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The man who, at the age of only 24, became Fleet Street's youngest-ever editor, when he was appointed editor of the Sunday Pictorial, now the Sunday Mirror, had truly earned the unofficial accolade as King of the Tabloids.

One of his colleagues at the Sunday Pictorial, Colin Valdar, once said of him: ''He was a walking, talking, tabloid newspaper from his teens.'' Cudlipp even spoke in an urgent, telegraphic newspaper style.

Hugh Kinsman Cudlipp, 84, who started out as a reporter on a tiny Welsh newspaper at 2s. 6d (12.5p) a week, rose to become the most formidable and respected figure in British journalism - as chairman of the world's largest publishing corporation.

He epitomised the philosophy of ''publish and be damned'' - the title of one of his books - yet was courted by Prime Ministers who recognised Cudlipp as a man who knew more about public opinion than the entirety of Whitehall. His advice could not be ignored.

He even served, for a period, as Prime Minister James (now Lord) Callaghan's adviser on the presentation of the Labour Government's counter-inflation policies.

It was Cudlipp who masterminded the Daily Mirror's campaigns in favour of the Labour Party from 1951 to 1973. His loyalty to the party was unswerving, although not always unquestioning.

And in 1981, seven years after he received his life peerage, Cudlipp switched to the Social Democrats. He explained that he had done this because, ''I could not stomach Labour's unilateral disarmament policy and the rise of the insidious influence of Militant Tendency and the far left within the movement''.

Cudlipp, who has left an indelible imprint on Fleet Street, revolutionised the tabloid market with a flair and skill which has not since been emulated. His man-management was impeccable. ''I don't give orders,'' he once said, ''I create the atmosphere.''

Cudlipp, the son of a Cardiff commercial traveller, left school at 14 and joined a Penarth daily paper which closed after three months.

He joined the Cardiff Evening Express, left that for the Manchester Evening Chronicle, and then worked successively on newspapers in Blackpool, Manchester, and London.

At a mere 21, he became features editor of the Daily Mirror and three years later he was editing the Sunday Pictorial.

Even during his war service from 1940 to 1946, Cudlipp continued to produce newspapers, spending several years editing Union Jack, the

forces' newspaper in North Africa and Italy.

After the war, he returned to the editorship of the Sunday Pictorial, but was appointed managing editor of the Sunday Express from 1950 to 1952.

He then returned to IPC as editorial director of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Pictorial. After that he was joint managing director of the two papers, chairman of Odhams Press in 1961.

And in 1968, after one of Fleet street's most sudden boardroom revolutions, Cudlipp took over from his long-standing colleague, Cecil King, as chairman of IPC itself.

Cudlipp was a man bursting with zest and energy. Just before his 71st birthday he was told by a doctor that he had the blood pressure of a man of 25 who had never smoked nor drank. ''Since I have been smoking and drinking all my life, I regarded this as a useful certificate of hope,'' he said.

His crusading journalism was unique. He took the whole

honours system to task (although he accepted an OBE in 1945 and a peerage in 1974) with the headline: ''Who in hell decides these things?''

He denounced the ''bungling'' of the Suez crisis, demanding: ''When should Eden go? Has R A Butler got the guts?''

And he lashed out at Britain's attempts to keep pace with the West's post-war industrial boom: ''Wake up Britain: we're living in the past. We're too slow. Too sleepy. Too damn smug.''

But the biggest hornets' nest of all was the story of Princess Margaret's romance with Group-Captain Peter Townsend, a divorcee. A poll by the Mirror showed that nearly 68,000 of the 70,000 people who voted said they should marry.

And then the headline: ''Come on Margaret: Please make up your mind,'' brought a furious reaction from the Establishment. This is what Cudlipp always relished.

And in his book, Walking on Water, published in 1976, Cudlipp revealed details of a meeting Earl Mountbatten had with Cecil King in 1968 when there were suggestions of a serious plot by military leaders to overthrow Harold Wilson.

Cudlipp was opposed to any kind of Government aid for the press. He once said: ''I see no prudent alternative to the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest of the particular species.'' Government aid, he warned, was ''fraught with peril''.

And during that astonishing career, Cudlipp was regarded by almost all his contemporaries as the king of that jungle.

He was married three times.