Sydney Jacobson, Baron Jacobson

Sydney Jacobson, Baron Jacobson MC, (26 October 1908, Zeerost, Transvaal – 13 August 1988, St Albans, Hertfordshire) was a British journalist, editor and political commentator.

Early years

Jacobson was the only son and elder child of Samuel and Anna Jacobson, a

Jacobson and his mother subsequently moved to London where he attended

During World War II Jacobson served with the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) and rose to the rank of major. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1944 in recognition of his exemplary gallantry.

Journalism

After the war he returned to journalism and worked as a feature writer on the pioneering photojournalistic magazine

By 1974 Jacobson was deputy chairman of IPC working under his friend and colleague of many years Hugh Cudlipp. During one of the two General Elections that year Jacobson was responsible for at least two of the Daily Mirror's best-known front pages - one bore nothing but a photograph of the then Prime Minister Edward Heath and the words, "AND NOW HE HAS THE NERVE TO ASK FOR A VOTE OF CONFIDENCE." The other read, "FOR ALL OUR TOMORROWS VOTE LABOUR TODAY."

Latter years

On 16 July 1975, Jacobson was made a life peer as Baron Jacobson of St Albans in Hertfordshire.^[1] (The Times newspaper reports that he had previously declined a knighthood in 1968.) He retired from journalism the same year.

Sydney Jacobson died in August 1988. He was survived by his wife, June, their daughter Ruth and sons Colin and Philip, also a journalist. At a thanksgiving service at the "journalists' church" St Bride's off of Fleet Street in London Hugh Cudlipp used his address to launch an attack on the state of British tabloid newspapers.

References

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [
  better source needed
  ]
• BBC News report on the launch of The Sun newspaper in 1964