[Edwin] Richard Cawston
[Edwin] Richard Cawston, (1923-1986), documentary filmmaker, was born in Weybridge. He became film editor and then the producer of the popular 'Television Newsreel', producing seven hundred editions between 1950 and 1954. With the BBC news division he produced a series of major documentary films, many of which won national and international awards. After the start of BBC2 in 1965, he was made Head of Documentary Programmes, and for fourteen years influenced a whole generation, including many of today's leading documentary makers. Of his own later documentaries 'Royal Family' (a yearlong record year of the private and public life of the Queen during 1968-9) was, when it was broadcast, the most popular documentary in television history, and led to him producing the Queen's Christmas Day broadcast to the Commonwealth from 1970 to 1985.