Nick Herbert, who was editorial director of the newspaper group Westminster Press for 18 years, has died aged 88. Nick was also a foreign correspondent for The Times and editor of the Cambridge Evening News. His determination to give editors an independent and authoritative voice led to the creation of the Society of Editors.

In the 1970s and 80s he was a “kingmaker” who appointed many of the regional Press’s high-profile editors. Former colleagues described him as a “visionary” and “a champion for editorial freedom” who “inspired a generation of journalists to create campaigning and compassionate community newspapers”. He is credited with modernising the regional and local Press by appointing young, energetic and often untested editors. Terry Quinn, who became editor of the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford in 1984, said: “I and many other unworthy characters owe their careers to Nick. Despite his ‘establishment’ background, he gambled on a new generation of young, rude upstart editors (including me), to reboot and modernise regional newspapers in the eighties. He and his sidekick Bob James did more than anyone else to change the face of stuffy, stale provincial journalism and shepherd in game-changing computer technology.”

Nick also fought against any threat to editorial integrity, be it from politicians, advertisers, lawyers or the unions.

Allan Prosser, who Nick made editor of the Acton Gazette at 25, recalled: “When a production union threatened, just before midnight, to ‘black’ a story they didn’t like he asked me four quick questions: ‘Was the story accurate; was it fair; was it balanced; did I trust the reporter?’ Once satisfied he said: ‘Tell the union that if they interfere with editorial content then publication will be suspended until the story runs in the form that you deem acceptable as editor.’ After a hastily convened chapel meeting the report went in as written and the paper hit its deadline.” It is one of many examples of Nick Herbert supporting his editor to the hilt.

Before becoming WP’s editorial chief in 1974, Nick enjoyed an illustrious reporting career. He started on the Reuters sports desk before moving to the diplomatic desk in America. He then joined The Times as assistant Washington correspondent, under the legendary Louis Heren, in 1960. Nick covered the assassination of JFK, the Cuban missile crisis, attended the first Beatles concert at the Washington Coliseum (which he described as sounding like a jet engine taking off due to all the screaming fans) and interviewed Martin Luther King Jr while walking over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. He was appointed Middle East correspondent and moved, with his wife Jenny and two small children, to Beirut. There he covered the Six Day War in 1967, the Shah of Iran’s inauguration and the withdrawal of British troops from Aden.

Nick returned to Britain as deputy features editor at The Times and in 1970 took on the editorship of the Cambridge Evening News. Four years later he was appointed editorial director of Westminster Press – owners of 120 regional and local newspaper titles including The Northern Echo, the Oxford Mail, the Bradford Telegraph & Argus, the Bath Chronicle and the Brighton Evening Argus.

The role included appointing, guiding and supporting his editors. Nick, who was a keen sportsman, said that being captain of his school cricket and rowing teams stood him in good stead for the task. During his tenure he guided the WP titles from hot metal to new technology, set up the renowned editorial training centre in Hastings and, as chairman of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors, was an architect of the Society of Editors.

Dennis Nicholas Herbert was born in Watford in 1934 to Dennis and Elizabeth Herbert, spent his early childhood in Uganda, where his father was a headteacher, attended Oundle School in Northamptonshire and read English at Clare College, Cambridge. He married Jennifer Bailey, who he met at a New Year’s Eve party, in 1958. The couple had four children Libby, Cally, Alice and Chris and 12 grandchildren. Jenny died in 2018. Nick found happiness again and married the novelist Jill Paton Walsh in September 2020 but she died just three weeks after the wedding. His daughter Cally said of her father: “He stoically bore the pain and sadness of both deaths and continued to live independently with help from family, friends and a dedicated team of carers until his last day.”

In 1982 he succeeded his father, a hereditary peer, becoming 3rd Baron, Lord Hemingford of Watford and used his maiden speech in the Lords to speak against water company privatisation. He left the House of Lords in 1999 when the Labour Government restricted the number of hereditary peers. His last speech was on the introduction of the Press Complaints Commission.

Those who worked with Nick during his Westminster Press days have been paying tribute to their colleague and mentor.

Former WP chief executive and chairman, Hew Stevenson, said: “Nick was immensely charming and commanded the respect of everyone throughout the Westminster Press group, being totally at ease with all walks of life. I shall never forget his courage, a quality sorely needed in the newspaper industry, as we fought to introduce new technology in the face of determined union opposition in the 1980s. He had a gift for spotting the best in people and promoting them into jobs in which they then flourished. There were many in Westminster Press – not just editors but young managers as well – who went on to enjoy happy and successful careers as a result of his benign and powerful influence. He had all the qualities that would have made him an exceptional officer in the armed forces.”

Allan Prosser, who went on from Acton to edit the Crawley Observer, The Northern Echo and become MD of North of England Newspapers and York and County Press, said: “Nick was a man of deeply held convictions and opinions and one of the most fundamentally decent and honourable people you could ever meet. I lost count of the times he told me that it was important that journalists leave the office to ‘get the winds of the world in their face’ For years he formed a formidable double act with Bob James, the master typographer of his age, and championed the role of technology which he thought would liberate editorial from artificial and restrictive ‘old Spanish customs’.”

Neil Benson, who worked at the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford, said: “I remember Nick as a charming and thoroughly decent man, who always had time for people. On one occasion, he’d heard I was disappointed at missing out on a promotion, and he went out of his way to meet me and to explain his decision. I was very impressed by that. When I was made editorial director at Trinity Mirror Regionals, I thought about the way Nick had done the job at Westminster Press, and took a lot from it.”

Paul Deal was appointed by Nick to launch the Luton Leader aged 25 and went on to edit weeklies in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire and the Evening Chronicle in Bath. He said: “I owe a great deal to Nick for trusting me at an early age to build a team and launch a paper against well-established competitors. I recall a complaint to Nick about a campaign I was running in the Bedfordshire Times to stop a nuclear waste dump on the outskirts of the county town. Nick called to get my side of the story. He then gently advised me not to allow our coverage to be too sensationalist but stressed he was supportive of our aims and would deal with the complainants. He was similarly steadfast when a major advertiser threatened to pull out if a negative story was published. The story stayed in. He was a gentleman – kind-hearted and considerate. He was also a shrewd judge of when his editors were ready to move up to a bigger league.”

Perry Austin-Clarke, who Nick appointed as editor of the Yorkshire Gazette and Herald and who went on to be the long-standing editor of the Telegraph & Argus, said: “I will always be grateful for the example he set of a rigorous adherence to traditional editorial principles – one I tried hard to uphold over my next 30 years as an editor. He was unfailingly good-humoured and, in my early years, I was always grateful for the occasional motivational notes he typed up on copy paper and dispatched from Newspaper House. ‘Old school’ he may have been but he always had an eye to change and future trends. I remember sitting around a green-screen computer in his London office as he introduced editors to something called ‘the worldwide web’ – and urged us to get to know it intimately! Integrity and a passionate belief in the fourth estate were key to the respect and admiration he was held in by all the editors.”