William Hardcastle (26 March 1918 – 10 November 1975) was a British journalist, editor of the Daily Mail and first presenter of the lunchtime news programme The World at One on BBC Radio.
[1][2] His early intention to follow his father into the medical profession was thwarted when he contracted osteomyelitis as a fifteen-year-old, and in 1938 he joined the Shields Gazette as a reporter.
[1] Unfit for active service, Hardcastle remained a journalist throughout the Second World War, moving in turn to the Sheffield Telegraph, the London bureau of Kemsley Newspapers and Reuters.
In 1944 he became Reuters' correspondent at Supreme Allied Headquarters, followed by postings to New York and Washington.
[3] In 1959 Hardcastle was appointed editor of the Sunday Dispatch, and after two months in that job was moved to become editor of the Daily Mail until 1963,[1] covering the period when it absorbed the News Chronicle.