Alice Isabel Wright ( June 11, 1869 - Dec 15, 1944)
Alice married Robert James Nisbet, a civil engineer at All Saints
Church, parish of St. Peters in Maldon on 19 August 1897. Both were 28
at the time, and stepsister Grace Hayes was a witness. At some point
they lived in Cairo. Alice and Robert had three children, Robert Hayes
Nisbet, Grace Murrell Nisbet and Thomas Nisbet. Daughter Grace Murrell
Nisbet (March 26, 1900 - Jun 3, 1986) became a controversial television
producer as detailed in the following extract from the "Dictionary of
National Biographies"
Grace Murrell Nisbet was born 26 March 1900 in Arisaig, Inverness, the
second child and only daughter of Robert James Nisbet and Alice Isabel
Wright.
Her father was a civil engineer who worked in Egypt for a time and her
first school was the Convent of Notre Dame de Sion in Alexandria.
The family returned to England in 1916 and Grace was educated at
Cheltenham Ladies College. From there she went to Bristol University
where she obtained a 1st class honours degree in history in 1921. She
went on to Somerville College, Oxford where she earned 2nd class degrees
in philosophy, politics and economics.
For the next three years she taught history at Brighton and Hove School.
She married Frank Wyndham Goldie, a handsome film actor, in 1928 and
they lived in Liverpool for six years, where Grace wrote the book "
Liverpool Repertory Theatre 1911-1934".
In 1934 they moved to London and for the next seven years she wrote
radio criticism for "The Listener".
From 1942 until 1944 she worked for the Board of Trade and then in 1944
she joined the BBC. In 1948 as a young radio producer, Grace Wyndham
Goldie was offered a post in the television service; at the time she was
working for the prestigious and highbrow Third Programme. Despite
discouragement from two senior radio executives, it was Gerald Cock who
encouraged her to defect to television. Goldie was to become the single
most important personality in the development of British current affairs
television, overseeing the development of programmes such as Panorama
and Tonight--precisely the kind of programmes that Cock had envisaged as
the sine qua non of television programming.
She was awarded the OBE in 1958.
Grace died in her London flat on 3 June 1986 |
