George Alagiah

Alagiah married Frances Robathan in 1984, with whom he has two sons, Adam and Matthew.

He actively participated in the ‘Fairtrade Foundation’ from 2002 to 2009 until the BBC prompted him to resign due to conflict of interest.

He patronized the ‘Parenting UK organization’ for over a decade.

George Alagiah was born in Sri Lanka to parents Donald and Therese Alagiah on November 22, 1955. He is the third of five children her sisters being: Mari, Rachel, Christine and Jennifer.

When he was six, his parents moved to Ghana, West Africa to avoid persecution. There he began attending ‘Christ the King International’, a primary school.

Starting in 1966, he went to secondary school in Portsmouth, England at ‘St. John’s College’.

He received a degree in political science from the ‘Van Mildert College’ at ‘Durham University’.

During his time at the university, Alagiah became familiar with the journalism world on a small scale as a writer and editor of the student newspaper ‘Palatinate’.

From 1982 to 1989, he worked for ‘South Magazine’. Initially an African correspondent in Zimbabwe, he was later promoted to the position of editor.

Upon joining the BBC, Alagiah was stationed in London as the station's first “developing world” correspondent. He was later transferred to a position in Johannesburg as a journalist in the South African division.

As a foreign correspondent, he created stories about challenging topics such as genocide in Rwanda, civil war in the Middle East, and the terrorist attacks perpetrated against New York City.

Starting in 1999, he was deputy anchor for ‘BBC News at One’ and ‘BBC News at Nine’.

Alagiah provided material for ‘Shaking the Foundations’, a collection of essays authored by journalists who reported on the chaos of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States.