Frances Gibb

Frances Gibb (born c. 1951) is a former journalist who was legal editor of The Times for many years before retiring in February 2019.

Frances Gibb
NationalityBritish
OccupationJournalist
Known forLegal editor of The Times

Early years

Frances Gibb was the oldest of three children. Her father was a solicitor, and her mother became a short story writer.[1] She was educated at St Margaret's School, Bushey. Gibb attended university in Norwich in the East Anglia region of England.[1] She graduated from the University of East Anglia with a First in English.[2] She had three sons.[1]

Career

Gibb's first job after graduating was filing cuttings for the news film agency Visnews, which she left after six months and joined the Times Higher Education Supplement.[2] Gibb worked for four years on the Times Higher Education Supplement. She then moved to The Daily Telegraph, where she was art sales correspondent for two years.[1] Her job included covering major auctions and sales, sometimes controversial, and at one time took her to India to cover a huge jewelry sale.[2]

She returned to The Times and worked for almost forty years as a reporter.[1] As a general reporter at The Times she covered stories such as the 1980 Dan-Air Flight 1008 crash in Tenerife and the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. She saw an opportunity to obtain more predictable work when The Times legal editor Marcel Berlins resigned so he could become an author of crime novels. Since she was not a lawyer, she had to overcome some resistance from the editor, Charles Douglas-Home, but persuaded him that skill in communicating to the public was more important than legal training.[2] She became The Times Legal Editor in 1982.[3] She was aged 31 at the time.[4]

At the start of her career she found that judges were "generally aloof, inaccessible and often condescending".[3] Her lack of legal qualifications was an issue to some of them.[2] The job was demanding, since many experts in the law scanned each article for errors.[4] She was in charge of daily reporting on legal news, as well as weekly pages on the law and supplements for law students. She launched the newspaper's daily legal bulletin, The Brief, and was co-editor of The Brief.[5] In 2009 at an International Council of Jurists ceremony in London Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers presented an award to Frances Gibb, Legal Affairs Editor at The Times.[6] She served under nine editors on The Times.[1] Editors included William Rees-Mogg and John Witherow.[2]

Retirement

Gibb retired from The Times on 7 February 2019.[3] At the time of Gibb's retirement a motion was tabled in the House of Commons by Keith Vaz and sponsored by Drew Hendry:[7]

That this House notes the impending retirement of Frances Gibb, the Legal Editor of The Times for 19 years; recalls her distinguished career involving periods at Visnews, The Daily Telegraph and The Times, as legal correspondent from 1982; commends her reporting on such significant developments in the British legal system as the establishment of the Crown Prosecution Service, the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice; welcomes the innovations in legal journalism she has facilitated that include the Law Supplement, the Student Law Supplement and The Brief; recognises the many campaigns she has led, including at The Times to end fault-based divorce proceedings; wishes her well in her retirement; and thanks her for inspiring a new generation of legal correspondents.[7]

In retirement Gibb would continue to contribute articles to The Times from time to time. She was to become a visiting professor in the Open University law school.[5]

References
  1. "Frances Gibb", Asian Voice, 6 March 2019, retrieved 2020-07-17
  2. Catherine Baksi (25 February 2019), "Legal Hackette lunches with Frances Gibb", Legal Hackette, retrieved 2020-07-17
  3. Frances Gibb, The Times Legal Editor, retires, Coast Communications, 7 February 2019, retrieved 2020-07-17
  4. "In tune with legal affairs -- Frances Gibb, legal correspondent for The Times newspaper", Law Society Gazette, 17 January 1995, retrieved 2020-07-17
  5. "Frances Gibb", Counsel Magazine, Lexis Nexis, retrieved 2020-07-17
  6. "Bird & Bird receives award for Global Law Firm of the Year 2009 by the International Council of Jurists". twobirds.com. Bird & Bird. June 2009. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
  7. Retirement of France Gibb, UK Parliament, 5 February 2019, retrieved 2020-07-17
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