Edward Stourton obituary: The former Ampleforth head boy who became a founding member of Channel 4 news team
Edward Stourton, who has died at 68 following a diagnosis of prostate cancer, was a BBC Radio 4 presenter best known for presenting news and current affairs programmes including Today, The World At One and the religious and ethical current affairs series, Sunday.
A former head boy of Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, Stourton was also one of the founding members of the Channel 4 news team in 1982.
Starting out as a scriptwriter, he went on to cover foreign news as well as a stint as Washington correspondent, where he reported on the final years of the Reagan presidency.
He joined the BBC in 1988 before returning to ITN two years later as diplomatic editor, reporting from around the world including Baghdad during the Gulf War, Bosnia during the siege of Sarajevo and from Moscow in the final days of the Soviet Union.
He returned to the BBC in 1993 and fronted the One O’Clock News for six years and presented his own Radio 4 phone-in programme, Call Ed Stourton, before joining the Today programme in 1999.
He remained on its presenting team for a decade until his voice fell out of favour with managers who considered it too upper class.
Stourton also worked as BBC Two’s world affairs strand correspondent, presented editions of Panorama as well as a series of Radio 4 programmes including The World At One, The World This Weekend and Analysis.
Along with his four-decade-long career as a broadcaster, he penned a number of books including 2013’s Cruel Crossing and his 2023 memoir Confessions – in which he revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer nearly a decade earlier.
His most recent book, Made In America (2025), explores US history and how it has led to the era of Donald Trump.
Edward John Ivo Stourton was born in November 1957 in Lagos, Nigeria, the eldest of four children of Jenny (née Abbott), a former governess, and Nigel Stourton CBE, an executive of British American Tobacco and cousin of the 22nd Baron Stourton, whose family built Allerton Castle near Knaresborough.
Nigel’s work took the family to Africa, Switzerland and Malta, and Ed was privately educated at a family-run Catholic prep school in Sussex, and then at Ampleforth, where his family had ties dating back generations.
While in Yorkshire he was friends with the future High Court judge Nicholas Mostyn, also the son of a Nigeria-based BAT executive, and they won a national schools debating prize in 1975.
He read English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge and was editor of the student newspaper, Rampage.
In 1980 he married Margaret McEwen, the daughter of a baronet, and they had a daughter and two sons.
Stourton chose to send the boys to Eton rather than Ampleforth, a decision which was reportedly badly received back in Yorkshire.
His second marriage, in 2002, was to BBC producer Fiona Murch, who survives him with a stepdaughter.