Two former regional newspaper editors have been added to a dictionary of people who have shaped the history of the British Isles.

Keith Whetstone and Arnold Kemp are two of some 200 influential people and celebrities to have been added to the online edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Keith was a former editor-in-chief of the Birmingham Post and Mail, and editor of the Coventry Evening Telegraph and Cambridge Evening News, while Arnold edited Glasgow newspaper The Herald.

Both men died in 2002.

The dictionary holds 50,000 biographies of people from the earliest times to the year 2002.

Journalist and former chairman of the Scottish Arts Council Magnus Linklater wrote the entry about Arnold, and said his editorship had rarely been dull.

He wrote: "He would sometimes address his staff standing on his desk with a cloth cap on his head, announcing a word of the week - imbroglio was one - which he wanted to see appearing somewhere in the paper."

Arnold was appointed editor of The Herald 1981 and took the paper into its third century when it celebrated its 200th anniversary, making it the oldest national English-language daily in the world, and as part of the celebrations enjoyed visits from the Queen and Margaret Thatcher.

He began his journalism career in 1959 when he was taken on as a sub-editor at the Scotsman, and he later worked for the Guardian.

He then returned to the Scotsman as production editor and third in editorial command in 1965.

In 1970 he became the paper's London editor and he was appointed deputy editor in 1972.

Keith edited the Cambridge Evening News between 1964-70, the Coventry Evening Telegraph between 1970-80 and the Birmingham Evening Mail, from 1980 to 1984. All three newspapers were owned at the time by the Iliffe family.

In 1984 he was appointed editor-in-chief of both the Birmingham Post and Mail and held that position until his retirement in 1986.

He was also active in the then Guild of Editors - now the Society of Editors - being chairman of its parliamentary and legal committee and of the West Midlands guild. In 1976 he became national president.

In 1983 he was awarded the OBE for services to journalism.

Among the other new additions to the dictionary, all of whom died in 2002, are journalist Mary Stott, long-serving editor of the Guardian women's page, who began her career on the Leicester Mercury.

Also included are the Queen Mother, Spike Milligan and Dudley Moore.