Sir David Frederick Attenborough OM CH CVO CBE FRS FLS FZS FSA FRSGS (/ˈætənbrə/; born 8
May 1926)[2][3] is an English broadcaster and natural historian. He is best known for writing and
presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history
documentary series forming the Life collection that together constitute a comprehensive survey of
animal and plant life on Earth. He is a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as
controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. He
is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programmes in each of black and
white, colour, HD, 3D and 4K.[4][5]
Attenborough is widely considered a national treasure in Britain, although he himself does not like
the term.[6][7][8] In 2002 he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide poll for the
BBC.[9] He is the younger brother of the director, producer and actor Richard Attenborough,[10] and
older brother of the motor executive John Attenborough.
Attenborough was born in Isleworth, Middlesex (now part of west London), and grew up in College
House on the campus of the University College, Leicester, where his father, Frederick,
was principal.[11] He is the middle of three long-lived sons; his elder brother, Richard, became an
actor and director who died in 2014, and his younger brother, John, was an executive at Italian car
manufacturer Alfa Romeo who died in 2012.[12] During the Second World War, through a British
volunteer network known as the Refugee Children's Movement, his parents also fostered
two Jewish refugee girls from Europe.[13]
Attenborough spent his childhood collecting fossils, stones, and natural specimens.[14] He received
encouragement aged seven, when a young Jacquetta Hawkes admired his "museum". He also spent
much time in the grounds of the university, and, aged 11, he heard that the zoology department
needed a large supply of newts, which he offered through his father to supply for 3d each. The
source, which he did not reveal at the time, was a pond less than five metres from the
department.[15] A few years later, one of his adoptive sisters gave him a piece of amber containing
prehistoric creatures; some fifty years later, it would be the focus of his programme The Amber Time
Machine.
In 1936, Attenborough and his brother Richard attended a lecture by Grey Owl (Archibald Belaney)
at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, and were influenced by his advocacy of conservation. According to
Richard, David was "bowled over by the man's determination to save the beaver, by his profound
knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Canadian wilderness and by his warnings of ecological
disaster should the delicate balance between them be destroyed. The idea that mankind was
endangering nature by recklessly despoiling and plundering its riches was unheard of at the time,
but it is one that has remained part of Dave's own credo to this day." In 1999, Richard directed a
biopic of Belaney entitled Grey Owl.[16]
Attenborough was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and then won a
scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge in 1945, where he studied geology and zoology and
obtained a degree in natural sciences.[17] In 1947, he was called up for national service in the Royal
Navy and spent two years stationed in North Wales and the Firth of Forth.
In 1950, Attenborough married Jane Elizabeth Ebsworth Oriel; she died in 1997. The couple had two
children, Robert and Susan.[18] Robert is a senior lecturer in bioanthropology for the School of
Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University in Canberra.[19][20] Susan is a
former primary school headmistress.[21][22]
