: “He remained with Westminster Press as London editor until 1993, rising early most days to write leading articles for the group’s titles, whether the Bath Chronicle or the Telegraph and Argus in Bradford, where they were welcomed by harassed editors whose clocks were ticking down to their daily deadlines.”

Mark, whose wife Catherine died in 2012, is survived by three of their children – Olivia, Hester and Arthur.

Their son Robert died earlier this year, while Mark himself passed away on October 23, two days short of his 94th birthday.

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