Charles Wilson was at the centre of some of the most critical developments in the newspaper industry in the last two decades of the 20th century, although he was little known beyond the world of journalism.
He edited two national newspapers, The Times and (briefly) The Independent, in both cases spanning periods of crisis that threatened the papers’ survival. He was a trusted lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch and later of another controversial media tycoon, Robert Maxwell. It was during his editorship of The Times that Murdoch moved its headquarters overnight, along with his other London papers, to Wapping, breaking the stranglehold that the printing unions had until then exerted on the production of national newspapers.
