May 08, 2007 04:30 AM
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LONDON– Lord Weatherill, who guided Britain's House of Commons into the television age and was the last speaker to wear the traditional shoulder-length wig, died Sunday. He was 86.
Bernard Weatherill, who presided in the Commons 1983-1992, died after a brief illness, his son Bruce said yesterday.
The Commons cameras arrived in 1989, making Weatherill a celebrity. "I often say I'm not in the entertainment business," he later said.
Elected to the Commons as a Tory in 1964, he was appointed to the House of Lords in 1992.
The son of a Saville Row tailor, he carried a thimble because his mother said it would keep him humble.
Weatherill leaves his wife, two sons and a daughter.
