Jeffery Boswall (20 March 1931 – 15 August 2012) was a British naturalist, broadcaster and educator.
One of the longest serving producers with the BBC Natural History Unit (1957-1987), and the writer and presenter/narrator of many of the programmes he produced, he was also prominent in the development of the ethics of natural history broadcasting and the encouragement of new entrants into the field. Boswall wrote and produced the first wildlife film shown in colour on the BBC, The Private Life of the Kingfisher, filmed by Ron Eastman. It was broadcast in 1967 on BBC2. He was one of the "pioneers of British natural history broadcasting" (Daily Telegraph obituary, 5 September 2012).
Early years
Jeffery Hugh Richard Boswall was born in Brighton on 20 March 1931. A keen amateur ornithologist, his first published article appeared in the journal British Birds when he was 16. His interest in ornithology arose from a chance suggestion by a friend that he join him bird watching at the River Adur near Shoreham-on-Sea. His first full-time job was as assistant to the Director of Watchers and Sanctuaries for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
BBC Natural History Unit
Boswall began as a radio producer, upon joining the BBC Natural History Unit in 1957, producing series including Birds of the Air and The Naturalist.
He started to work on television programmes in 1964. He produced the Look series (introduced by Peter Scott) from 1963 to 1969, which is the series which made Peter Scott a household name in Great Britain.
Boswall wrote and produced the first wildlife film shown in colour on the BBC, The Private Life of the Kingfisher, filmed by Ron Eastman and narrated by Peter Scott. It was broadcast in 1967 on BBC2. It won the Silver Medal at the Moscow Film Festival in 1967. It enormous popularity led to it being repeated an unprecedented eight times, as well as to Boswall commissioning a series of 18 programmes on single species in a series known as Private Lives, ranging from the Jackass Penguin to the Siamese Fighting Fish to the Cuckoo.
He produced and presented Wildlife Safari to Ethiopia (1970), a six-part series. It was described by Christopher Parsons, former head of the BBC's Natural History Unit, as "arguably one of the best series of its genre ever made". Boswall went on to produce and present three follow up series: Wildlife Safari to the Argentine (1972), Boswall's Wildlife Safari to Mexico (1977) and Boswall's Wildlife Safari to Thailand (1979).
He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Cherry Kearton Medal and Award in 1977.
He wrote, produced and narrated Animal Olympians (1980) a one-hour special which compared the feats of animals to those of human olympians, as well as celebrating superlative feats from the natural world which have no human analogue. This was broadcast in connection with the Moscow Olympics in 1980 and was for many years in the top 5 sales of BBC programmes internationally.
Other programmes he produced included Cracking the Egg (1982), The Truth behind the Turkey (1982), Natural World: Where the Parrots Speak Mandarin (1986) and Wild Waterfalls (1989)
He was series producer for Birds For All Seasons, a three-part series broadcast in 1986, narrated by Magnus Magnusson. He wrote a book to accompany this series, with David Helton.
He frequently appeared on or contributed to other radio and television programmes, including Today, Animal Magic, Nationwide, and Wogan.
Ethics of natural history broadcasting
Boswall is acknowledged as one of the key figures in shaping the approach to ethics in natural history broadcasting. He is credited with establishing two main commandments "Thou shalt not deceive the audience" and "thou shalt not harm nature".
On the latter topic he was quoted in Discover magazine in 1985:
When I lecture about this issue, I ask this question: Who would shrink from introducing a living fly into a spider's web to get a shot of the spider feeding on the fly. Usually no one objects to that. Then I carry the same question through the animal kingdom, up to using a monkey as a bait for a boa constrictor. Not many people like that too much. Then I ask - supposing of course that adequate provisions were made for his family - how would you feel about feeding a human to a crocodile? Crocodiles do feed on humans, you know, so it would be scientifically correct (original emphasis).