David Dimbleby
British commentator and presenter
David Dimbleby (born 28 October 1938) is an English journalist and former presenter of current affairs and political programmes, best known for having presented the BBC topical debate programme Question Time. He is the son of broadcaster Richard Dimbleby and elder brother of Jonathan Dimbleby, of the Dimbleby family.
Long involved in the coverage of national events, Dimbleby hosted the BBC Election Night coverage from 1979 to 2017, as well as United States presidential elections on the BBC until 2016. He has also presented and narrated documentary series on architecture and history.
Early life and education
Dimbleby was born in East Sheen, Surrey, the son of the journalist and Second World War war correspondent Richard Dimbleby, by his marriage to Dilys Thomas, from Wales. He had three siblings: two brothers, Jonathan Dimbleby, also a television current affairs presenter, and Nicholas (died 2024), and a sister, Sally. David Dimbleby was educated at two independent schools, the Glengorse School in Battle, East Sussex, and Charterhouse in Godalming, Surrey, where he was a contemporary of the journalist Adam Raphael.
The two younger Dimblebys both made their television débuts in the 1950s in the BBC's first holiday programme Passport, at a time when the whole family would visit resorts in Switzerland or Brittany. A holiday programme for the home counties, called No Passport, was also broadcast.
After learning French in Paris and Italian in Perugia, Dimbleby read Philosophy, politics and economics at Christ Church, Oxford and graduated with a third-class degree.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Dimbleby” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.