Ross McWhirter

McWhirter was the youngest son of William McWhirter, editor of the Sunday Pictorial, and Margaret "Bunty" Williamson. He was born at 10 Branscombe Gardens, Winchmore Hill, in London. In 1929, as William was working on the founding of the Northcliffe Newspapers Group chain of provincial newspapers, the family moved to Aberfoyle, in Broad Walk, Winchmore Hill. Ross McWhirter was educated at Chesterton School, Seaford, Marlborough College and Trinity College, Oxford.

Between 1943 and 1946, Ross served as a sub-lieutenant with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve aboard a minesweeper in the Mediterranean. McWhirter maintained his home and Guinness Publishing business in the Middlesex area as it became the Municipal Borough of Edmonton, then London Borough of Enfield, and finally as part of Greater London in 1965.

Ross and Norris both became sports journalists in 1950. In 1951, they published Get to Your Marks, and earlier that year they had founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, endeavouring "to supply facts and figures to newspapers, yearbooks, encyclopaedias and advertisers."

While building their business, they both worked as sports journalists. They knew and covered runner Christopher Chataway, a Guinness employee who recommended them to Hugh Beaver. After an interview in 1954 in which the Guinness directors enjoyed testing the twins' knowledge of records and unusual facts, the brothers agreed to start work on the book that would become The Guinness Book of Records. In August 1955, the first slim green volume, 198 pages long, appeared at bookstalls, and within four more months it had become the UK's number one nonfiction bestseller. Both brothers were regulars on the BBC show Record Breakers. They were noted for their encyclopedic memories, enabling them to provide detailed answers to questions from the audience about entries in The Guinness Book of Records. Norris continued to appear on the programme after Ross's death.

In 1958, long after the legend of William Webb Ellis as the originator of rugby had become engrained in rugby culture, Ross managed to rediscover Ellis's grave in a cemetery in Menton in Alpes Maritimes (it has since been renovated by the French Rugby Federation).

In 1965, Ross and Norris were guests on the American panel game show I've Got a Secret, where they exhibited their memorisation of the Guinness Book of Records.

In the early 1960s, McWhirter was a Conservative Party activist and unsuccessfully fought the seat of Edmonton in the 1964 general election. Following his killing, his brother and others founded the National Association for Freedom (later the Freedom Association).

His views were on the right wing of the political spectrum.

Ireland

McWhirter advocated and lobbied for various restrictions on the freedom of the Irish community in Britain, such as compulsory registration with the local police and a requirement for signed photographs when renting flats or booking hotel rooms. In 1975, McWhirter offered a £50,000 reward (equivalent to £388,000 in 2025) for information leading to a conviction for several recent high-profile bombings in England that were publicly claimed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In doing so, McWhirter recognised that he could then be a target. This was described as a bounty by McWhirter, and considered a bounty by the IRA Army Council, a view that led directly to the events that followed. The idea was not originally his but that of John Gouriet.

Capital punishment

McWhirter advocated for capital punishment for terrorism offences. During a press conference on 4 November 1975, he proposed that terrorism be classified as treason and as a result carry the death penalty.

Alleged links to British intelligence

In his 1981 book, former counterterrorism operative Gordon Winter of the South African Bureau of State Security recalled a briefing with his London-based handler Alf Bouwer warning him to be wary of McWhirter, who he claimed was a British intelligence operative and member of the right-wing, anti-immigration Society for Individual Freedom, which he described as a "front" for "disseminating Establishment-type propaganda."