Wesley Arthur Kerr OBE

Area of Achievement

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Wesley Kerr is a freelance broadcaster, writer, historian, and horticulturalist. He was the first Black boy to attend Winchester College and went on to become the BBC’s first Black reporter and royal correspondent.

London, England

Jamaican

2007 – Chairman, Heritage Lottery Fund Committee for London.
2007-9 – Chairman HLF London Parks for People Committee
2011-13 – Member RHS Chelsea Show Garden Panel

Born in London of Jamaican heritage, Kerr was brought up by foster parents in Southeast England.

He attended Andover Grammar School, before getting a scholarship to the elite boy’s school Winchester College in 1970. He talked about his experience there in a 2011 programme for BBC Radio 4 When Wesley went to Winchester. The programme is no longer available to listen to, but in a review for The Guardian, Zoe Williams writes

“…he was not just the only Black boy there: he was the only boy on a scholarship, there was only one housemaster who would have him, he was certainly the only person with a Jamaican flag on his desk “

Kerr went on to study History at Trinity College, Cambridge, and then on to the BBC as a trainee.

1979-2003 BBC: trainee, director, producer, correspondent. Panorama, Book Programme,
Nationwide, London Plus, Sixty Minutes, TV, and Radio News.

1986-1990 Newsnight – Arts & Media Correspondent.
1990s BBC News – Education, Social Affairs, Health, New York, and Washington Correspondent. As Royal Correspondent Kerr broadcast live after the death of Princess Diana, footage that was used in the Oscar winning film The Queen starring Helen Mirren.

1997-2008 BBC1 consumer series; Watchdog Health check, Holiday, Face Value, On the
House, Value for Money.

2001-2008 presenter for BBC TV’s Chelsea and Hampton Court Flower Show – history of plants, places, garden design. Kerr continues to write for national newspapers and journals, and to lecture on horticulture and heritage.

Kerr served on the advisory board of The Royal Parks from 2013 to 2016 and was a Trustee at the foundation of the Royal Parks charity. He now serves on The Royal Parks’ Greenwich Park Revealed Programme Board.

Kerr is a vice-president of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association and was elected a Trustee and Council Member of the Royal Horticultural Society in 2021, having previously served on the RHS Flower Shows Panel.

He was the first Black chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund Committee for London for seven years.

He was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2015 for services to heritage.

Interviewed by the BBC in 2007 about his role with the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), Kerr commented:

“One ambition while I am chairing the committee is that all people in the 33 boroughs will be within a walk, cycle or bus ride away from a HLF funded project that they can enjoy.”

And:

“Heritage has the potential to transform people’s lives and transform their imagination and their outlook. Without understanding the past, you cannot understand the present and you have no map for the future.”

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/heather-Blackman-bronwyn-hill-and-wesley-kerr-reappointed-as-trustees-of-the-royal-parks

https://www.royalparks.org.uk/

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/jun/20/when-wesley-went-to-winchester

https://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/06/12/wesley_kerr_feature.shtml

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