Frank Moraes
Encyclopedia
Francis Robert "Frank" Moraes (1907 - May 2, 1974) was editor of many prominent newspapers in post-Independence India, including The Indian Express.
of Goa
n descent, the commercial-capital of India then known as Bombay in 1907, Moraes was the son of Anthony Xavier Moraes, a Goan civil engineer. There has been considerable migration of Goa
ns to Bombay for many decades. He spent his childhood in Poona, a city in western Indian state of Maharashtra (now called Pune
) and studied at Catholic
schools in both the cities.
From 1923, he was at St Xavier's College where he studied History under Henry Heras
and Economics
, later moving to Oxford
University (1927–1934) to study History. He was active in student politics, and edited the Oxford student newspaper Bharat. He also studied law at Lincoln's Inn
in London, and was called to the Bar.
in 1934, he practised as a Barrister for a few months, and in 1936 joined The Times of India
as a journalist, got promoted to junior assistant editor in 1938, and worked in Burma and China as the Times' war correspondent between 1942-1945.
Between 1946-1949, Moraes was based in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka
) as editor of The Times Ceylon and The Morning Standard. He worked as the India
correspondent of several British newspapers, and in 1950 became The Times of India's first "Indian editor", amidst a changing post-colonial situation.
On returning from Ceylon in 1949, Frank Moraes was named editor of The National Standard, a Goenka
-owned Indian newspaper that later morphed into The Indian Express. According to another journalist of Goan origin, Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, "[A]t that time I was on the news copy desk as well as being the music critic, and remember him as an individual who kept himself aloof, quite unlike other editors I have worked with. Six days a week he wrote the main editorial and a column he signed as 'Atticus'". Moraes left within months to be the editor at the Times of India.
Ribeiro recalls that in January 1953, while at Calcutta on the job of Sunday editor at their soon-to-be-started edition in that city in eastern India, Moraes visited the edition. He recalls, "Well after midnight I was down in the pressroom okaying pages as they were being "made up" on the 'stone'---those were the days of metal type and printers' ink---and in rolled Frank Moraes at the head of his cohort, and he had just a one-line mantra for me: "Let's get the paper out! Let's get the paper out!" Having said that, he kept out of our way. Others in the group, however, were more obtrusive, and soon we had to hustle them back upstairs.".
In 1957, the Indian Express (formerly the Morning Standard) named him as the editor-in-chief of this Goenka
-run newspaper. Becoming one of India's best known journalists his columns appeared regularly on Sundays and Mondays in the Indian Express, while another column signed as "Ariel" made its mark in the Sunday Standard. He did some radio broadcasts. In 1961 he was appointed Sheriff in Bombay.
Other books listed here include Introduction to India (1945. co-authored with H L Stimson), Report on Mao's China (1953); Jawaharlal Nehru
: A Biography (1956); Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas (1957); Yonder One World: A Study of Asia and the West (1957); India Today (1960); Nehru, Sunlight and Shadow (1964); John Kenneth Galbraith
Introduces India (1974, co-edited); and his political autobiography, Witness to an Era: India
1920 to the Present Day (1973).
, Frank Moraes was called an "author ... sometime editor of the Times of India", and "an Oxford-educated lawyer who was to become a celebrated journalist and Editor of The Times of India".
His archives include papers covering mainly the 1930s-1974 period, and are useful considering that he worked as a journalist, author and editor during a crucial period in the history of India and a then just-being-decolonised Asia - particularly between 1950-1974.
It also contains his notebooks and diaries, dating from 1950–1974, from Australia and New Zealand, South East Asia, China, Japan, Pakistan, India, Africa, Western and Eastern Europe and the USA. Listings of his archives say it includes correspondence, professional and personal matters, newspaper clippings, regular columns and archives, reviews of the books he published, photographs from 1930s to 1970s, recorded broadcasts and the diary of his wife, Beryl, dating to 1962.
newspaper mentions a memorial lectures in honour of Frank Moraes. It cites a "Frank Moraes Foundation" being among the institutions taking the initiative in this regard.
EducationWorldOnline.net says the Frank Moraes Foundation was set up by demographer, social worker, academician and philosopher Dr. K. Thyagarajan "in 1985 and instituted the Frank Moraes Memorial Lecture in 2002". It adds that Thyagaraj was an "ardent admirer and disciple of the late Indian Express editor Frank Moraes, the doyen of Indian journalism."
Biodata
Born in MumbaiMumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
of Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
n descent, the commercial-capital of India then known as Bombay in 1907, Moraes was the son of Anthony Xavier Moraes, a Goan civil engineer. There has been considerable migration of Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
ns to Bombay for many decades. He spent his childhood in Poona, a city in western Indian state of Maharashtra (now called Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
) and studied at Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
schools in both the cities.
From 1923, he was at St Xavier's College where he studied History under Henry Heras
Henry Heras
Henry Heras was a Spanish Jesuit priest, archeologist and historian in India.-Education:...
and Economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, later moving to Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
University (1927–1934) to study History. He was active in student politics, and edited the Oxford student newspaper Bharat. He also studied law at Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
in London, and was called to the Bar.
Career
Returning to IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
in 1934, he practised as a Barrister for a few months, and in 1936 joined The Times of India
The Times of India
The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...
as a journalist, got promoted to junior assistant editor in 1938, and worked in Burma and China as the Times' war correspondent between 1942-1945.
Between 1946-1949, Moraes was based in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
) as editor of The Times Ceylon and The Morning Standard. He worked as the India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
correspondent of several British newspapers, and in 1950 became The Times of India's first "Indian editor", amidst a changing post-colonial situation.
On returning from Ceylon in 1949, Frank Moraes was named editor of The National Standard, a Goenka
Goenka
Goenka is a Agrawal clan. It can refer to* B K Goenka, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Welspun Group* Dipali Goenka, Director of Welspun Retail Ltd* Ramnath Goenka , freedom fighter and owner of The Indian Express daily...
-owned Indian newspaper that later morphed into The Indian Express. According to another journalist of Goan origin, Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, "[A]t that time I was on the news copy desk as well as being the music critic, and remember him as an individual who kept himself aloof, quite unlike other editors I have worked with. Six days a week he wrote the main editorial and a column he signed as 'Atticus'". Moraes left within months to be the editor at the Times of India.
Ribeiro recalls that in January 1953, while at Calcutta on the job of Sunday editor at their soon-to-be-started edition in that city in eastern India, Moraes visited the edition. He recalls, "Well after midnight I was down in the pressroom okaying pages as they were being "made up" on the 'stone'---those were the days of metal type and printers' ink---and in rolled Frank Moraes at the head of his cohort, and he had just a one-line mantra for me: "Let's get the paper out! Let's get the paper out!" Having said that, he kept out of our way. Others in the group, however, were more obtrusive, and soon we had to hustle them back upstairs.".
In 1957, the Indian Express (formerly the Morning Standard) named him as the editor-in-chief of this Goenka
Goenka
Goenka is a Agrawal clan. It can refer to* B K Goenka, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Welspun Group* Dipali Goenka, Director of Welspun Retail Ltd* Ramnath Goenka , freedom fighter and owner of The Indian Express daily...
-run newspaper. Becoming one of India's best known journalists his columns appeared regularly on Sundays and Mondays in the Indian Express, while another column signed as "Ariel" made its mark in the Sunday Standard. He did some radio broadcasts. In 1961 he was appointed Sheriff in Bombay.
Retirement/Death
Frank Moraes retired from the Indian Express in 1972, shifted to London as its representative the next year, and died in 1974.Moraes' books
Moraes authored India Today, The Revolt in Tibet (1960), Report on Mao's China, Yonder one world : a study of Asia and the West, The importance of being black: an Asian looks at Africa (1965) and Behind the Bamboo Curtain.Other books listed here include Introduction to India (1945. co-authored with H L Stimson), Report on Mao's China (1953); Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
: A Biography (1956); Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas (1957); Yonder One World: A Study of Asia and the West (1957); India Today (1960); Nehru, Sunlight and Shadow (1964); John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...
Introduces India (1974, co-edited); and his political autobiography, Witness to an Era: India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
1920 to the Present Day (1973).
Author, celebrated journalist, editor
In obituaries to his son, the poet and writer Dom MoraesDom Moraes
Dominic Francis Moraes , popularly known as Dom Moraes, was a Goan writer, poet and columnist. He published nearly 30 books.-Early life:...
, Frank Moraes was called an "author ... sometime editor of the Times of India", and "an Oxford-educated lawyer who was to become a celebrated journalist and Editor of The Times of India".
Archives
Frank Moraes' archives are held in London and consist of "notebooks and diaries; correspondence; newspaper clippings and typescripts of Moraes' regular columns, articles and tour articles; reviews of Moraes' books; photographs; drawings, illustrations and programmes; recorded broadcasts; papers of (his wife) Beryl Moraes' objects".His archives include papers covering mainly the 1930s-1974 period, and are useful considering that he worked as a journalist, author and editor during a crucial period in the history of India and a then just-being-decolonised Asia - particularly between 1950-1974.
It also contains his notebooks and diaries, dating from 1950–1974, from Australia and New Zealand, South East Asia, China, Japan, Pakistan, India, Africa, Western and Eastern Europe and the USA. Listings of his archives say it includes correspondence, professional and personal matters, newspaper clippings, regular columns and archives, reviews of the books he published, photographs from 1930s to 1970s, recorded broadcasts and the diary of his wife, Beryl, dating to 1962.
Frank Moraes Foundation
This news item in The HinduThe Hindu
The Hindu is an Indian English-language daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Chennai since 1878. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it has a circulation of 1.46 million copies as of December 2009. The enterprise employed over 1,600 workers and gross income reached $40...
newspaper mentions a memorial lectures in honour of Frank Moraes. It cites a "Frank Moraes Foundation" being among the institutions taking the initiative in this regard.
EducationWorldOnline.net says the Frank Moraes Foundation was set up by demographer, social worker, academician and philosopher Dr. K. Thyagarajan "in 1985 and instituted the Frank Moraes Memorial Lecture in 2002". It adds that Thyagaraj was an "ardent admirer and disciple of the late Indian Express editor Frank Moraes, the doyen of Indian journalism."