Richard Morecroft

Richard Morecroft was born on 20 January 1956 in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, in the English Midlands. His father Peter was a dentist and his mother was Phyll. In 1966, when Richard was 10, the family emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia, in part for the benefit of his brother Andrew's respiratory problems. Peter set up a dental practice in Adelaide. Morecroft later recalled on Letters and Numbers parts of his childhood growing up in England.

Morecroft studied English and drama at the University of Adelaide, considering a future as an actor or a teacher. He became involved with the university's radio station, and he auditioned for the ABC before he had completed his degree.

The ABC hired Morecroft as a radio announcer, and he moved into television news, presenting the 7pm Adelaide bulletin for a couple of years and also reading bulletins in Canberra. He moved to Sydney in 1982, and in July 1983 he took over the ABC News NSW bulletin from James Dibble, who had presented it since 1956. He also presented Behind the News. In 1985 he co-hosted The National with Geraldine Doogue, an hour-long combined news and current affairs service with chief reporters Max Walsh and Richard Carlton. He anchored the bulletin through major stories such as the release of Lindy Chamberlain in 1986 and the Canberra conference that created APEC in 1989, and he hosted election-night broadcasts and educational programs. He would sign off with "And that's the news to this minute." He left the desk in 2002, replaced by Tony Eastley, and that year presented Richard Morecroft Goes Wild on the ABC. From 2 August 2010 until 2012 he hosted Letters and Numbers on SBS with David Astle and Lily Serna. In later years he also interviewed artists and opened exhibitions in filmed conversations for King Street Gallery on William, and appeared as a speaker and host for organisations including Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia.

Morecroft's passion for animals ran through his life. He raised a flying fox named Archie, which he kept under the news desk while he worked, and the story became the ABC Natural History Unit production Raising Archie and his 1991 book Raising Archie: The Story of Richard Morecroft and His Flying Fox (Simon and Schuster). He served as a governor of the Taronga Foundation, a director of the Zoological Parks Board of New South Wales, a trustee of WWF and a patron of WIRES, the NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service.

Morecroft met his partner, the artist Alison Mackay, in 1990 while on holiday at Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland. For two years they kept in touch through handwritten fountain-pen letters before Mackay moved to Sydney. In 2002 they moved to a property near Jervis Bay on the New South Wales south coast, where they wrote, painted and photographed together. They were partners for 36 years. Whether he had children has not been made public.

His books include Raising Archie (1991), the memoir 20 Years from the Waist Up: Tales of a TV News Anchor (2002) and A Natural Selection: Marvels and Oddities of the Natural World. With Alison Mackay he co-wrote Wolves of the Sea and Pool, and the children's books Impossible Pets (illustrated by Wayne Harris) and Zoo Album (illustrated by Karen Lloyd-Diviny). The couple co-wrote a chapter on the painter Fred Cress in Unfinished Journey, and wrote and photographed features for South Coast Style, South Coaster, Good Weekend, House and Artist Profile. Morecroft was an acclaimed landscape photographer whose work hangs in Parliament House, Canberra.

Because he was such a familiar face, Morecroft appeared as himself in a number of Australian productions, including Police Rescue (1991 to 1996), The Roly Poly Man (1993), Wildside (1997 to 1998) and the film Red Hill (2010).

For many Australians, Morecroft was a steady and reassuring presence each night for almost 20 years, one of the ABC's best-known and most respected newsreaders. Colleagues remembered his kindness as much as his professionalism. Leigh Sales recalled that when she started as a junior reporter in the Sydney newsroom he went out of his way to welcome her. ABC managing director Hugh Marks said his intelligence, warmth and professionalism made him a trusted presence in the lives of Australians and an enduring part of the ABC's history.

Morecroft was diagnosed with cancer in 2026 and posted on Instagram about a long stay at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse in Sydney for treatment. He died on Tuesday 6 October 2026 on the south coast of New South Wales, aged 70. A statement on his Instagram account said: "Sadly, our beloved Richard died today, at a time of his choosing, on the south coast of NSW. He was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year and was grateful to go peacefully, with his partner of 36 years, Alison Mackay, beside him." Tributes came from Leigh Sales, Michael Rowland and ABC managing director Hugh Marks. Funeral or memorial arrangements have not been made public.