Gerald Beadle

Sir Gerald Clayton Beadle (1899–1976) was a BBC Radio announcer and administrator, and later Director of BBC Television.

Beadle was born on 17 April 1899.

He joined the BBC in 1923, as a radio announcer, left in 1924 and rejoined in 1926 as station director in Belfast. He moved to the television team in 1936. He was instrumental in establishing the BBC's Television Centre, in London.

He was knighted in December 1960.

He appeared as a "castaway" on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 30 October 1961.

His portrait, a 1961 photograph by Walter Bird, is in the National Portrait Gallery.

He died on 6 November 1976.