The most graceful mover in the game was Playfair’s description in 1954

“The most graceful mover in the game,” was Playfair’s description in 1954. “Watson, in the deep, was a white blur,” was praise from the Daily Express.Like his father, Watson reached fame as a wing-half, or midfielder in the current term, reaching his peak as a player with Sunderland, then known as the “Bank of England Team” because of their prodigious spending on transfers around 1950. Such was Willie Watson’s fame, after a nerve-racking day spent defying Australia at Lord’s in 1953, with most of the nation tuned in to the BBC’s Test Match Special, that his picture and an 84-point headline, “Wonderful Willie Watson”, decorated the front page of the old Daily Sketch. One of the resolutions called for a vote of no confidence in the chairman. It was a measure of Gibson’s authority, as well as of the respect and affection in which he was held, that the motion was defeated by a massive majority.It was, however, a defining moment for the Trust: the members had been taken by surprise and had taken the Council to task. It was Gibson’s wise conclusion that the Council should in future be involved in all decisions about the use of inalienable land.Gibson was chairman of the Advisory Council of the Victoria and Albert Museum; a director of the Royal Opera House; a trustee of Glyndebourne; a member of the executive committee of the National Art Collections Fund and an adviser to the Gulbenkian Foundation.

He was made a life peer in 1975.He died at Penns-in-the-Rocks, his home in Sussex, where he and his wife created a beautiful garden which was a source of constant joy to them both.Martin Drury. Very few cricketers ever command the front page, especially of a downmarket tabloid. He believed in its purposes and cared deeply about the buildings, countryside and great collections which it held as the nation’s trustee.During his time as Chairman membership rapidly increased, passing the million mark in 1980, and with his help and encouragement many of the Trust’s greatest treasures were acquired, among them Kedleston Hall, Belton House, Fountains Abbey, Canons Ashby and 3,000 acres of the famous Pennine massif of Kinder Scout.In 1983 he chaired an extraordinary general meeting convened by a group of members who objected to the granting of a lease for the extension of an MoD Communications Centre beneath Trust land in the Chilterns. Willie Watson, cricketer and footballer: born Bolton upon Dearne, South Yorkshire 7 March 1920; married (one son, one daughter); died Johannesburg, South Africa 23 April 2004.
Very few cricketers ever command the front page, especially of a downmarket tabloid. Gibson’s leadership was firm through this difficult time and he was notably successful in directing resources away from London and in resisting pressure from the Treasury to merge the Royal Opera with English National Opera.When he became Chairman of the National Trust in 1977, he already knew it well, having been a member of the Executive Committee since 1963.

He had also been one of the small group, chaired by Sir Henry Benson, which the Trust had commissioned in 1968 to conduct a far-reaching and, as it turned out, highly influential review of its management, organisation and responsibilities. His enjoyment of this new job after years of wrangling with politicians was immediately apparent; he seemed to feel he had come among friends. The values which motivate those who work for the National Trust were his values. Charges of “?tism” were beginning to be made and there was criticism of policies which were based, some thought, on too narrow and traditional a view of the arts. He was appointed chairman of the book-publishing arm, Longman Pearson, in 1967 and of the Financial Times in 1975. He was group chairman from 1978 to 1983.In 1972 he was appointed chairman of the Arts Council.

His five-year term coincided with a period of rapid inflation and the budgetary crises of the Labour government, reducing the Council’s grant after a long period of growth. The latter included the Westminster Press group of provincial newspapers which Gibson joined as a trainee journalist in 1947, soon rising to become editorial director. In due course, he joined the boards of the Financial Times, The Economist and S Pearson and Son, the holding company. From 1945 to 1946 he worked in the Political Intelligence Department at the Foreign Office where he met and later married Dione Pearson.