Wellington “Duke” Wales, newspaper reporter and editor, combat photographer, and entrepreneur, was born 16 July 1917, at Hollywood, California, to Wellington Edward and Ethel Franklin (Oborn) Wales. His father was business manager of what was later to become Paramount Pictures, and his mother was an actress. Wales graduated from Dartmouth in 1938 with a B.A., and in 1941 received his M.S. in journalism from Columbia University. On September 13, 1941, he married Helen Woolsey. They had three children, Heathcote, Samuel and Jane MacGregor.
While at Columbia, Wales was an assistant editor for Acme Newspictures, and by 1942 he had become newspicture editor. His career was interrupted in 1942 by service in the U.S. Army, first as a private, later as an officer. Wales' primary tour of duty was in the Pacific, especially the China-Burma-India theatre, where he was a photo editor for military news releases. During this period he displayed a tendency to stand firm for the principles in which he believed by working to get his Commanding Officer removed for default of duty. In 1945-1946, he was given the responsibility for the operation of all Korean newspapers.
After the war Wales worked in various editorial positions at Acme, the New York Times and Reporter magazines, until he became editor of the Auburn (New York) Citizen-Advertiser in 1949. In 1950-1951 he studied city government at Harvard as a Nieman Fellow. Three years later, he resigned the editorship of the Citizen-Advertiser because the publisher had fired an Asian reporter with the comment, “a Jap is a Jap.” That same year he joined the Boston Herald as a reporter, and taught journalism at Boston University. From the Herald, Wales went to Woman's Day as managing editor, 1955-1957, and then to the New York State Commerce Department as Director of Publicity.
In a surprise move in August 1958, Wales moved to the Virgin Islands where he established his own road building concern, ran a deep sea fishing outfit, and opened a liquor store. He also was news director of a television station and associate editor of The Daily News of the Virgin Islands. Upon his return to New York in 1962, Wales became chief editorial writer for The Knickerbocker News in Albany, concentrating on upstate New York politics, and becoming associate editor by 1965. In July 1965, he moved to the New York Times as an editorial writer. He died of a heart attack on 10 April 1966.
