An editor who was involved in running regional press titles for more than 30 years has died aged 93.

Tributes have been paid to Mark Barrington-Ward, who edited the Oxford Mail between 1961 and 1979.

Prior to taking over at the Mail, Mark spent a year in charge of the Northern Echo, where he was succeeded by the legendary Sir Harold Evans.

After his stint in Oxford, he served as London editor of the newspaper’s then-owner Westminster Press, before retiring in 1993.

The son of Robin Barrington-Ward, who edited The Times between 1941 and 1948, he was educated at Eton College and read modern history at Balliol College, Oxford.

Mark, pictured, joined the Manchester Guardian in 1951, where he covered “the colonies”.

He moved to Kampala as founding editor of the Uganda Argus in 1955, returning five years later to take his post with the Darlington-based Echo.

An obituary in The Times states: “By his own account he was a risk-averse character, insufficiently hard-nosed for the rough and tumble of national newspapers.

“Nevertheless, he was involved in plenty of battles in Oxford, where he amassed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city’s history and planning.

“He was no nimby, pleading the cause for good design, yet little got past his gimlet eye and lightly worn erudition.”

In his later role with Westminster Press, where his leaders on national and international events were syndicated to local newspapers across the country, Mark was described as “a master of weighing up the pros and cons of a subject”.

The Times obituary adds: “He remained with Westminster Press as London editor until 1993, rising early most days to write leading articles for the group’s titles, whether the Bath Chronicle or the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford, where they were welcomed by harassed editors whose clocks were ticking down to their daily deadlines.”

Mark, whose wife Catherine died in 2012, is survived by three of their children – Olivia, Hester and Arthur.

Their son Robert died earlier this year, while Mark himself passed away on 23 October, two days short of his 94th birthday.