Pakenham: Peace By Ordeal Pakenham: Peace By Ordeal Pakenham: Peace By Ordeal Enlarge image Peace By Ordeal: An Account from First-Hand Sources of the Negotiation and Signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 by Frank Pakenham is considered a definitive account of the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations of 1921. The negotiations brought the War of Independence (1919-21) to an end and led to the creation of the Irish Free State . The Irish Civil War (1922-23) soon followed however bitterly dividing republicans for decades. The relationship between Britain and Ireland was also enduringly hostile for most of the 20th century. The book gives a chronology of Irish history beginning in 1914 when the passage of Home Rule threatened civil war between the Unionist UVF and the Irish Volunteers. However Home Rule was suspended by the outbreak of World War I and both unionists and nationalists fought for Great Britain . Radical Irish republicans launched the 1916 Easter Rising and in the 1918 general election, Sinn Fein eclipsed the Irish Parliamentary Party.

The War of Independence followed in which the IRA fought a guerrilla war against British rule seeking to establish an Irish Republic . Both sides engaged in a ruthless campaign of assassinations and atrocities. Meanwhile the Government of Ireland Act 1920 created the Unionist dominated state of Northern Ireland which remained within the United Kingdom Domestic and international pressure and a stalemate in Ireland , resulting in a truce in 1921. The British government hosted talks in London with an Irish delegation led by Arthur Griffth, the founder of Sinn Fein and Michael Collins, the leader of the IRA guerrilla war. The British delegation included Prime Minister Lloyd George and members of his cabinet including future British leader Winston Churchill. The British, who proved to be more experienced and skilled negotiators, forced the Irish delegation to accept British Dominion status for a politically autonomous 26 county Irish Free State in return for a British military withdrawal. The Irish delegation signed�the Anglo Irish Treaty when Lloyd George threatened ‘immediate and terrible war.’ Pakenham blames Lloyd George’s sleight of hand for the turmoil which followed.

Collins and Griffth led a majority that believed the deal was the best that could be achieved and allowed political progress toward full Irish independence and unification with Northern Ireland in the future. The anti-Treaty minority led by Eamon DeValera with the support of most of the IRA accused the delegation of betrayal. They refused to accept British dominion status or to take an oath of loyalty to the British monarch. They also opposed the partition of Ireland and the creation of the unionist dominated six county state of Northern Ireland . The treaty was ratified by a majority vote in the Dail but hardliners refused to recognise what they considered a British manipulated assembly. The Irish Civil War (1922-23) followed in which the Irish Free State government and the National Army equipped with British weaponry ultimately defeated the poorly armed and poorly led IRA. The loss of life and destruction was much greater than during the War of Independence. Bitter divisions lingered for decades in Irish politics as a result of atrocities committed by both sides and the executions of republicans by the Free State government. Relations between Ireland and Great Britain remained hostile for the much of the remainder of the 20th century.

Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905-2001), Anglo-Irish writer, social reformer and British politician was born at Tullynally Castle, Co. Westmeath, the ancestral Pakenham residence. He was the son of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, a Brigadier General killed in 1915 during the Gallipoli Campaign. Frank Pakenham was educated at Eton and Oxford where he became a don at Christchurch . In 1931 he developed the Conservative Party education policy but was later persuaded to become a socialist and also converted to Catholicism. He took a seat in the House of Lords and served two terms as a minister at junior and at cabinet level with the British Labour Party from the 1940s to the 1960s.He was knighted in 1971. In the 1960s, Pakenham, better known as Lord Longford, voiced his high profile opposition to pornography and homosexuality. In later he life he opposed the continued imprisonment of the notorious child murderer Myra Hindley.

For these causes and other causes he drew ridicule from the tabloid press. Pakenham also wrote a number of books on Irish history including an official biography of Irish Taoiseach Eamon DeValera whom he greatly admired. His son Thomas, 8th Earl of Longford (born 1933) also became a renowned writer and historian. Long Longford died in 2001. Collins and Griffth led a majority believed the deal was the best that could be achieved and allowed political progress toward full Irish independence and unification with Northern Ireland in the future. The anti-Treaty minority led by Eamon DeValera with the support of most of the IRA accused the delegation of betrayal. They refused to accept British dominion status or to take an oath of loyalty to the British monarch. The treaty was ratified by a majority vote in the Dail but hardliners refused to recognise what they considered a British manipulated assembly. The Irish Civil War (1922-23) followed in which the Irish Free State government and the National Army equipped with British weaponry ultimately defeated the ill-armed and poorly led IRA. The loss of life and destruction was much greater than during the War of Independence.

Bitter divisions lingered for decades in Irish politics as a result of atrocities committed by both sides and the executions of republicans by the Free State government. Relations between Ireland and Great Britain remained hostile for the remainder of the 20th century. Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford (1905-2001), Anglo-Irish writer, social reformer and British politician was born at Tullynally Castle, Co. Westmeath, the ancestral Pakenham residence. He was the son of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, a Brigadier General killed in 1915 during the Gallipoli Campaign. Frank Pakenham was educated at Eton and Oxford where he became a don at Christchurch . In 1931 he developed the Conservative Party education policy but was persuaded to become a socialist and also converted to Catholicism. He took a seat in the House of Lords and served two terms as a minister at junior and at cabinet level with the British Labour Party from the 1940s to the 1960s.He was knighted in 1971.

In the 1960s, Pakenham, better known as Lord Longford, voiced his high profile opposition to pornography, homosexuality and the continued imprisonment of the notorious murderer Myra Hindley. For this he drew ridicule from the tabloid press. Pakenham also wrote a number of books on Irish history including an official biography of Irish Taoiseach Eamon DeValera whom he greatly admired. His son Thomas, 8th Earl of Longford (born 1933) became a writer and historian. Long Longford died in 2001. 7th Earl of Longford Frank Pakenham Biography 7th Earl of Longford Frank Pakenham Biography Sir Francis Aungier Pakenham KG, PC 7th Earl of Longford Baron Longford, Baron Silchester, and 1st Baron Pakenham,(December 5, 1905 - August 3, 2001), better known to the British press simply as Lord Longford, or as the author Frank Pakenham, was a politician, author, and social reformer.

The second son of the 5th Earl of Longford, he was educated at Eton and at the University of Oxford, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman, and graduated with a First in Modern Greats. At the age of 25, Pakenham joined the Conservative Party, but was soon convinced to become a socialist, partly by his future wife, whom he married on November 3, 1931. He embarked on a political career, serving as a junior minister in the Labour government of 1946-1951 and as a Cabinet member from 1964 to 1968. In 1945 he was created Baron Pakenham in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and in 1961 he inherited from his brother the Irish titles of Earl of Longford and Baron Longford and the UK title of Baron Silchester. Longford was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971. Over the years he gained a reputation as an eccentric, becoming known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders and campaigning for the release from prison of the "Moors murderer", Myra Hindley.

Under the House Of Lords Act (1999) the majority of hereditary peers lost the privilege of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords. Lord Longford, as the recipient of a hereditary peerage of first creation (from his creation as Baron Pakenham), was, along with many others in the same situation, made a life peer so that he could retain his seat in the Lords. He was thus created Baron Pakenham of Cowley. He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, had eight children, among them the writers Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington, and Thomas Pakenham. 7th Earl of Longford Frank Pakenham Resources Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford ( December 5 , 1905 - August 3 , 2001 ), better known to the British press simply as Lord Longford, or as the author Frank Pakenham, was a politician , author , and social reformer.

The second son of the 5th Earl of Longford , he was educated at Eton and at the University of Oxford , where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman , and graduated with a First in Modern Greats. At the age of 25, Pakenham joined the Conservative Party , but was soon convinced to become a socialist , partly by his future wife, whom he married on November 3 , 1931 . He embarked on a political career, serving as a junior minister in the Labour government of 1946 - 1951 and as a Cabinet member from 1964 to 1968 . In 1945 he was created a Baron Pakenham in the Peerage of the United Kingdom , and in 1961 he inherited the Irish title of Earl of Longford from his brother. Longford was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971 . Over the years he gained a reputation as an eccentric, becoming known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders and campaigning for the release from prison of the "Moors murderer", Myra Hindley .

Under the House Of Lords Act (1999) the majority of hereditary peers lost the privilege of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords . Lord Longford, as the recipient of a hereditary peerage of first creation (from his creation as Baron Pakenham), was, along with others in the same situation, made a life peer so that he could retain his seat in the Lords. He was thus created Baron Pakenham of Cowley. He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, had eight children, among them the writers Antonia Fraser , Rachel Billington, and Thomas Pakenham. Preceded by: Kids.Net.Au - Encyclopedia > Frank Pakenham Encyclopedia > Frank Pakenham Redirected from Frank Pakenham Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford ( December 5 , 1905 - August 3 , 2001 ), better known to the British press simply as Lord Longford, or as the author Frank Pakenham, was a politician , author , and social reformer.

He was the second son of the 5th Earl of Longford, and was educated at Eton , and at the University of Oxford , where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman , and graduated with a First in Modern Greats. At the age of 25, he joined the Conservative Party , but was soon convinced to become a socialist , partly by his future wife, whom he then married on November 3 , 1931 . He embarked on a political career, and was a junior minister in the Labour government of 1946 - 1951 , and a Cabinet member from 1964 to 1968 . He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971 . Over the years he gained a reputation as an eccentric, and became known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders, campaigning for the release from prison of the "Moors murderer", Myra Hindley . Under the House Of Lords Act (1999)[?] the majority of hereditary peers lost the priviledge of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords .

Lord Longford was one of a number of long-standing active memebers of the house who were made life peers allowing them retain their seats. He thus became Baron Pakenham of Cowley. He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, had eight children, among them the writers Antonia Fraser , Rachel Billington[?] , and Thomas Pakenham[?] . Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford | Religion-wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford 34,305pages on 18 October 1964 – 16 January 1968 Prime Minister 23 December 1965 – 6 April 1966 Monarch Missing required parameter 1=month! Expression error: Unrecognised punctuation character "{"., Expression error: Unrecognised word "august".

Nationality New College, Oxford Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford KG , PC (5 December 1905–3 August 2001), known as the Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician, author, and social reformer. He was a noted Labour minister who attracted much controversy with his (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison, and also for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement. He was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to him being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media. Contents [ show ] Background and education The second son of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford , of the second creation, in the Peerage of Ireland , he was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford , where, despite having failed to be awarded a scholarship, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (also called Modern Greats) .

He became a don at Christ Church, Oxford . At Oxford he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman , an undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford . Political career In 1931, 25-year-old Pakenham joined the Conservative Research Department where he developed Education policy for the Conservative Party . His future wife persuaded him to become a socialist . [1] They married on 3 November 1931 and eventually had a total of eight children. In 1940, after a period of religious unease, he became a Roman Catholic. His wife was initially dismayed by this, as she had been brought up as a Unitarian and associated Catholicism with reactionary politics ; however, she herself became a Catholic in 1946. [2] Pakenham embarked on a political career. In 1945, he was created Baron Pakenham, of Cowley in the City of Oxford , in the Peerage of the United Kingdom , and took his seat in the House of Lords . He served as a junior minister in the Labour governments of 1945–1951 and as a Cabinet member from 1964 to 1968.

In 1961, he inherited from his brother the earldom of Longford in the Peerage of Ireland and from then onwards was generally known to the public as Lord Longford. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971. Campaigning Longford was a founding member of New Bridge, an organisation founded in 1956, which aims to help prisoners stay in touch with society and integrate back into it. [3] He was a leading figure in the Nationwide Festival of Light of 1971, protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence in Britain, and advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to recovering moral stability in the nation. His anti-pornography campaigning made him the subject of derision as Lord Porn when he and former prison doctor Christine Temple-Saville set out on a wide-ranging tour of sex industry establishments in the early 1970s to compile a self-funded report. The press made much of his visits to strip clubs in Copenhagen at the time.

Myra Hindley Over time he gained a reputation for eccentricity, becoming known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders and in particular campaigning for the parole and release from prison of the Moors murderer Myra Hindley , which led to the soubriquet Lord Wrongford from the tabloid press, who also nicknamed him "Lord Porn" after he toured Europe's sex clubs that he had attempted to close down. It also coincided with Longford's contact with Hindley becoming public knowledge in 1972, and allegations of hypocrisy were frequently made against him. In 1977, Longford appeared on television and spoke openly of his belief that Hindley should now be released from prison as she had repented for her sins and was no longer a danger to the public. In 1985, he condemned the Parole Board's decision not to consider Hindley's release for another five years as "barbaric", and his campaign for Hindley continued even after she admitted to two more murders in 1986 - this development led to widespread subsequent allegations that Hindley's remorse was nothing than a ploy to try and bring herself closer to release.

In 1990, Home Secretary David Waddington ruled that "life should mean life" for Hindley, as did the next three home secretaries. Hindley did make three appeals against her tariff between 1997 and 2000, but the High Court rejected each one. Longford spoke of his disgust that she was being kept in prison, saying that she was a changed woman who was no longer a threat. He regularly commented, along with several other of Hindley's supporters, that she was a " political prisoner " who was being kept in prison for votes, claiming that successive Conservative and Labour home secretaries feared that their party would fall out of favour with the voters if they sanctioned Hindley's release. Hindley died in November 2002, having never been paroled . Longford met several of the relatives of the Moors victims, most notably Ann West, the mother of Lesley Ann Downey.

He regularly condemned the media for manipulating West and feeding her desire for revenge, being particularly critical of The Sun newspaper for their "exploitation" of West - she gave numerous television and newspaper interviews calling for Hindley to remained imprisoned for life, and vowed to kill Hindley if she was ever set free. [4] In 1986, he reportedly told Mrs West that unless she forgave Hindley and Brady, she would not go to heaven when she died. Longford also commented that he was "tremendously sorry for her, but letting her decide Myra's fate would be ludicrous". [5] The story of Longford's campaign to free Hindley was told in the Channel 4 film Longford in 2006. Longford was played by Jim Broadbent (who won a BAFTA for his role) and Hindley was played by Samantha Morton . Opposition to gay rights Longford was a staunch opponent of the gay rights movement . In the 1960s, during the Parliamentary debates that eventually led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales , he stated that homosexuality was "nauseating" and that, regardless of any change in the law, it was "utterly wrongful".

[6] In the mid-1980s, Longford was a vocal supporter of the introduction of Section 28 by Margaret Thatcher 's Conservative government and, during the Parliamentary debates, he famously stated his opinion that homosexuals are "handicapped people". [7] Section 28 became law in 1988, but Longford continued to support it and fought against its repeal when the new Labour government came to power in 1997. Section 28 was ultimately removed from the statute books in 2003. In a 1998 House of Lords debate concerning equalisation of the age of consent for gay men, Longford remarked that: “ ...if someone seduced my daughter it would be damaging and horrifying but not fatal. She would recover, marry and have lots of children... On the other hand, if some elderly, or not so elderly, schoolmaster seduced one of my sons and taught him to be a homosexual, he would ruin him for life. That is the fundamental distinction. [8] ” Regardless of his views, the age of consent for gay men was equalised with that of heterosexuals (16) in 2000.

Longford's highly publicised condemnation of homosexuality in the late 1980s made him a regular target of comedian Julian Clary , who would satirise him in his stage shows and television appearances. [9] House of Lords reforms (1999) Under the House of Lords Act 1999 the majority of hereditary peers lost the privilege of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords . Lord Longford, as one upon whom a hereditary peerage (the barony of Pakenham) had been conferred (as opposed to one who had inherited it), was made a life peer so that he could retain his seat in the Lords. He was thus created Baron Pakenham of Cowley, of Cowley in the County of Oxfordshire. Writings Known for his interest in Irish history he wrote a number of books on the topic. Peace By Ordeal: An Account from First-Hand Sources of the Negotiation and Signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, published in 1935, is arguably his best known work which documents the negotiations of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 between the Irish and British representatives.

His account uses primary sources from the time and is widely recognised as the definitive account of this aspect of Irish history. Longford also came to greatly admire Éamon de Valera and was chosen as the co-author of his official biography Éamon de Valera which was published in 1970 and which was co-written by Thomas P. O'Neill. He also campaigned for decades to have the Hugh Lane bequest pictures restored to Dublin, resulting in a compromise agreement in 1959. Personal life Lord Longford died in August 2001 at the age of 95. He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, [10] had eight children, among them the writers Antonia Fraser , Rachel Billington , Judith Kazantzis , and Thomas Pakenham . His wife Elizabeth was a noted writer herself, her most famous book being Victoria R.I. (1964), a biography of Queen Victoria, published in the US as Born to Succeed. She also wrote a two-volume biography of the Duke of Wellington , and a volume of memoirs, The Pebbled Shore.

She stood for Parliament as Labour candidate for Cheltenham in the 1950 general election . Notes Titles from birth to death The Hon. Francis Pakenham (1905–1945) The Rt Hon. The Lord Pakenham (1945–1948) The Rt Hon. The Lord Pakenham, PC (1948–1961) The Rt Hon. The Earl of Longford, PC (1961–1971) The Rt Hon. The Earl of Longford, KG, PC (1971–2001) Films about Lord Longford Longford (film) (2006): Lord Longford's efforts to allow parole of Moors murderer Myra Hindley are dramatised in a Channel 4 film in which Longford was portrayed by Jim Broadbent . Also starring in the film were Samantha Morton as Myra Hindley , Lindsay Duncan as Lady Longford and Andy Serkis as Ian Brady . Books about Lord Longford Stanford, Peter (2003). The Outcast's Outcast : A Biography of Lord Longford. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. pp.

512 pp. ISBN 0-7509-3248-1 . External links Obituary: Lord Longford | Society | The Guardian Prisons and probation Lord Longford Campaigning Labour peer driven by his beliefs in socialism and the Catholic church to a life of social and penal reform Prisons and probation Lord Longford Campaigning Labour peer driven by his beliefs in socialism and the Catholic church to a life of social and penal reform Sunday 5 August 2001 19.05 EDT First published on Sunday 5 August 2001 19.05 EDT Share on Messenger Close Though conducted simultaneously, the two crusades that made Frank Longford, who has died aged 95, a household name in Britain were an odd combination. The first, launched in the early 1970s, aimed to outlaw pornography and presented him as a prurient reactionary and a shameless hypocrite touring the sex clubs that he wanted to close down. The second, which continued for the last three decades of his life, attempted to win parole for the moors murderess, Myra Hindley.

Here Longford was at his most liberal, Christian and naive, building on a lifetime of interest in prison reform, to argue that Hindley, and indeed all offenders, could be rehabilitated if society was prepared to forgive. Of the two, it was his lonely battle to help Hindley that revealed the true man. The pornography escapade was an aberration, embarked upon against the advice of old friends and under the influence of Mary Whitehouse and anti-libertarians. From the day his report came out, Longford rarely returned to the subject. It was in the area of penal reform that he made his most lasting contribution. A Labour politician, who spent a record 22 years on the Lords frontbench, held junior office under Clement Attlee in the 1940s and later sat in Harold Wilson's cabinets, Longford could, when he resigned in 1968, have rested on his laurels. But he was not a conventional politician, and retirement gave him the freedom to take up the unpopular cause that was closest to his heart without fear of damaging his party. It was not only his appearance - noble cranium and mad scientist's tonsure - that set Longford apart from his government colleagues.

Though a committed Labour party member, and a regular attender of PLP meetings and annual conferences well into his 90s, he saw politics less as a career and more as part of a moral crusade. Conscience came before party loyalty, heart before the head. Such a stance belonged more to the 19th-century philanthropic tradition than to 20th-century Westminster. And, in many senses, Long- ford was a 19th-century figure, struggling, often with humour, to deal with the problem of being born too late. Like William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury, his was a privileged upbringing; like them, he was a devout Christian determined to translate faith into action; like them, he was an unpredictable combination of political savvy and childlike clear-sightedness. The essential difference between the three was that while Wilberforce reformed the slave trade and Shaftesbury the factories, Longford only aspired to alter the penal system. His failure could not be put down only to the changed climate of the 20th century.

His own character played a part; never one to manage a concerted campaign, to push and cajole friends to a cause that many cabinet colleagues regarded indulgently as "Frank's hobby", he was too much the individualist, too fond of argument for argument's sake - an effect of his 1930s time as an Oxford politics don - and, ultimately, too lightweight in Whitehall to carry the day. With his knack for making people laugh, and his tireless enjoyment of socialising as well as socialism, it was too easy to ignore the fact that Longford was way ahead of his time in questioning the direction of prison policy. Though his prophecy of the failure of the punishment-oriented system of mainly Conservative postwar governments was repeatedly borne out, he never managed to translate his vision into workable reform. That is not to say he was without substantial achievements; it was just that the goals he set himself remained outside his grasp. He dreamed of being a reforming home secretary, an ambition that prompted his old friend Evelyn Waugh to remark "and then we would all be murdered in our beds".

A prison visitor since the 1930s, Longford was still going, two and three times a week, to visit the abandoned and despised in jail until close to the end of his life. Though the tabloids port- rayed him as a man who got a kick out of contact with infamous killers - a throwback to the "Lord Porn" caricature - such "names" made up only one per cent of those Longford journeyed to see. An example; in the late 1980s, he was contacted by the solicitor for a young Dutchman, convicted of a drugs offence, sent to Albany prison on the Isle of Wight, suffering from Aids and cut off by his family. Longford was the only person to visit this dying man, a gesture repeated in countless episodes that never made headlines but which brought succour and relief. He also initiated practical measures to ease offenders' reintegration into society. He founded the New Bridge in 1955, the first organisation dedicated to ex-prisoners' welfare. In 1970, he established, in New Horizon, the first drop-in centre for homeless teenagers.

Until the end, he spent time at New Horizon's offices, oblivious to its users' sometimes rough teasing, anxious to understand what had alienated them from the mainstream. He also contributed a series of learned reports on penal reform during Labour's period out of office between Attlee and Wilson. He chaired the committee which, in 1963, recommended the setting-up of the parole system, still the bedrock of the current system. Attlee admired Longford's passion for society's outcasts and tried, often against his colleagues' advice, to harness it. In the 1945 Labour land slide, Longford - then Frank Pakenham - stood for Oxford, but was defeated by Quintin Hogg, later Lord Hailsham. Attlee was persuaded to elevate him to the peerage, and bring to Labour's sparsely populated Lords benches a youthful thinker who had been Sir William Beveridge's right-hand man on his landmark welfare state report. Longford was tempted to decline the offer and await a suitable byelection, but feared that, since his childless elder brother was in poor health, it was inevitable that he would soon become the Earl of Longford.

But accept- ance effectively relegated him to the role of also-ran in Labour politics. Without a Commons seat, he remained an enigma to his colleagues, outside the mainstream and, for some, a figure not to be trusted. Initially, however, he won rapid promotion. In 1947, Attlee made him, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, responsible for the British zone of occupied Germany. It was Longford's finest hour as a minister. For a year, he worked tirelessly to stop the Germans starving to death. He reopened schools and hospitals, and worked with American and French counterparts on the currency reform that would bring stability to West Germany. He fought the Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, for a reappraisal of the industrial dismantling of the occupied zone under the reparations' policy, but Bevin refused. On the ground, Longford saw sooner than his superior that cooperation with the Soviets was impossible, and that partition was inevitable. Konrad Adenauer, the father of West Germany, came to regard him as his people's one true friend in London. This tribute was prompted perhaps by Longford's optimistic avowal to the Germans that the British had forgiven them the wartime excesses.

His remarks caused a storm of outrage in a country still suffering rationing. Attlee was persuaded to move him to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, where he proved a successful minister, save for the mishandling of the report from a crash enquiry that almost cost him his job. Attlee stuck by him, and later raised him to First Lord of the Admiralty, just outside the cabinet. In opposition after 1951, Hugh Gaitskell, who had shared rooms with Longford at Oxford and referred to him as his "oldest friend", kept him at the centre of Labour affairs, even when he became chairman of a City clearing bank. The appointment caused some raised eyebrows in the square mile, where Longford was blackballed from at least one financiers' club. After Gaitskell's death in 1963, however, Harold Wilson had no time for such an unpredictable figure. Though included in the 1964 cabinet as leader of the Lords, Longford knew he was only there as a sop to the Gaitskellites. Wilson treated him with personal kindness but professional contempt, remarking that Longford - who had got a double first at Oxford - had a mental age of 12.

By his own admission he was "ineffective" in the treacherous atmosphere of Wilson's cabinets. Even as Colonial Secretary in 1966, he was so dispirited that he failed to master his brief and was quickly removed. He had talked with Gait- skell in the early 1960s of taking up Tony Benn's Disclaimer Act and renouncing his peerages - both the inherited title which finally came his way in 1961, and the barony awarded by Attlee. Then he would be free to seek a Commons seat at the 1964 general election and, if successful, a cabinet post as head of a major department. Gaitskell had given qualified support; Wilson, however, pooh-poohed the idea. It was a deeply frustrating period. In terms of prestige, Longford had reached the pinnacle of his career but, in practice, he was impotent, and often resorted to playing up to his image as the cabinet jester. Wilson talked often of sacking Longford, so when he resigned from government in January 1968 over the abandonment of a commitment to raising the school-leaving age, it was a matter of jumping before being pushed.

If Benn, Richard Crossman and Barbara Castle all recorded their relief at his departure in their diaries, the Queen continued to hold him in high esteem. In 1972, she made him a knight of the garter After 1968, Longford devoted himself to his campaigns and to publishing. He had already produced several volumes of autobiography and one book - Peace By Ordeal, on the background to the 1921 Anglo-Irish treaty - that was regarded as a classic. But his later efforts, while tackling ambitious subjects like humility and forgiveness, were politely, though unenthusiastically, received. From the floor of the House of Lords, as well as continually pushing the government on prisons' policy, he spoke of ten on Ireland, a country he regarded as his home. It was a claim - dubious since he spent the vast majority of his life on this side of the Irish Sea - that occasionally got him into trouble. While still in Wilson's cabinet, he attended the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Easter Rising, and was photographed next to his old friend President de Valera. Though he remained sentimentally attached to Ireland, Longford broke every tradition of his Anglo-Irish ascendancy family.

He was born into a military, Protestant, Conservative and Unionist clan, and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. As an adult, he embraced the Roman Catholic church and Irish nationalism. His failure to follow his soldier father, who was killed at Gallipoli when Longford was nine, remained an open wound . In 1940, he was invalided out of the forces after a nervous breakdown. He regarded the episode as the ultimate humiliation, but came to believe that it gave him some insight into the degradation of those sent to prison and shunned by society. In Elizabeth Harman, whom he married in 1931, Longford found the emotional warmth and love denied him as a child by a difficult, and often cruel, mother. Made painfully aware of his insignificance in her eyes next to his elder brother, he only recovered a sense of self-esteem while at Oxford. At a summer ball, he was asleep on a couch when spotted by Elizabeth, one of the most beautiful and sought- after undergraduates of her generation. "The face was monumental beauty," she later wrote, "as if some Graeco-Roman statue... had been dressed in modern clothes".

Two years later, when they were both lecturing for the Workers Educational Association in Stoke, at the height of the 1930s depression, love blossomed. It was Elizabeth, a great-niece of Joseph Chamberlain, who convinced Longford to join the Labour party. In return, having been converted to Catholicism while at Oxford by the Jesuit Father Martin D'Arcy, he persuaded her to join him in the church of Rome. He found great strength in the moral certainties of Catholicism. The Longfords enjoyed an extraordinarily happy marriage, touched by tragedy with the death, in 1969, of their daughter Catherine in a car crash. They remained active in their various political, literary and campaigning activities well into their 90s, relaxing only to enjoy their countless grandchildren and great-grandchildren at their cherished Sussex home, Bernhurst. Longford gave the family seat, Tullynally Castle in Co Westmeath, to his son and heir in 1961 upon inheriting it. With friends and family, his razor-sharp wit could flourish, while in public he felt he had to restrain it in the interests of being a better Christian.

All the best stories about his eccentricity - and there were many - were first told, and no doubt embellished, by Longford himself. Myra Hindley became part of his extended family, the large group of writers, politicians and activists who satisfied his continuing need to be in touch with what was going on in the world. Such consultations would usually take place over lunch at the House of Lords. His conviction that Hindley would one day be his guest there went unfulfilled. She was, in many ways, an unworthy recipient of his concern. He ransomed his good name for her, but, once convinced he was no longer the key to her release, she moved on to other advisers. He knew what was happening, but saw it as natural and inevitable, and continued to strive for her freedom. Longford's memory will live on, if not for the scale of his achievements then certainly because of his courage, tenacity and nobility in trying. He was a man of great intelligence and moral strength. He is survived by his wife, four sons and three daughters.

 Francis 'Frank' Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, politician and social reformer, born December 5 1905; died August 3 2001 This obituary appeared in later editions of Saturday's Guardian Francis "Frank" Aungier Pakenham (1905 - 2001) - Genealogy Francis "Frank" Aungier Pakenham Great Cumberland Place, London, Middlesex, England UK Death: Thomas Pakenham, 'earl Of Longford', Mary Julia Pakenham, 'earl Of Longford' (born Child-villiers) Siblings: ... Of Longford', Margaret Pansey Felicia Lamb (born Pakenham), Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Violet Georgiana Powell (born Pak... Wife: Elizabeth Pakenham, 'earl Of Longford' (born Harman) Children: ...ick Maurice Pakenham, Judith Elizabeth Kazantis (born Pakenham), Rachel Mary Billington (born Pakenham), Michael Aidan Pakenham, Catherin...

Aug 3 2001 Parents: Brig-gen Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl Of Longford, Lady Mary Julia Pakenham, Countess Of Longford (born Child-villiers) Siblings: ...ret Pansey Felicia Lamb (born Pakenham), Lady Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Lady Violet Georgiana Powell (born Pakenham), Julia A... Wife: Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess Of Longford (born Harman) Children: ... Hon Patrick Maurice Pakenham, Judith Elizabeth Kazantis (born Pakenham), Lady Rachel Mary Billington (born Pakenham), Hon Michael Aidan ... Earl Of Longford Thomas Pakenham, Lady Mary Julia Pakenham (born Child-villiers) Siblings: ...enham, Lady Margaret Pansy Felicia Lamb (born Pakenham), Lady Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Lady Violet Georgiana Powell (born Pa... Wife: Elizabeth Pakenham (born Harman) Children: ... Earl Of Longford Thomas Frank Dermot Pakenham, Hon Patrick Maurice Pakenham, Lady Rachel Mary Billington (born Pakenham), Lady Catherine...

Dec 5 1905 - 7 Great Cumberland Mews, Paddington, W1H 7, UK Death: Aug 3 2001 - Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England Parents: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Julia Parkingham, Countess of Longford (born Child-villers) Siblings: ...ansey Felicia Lamb (born Pakenham), Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Violet Georgiana Powell, Lady (born Pakenham), Julia Agnes Cynt...

Circa 1906 - London Marylebone, London Residence: Apr 2 1911 - Penn House, Penn Street, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England Parents: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Julia Pakenham Siblings: Dec 5 1905 - 7 Great Cumberland Mews, Paddington, W1H 7, UK Death: Aug 3 2001 - Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England Parents: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Julia Pakenham (born Child Villiers) Siblings: ...ansey Felicia Lamb (born Pakenham), Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Violet Georgiana Powell (born Pakenham), Julia Agnes Cynthia Mo...

Wife: Dec 5 1905 - 7 Great Cumberland Mews, Paddington, W1H 7, UK Death: Aug 3 2001 - Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England Parents: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Pakenham (born Child-villiers) Siblings: Edward Pakenham, Violet Powell (born Pakenham), Julia Mount (born Pakenham) Wife: Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess of Longford (born Harman) Son: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Julia Pakenham (born Child-Villiers) Siblings: ...ansy Felicia Lamb (born Pakenham), Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Violet Georgiana Powell (born Pakenham), Julia Agnes Cynthia Mou...

Wife: Elizabeth PAKENHAM (born HARMAN) Children: Dec 5 1905 - 7 Great Cumberland Mews, Paddington, W1H 7, UK Death: Aug 3 2001 - Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England Parents: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Julia* Pakenham*, Countess Longford (born Child-villiers*) Siblings: ... Pansey Felicia* Lamb* (born Pakenham*), Mary Katherine* Clive* (born Pakenham*), Violet Georgiana* Powell* (born Pakenham*), Julia Agnes...

Wife: Elizabeth Pakenham*, Countess of Longford (born Harman) Children: Dec 5 1905 - London, England Death: Aug 3 2001 - Westminster, London, England Parents: Brig-gen Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl Of Longford, Lady Mary Julia Pakenham, Countess Of Longford (born Child-villiers) Brother: Edward Arthur Henry Pakenham, 6th Earl Of Longford Wife: Elizabeth Pakenham, Countess Of Longford (born Harman) Child: Dec 5 1905 - 7 Great Cumberland Mews, Paddington, W1H 7, UK Death: Aug 3 2001 - Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, London, England Parents: Thomas Pakenham, Mary Julia Pakenham, Countess of Longford (born Child Villiers) Siblings: ...ansey Felicia Pakenham, Mary Katherine Clive (born Pakenham), Violet Georgiana Powell (born Pakenham), Julia Agnes Cynthia Mount (born Pa...

Wife: Elisabet Pakenham (born Hartman) Children: ...orn Pakenham), Thomas Frank Dermot Francis Pakenham, Patrick Maurice Pakenham, Rachel Mary Billington (born Pakenham), Catherine Rose Pak... Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford KG, PC (5 December 1905–3 August 2001), known as the Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician, author, and social reformer. He was a Labour minister who attracted much controversy with his unsuccessful campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison, and also for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement. He was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to him being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media.

Background and education The second son of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, of the second creation, in the Peerage of Ireland, he was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford, where, despite having failed to be awarded a scholarship, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. He became a don at Christ Church. At Oxford he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman, an undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall. Political career In 1931, 25-year-old Pakenham joined the Conservative Research Department where he developed Education policy for the Conservative Party. His future wife persuaded him to become a socialist. They married on 3 November 1931 and eventually had a total of eight children. In 1940, after a period of religious unease, he became a Catholic. His wife was initially dismayed by this, as she had been brought up as a Unitarian and associated Catholicism with reactionary politics; however, she herself became a Catholic in 1946. Pakenham embarked on a political career.

In 1945, he was created Baron Pakenham, of Cowley in the City of Oxford, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, and took his seat in the House of Lords. He served as a junior minister in the Labour governments of 1945–1951 and as a Cabinet member from 1964 to 1968. In 1961, he inherited from his brother the earldom of Longford in the Peerage of Ireland and from then onwards was generally known to the public as Lord Longford. He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971. Campaigning Longford was a founding member of New Bridge, an organisation founded in 1956, which aims to help prisoners stay in touch with society and integrate back into it. He was a leading figure in the Nationwide Festival of Light of 1971, protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence in Britain, and advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to recovering moral stability in the nation.

His anti-pornography campaigning made him the subject of derision as Lord Porn when he and former prison doctor Christine Temple-Saville set out on a wide-ranging tour of sex industry establishments in the early 1970s to compile a self-funded report. The press made much of his visits to strip clubs in Copenhagen at the time. Myra Hindley Over time he gained a reputation for eccentricity, becoming known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders and in particular campaigning for the parole and release from prison of the Moors murderer Myra Hindley, which led to the soubriquet Lord Wrongford from the tabloid press. It also coincided with Longford's contact with Hindley becoming public knowledge in 1972, and allegations of hypocrisy were frequently made against him. In 1977, Longford appeared on television and spoke openly of his belief that Hindley should now be released from prison as she had repented for her sins and was no longer a danger to the public.

In 1985, he condemned the Parole Board's decision not to consider Hindley's release for another five years as "barbaric", and his campaign for Hindley continued even after she admitted to two more murders in 1986 - this development led to widespread subsequent public and media allegations that Hindley's remorse was nothing than a ploy to try and bring herself closer to release. In 1990, Home Secretary David Waddington ruled that "life should mean life" for Hindley, as did the next three home secretaries. Hindley did make three appeals against her tariff between 1997 and 2000, but the High Court rejected each one. Longford spoke of his disgust that she was being kept in prison, saying that she was a changed woman who was no longer a threat. He regularly commented, along with several other of Hindley's supporters, that she was a "political prisoner" who was being kept in prison for votes, claiming that successive Conservative and Labour home secretaries feared that their party would fall out of favour with the voters if they sanctioned Hindley's release. Hindley died in November 2002, having never been paroled.

Longford met several of the relatives of the Moors victims, most notably Ann West, the mother of Lesley Ann Downey. He regularly condemned the media for manipulating West and feeding her desire for revenge, being particularly critical of The Sun newspaper for their "exploitation" of West - she gave numerous television and newspaper interviews calling for Hindley to remain imprisoned for life, and vowed to kill Hindley if she was ever set free. In 1986, he reportedly told West that unless she forgave Hindley and fellow Moors Murderer Ian Brady, she would not go to heaven when she died. Longford also commented that he was "tremendously sorry for her, but letting her decide Myra's fate would be ludicrous". The story of Longford's campaign to free Hindley was told in the Channel 4 film Longford in 2006. Longford was played by Jim Broadbent (who won a BAFTA for his role) and Hindley was played by Samantha Morton. Opposition to homosexuality Longford was a staunch opponent of the promotion of homosexuality in society.

In the 1960s, during the Parliamentary debates that eventually led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales, he stated that homosexuality was "nauseating" and that, regardless of any change in the law, it was "utterly wrongful". In the mid-1980s, Longford was a vocal supporter of the introduction of Section 28 by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government and, during the Parliamentary debates, he famously stated his opinion that homosexuals are "handicapped people". Section 28 became law in 1988, but Longford continued to support it and fought against its repeal when the new Labour government came to power in 1997. Section 28 was ultimately removed from the statute books in 2003. In a 1998 House of Lords debate concerning equalisation of the age of consent for gay men, Longford remarked that: “ ...if someone seduced my daughter it would be damaging and horrifying but not fatal. She would recover, marry and have lots of children...

On the other hand, if some elderly, or not so elderly, schoolmaster seduced one of my sons and taught him to be a homosexual, he would ruin him for life. That is the fundamental distinction.” The age of consent for gay men was equalised with that of heterosexuals (16) in 2000. Longford's highly publicised condemnation of homosexuality in the late 1980s made him a regular target of comedian Julian Clary, who would satirise him in his stage shows and television appearances.[9] House of Lords reforms (1999) Under the House of Lords Act 1999 the majority of hereditary peers lost the privilege of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords. Lord Longford, as one upon whom a hereditary peerage (the barony of Pakenham) had been conferred (as opposed to one who had inherited it), was made a life peer so that he could retain his seat in the Lords. He was thus created Baron Pakenham of Cowley, of Cowley in the County of Oxfordshire. Writings Known for his interest in Irish history he wrote a number of books on the topic.

Peace By Ordeal: An Account from First-Hand Sources of the Negotiation and Signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, published in 1935, is arguably his best known work which documents the negotiations of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 between the Irish and British representatives. His account uses primary sources from the time and is widely recognised as the definitive account of this aspect of Irish history. Longford also came to greatly admire Éamon de Valera and was chosen as the co-author of his official biography Éamon de Valera which was published in 1970 and which was co-written by Thomas P. O'Neill. He also campaigned for decades to have the Hugh Lane bequest pictures restored to Dublin, resulting in a compromise agreement in 1959. Personal life Lord Longford died in August 2001 at the age of 95. He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, had eight children, among them the writers Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington, Judith Kazantzis, and Thomas Pakenham.

His wife Elizabeth was a noted writer herself, her most famous book being Victoria R.I. (1964), a biography of Queen Victoria, published in the US as Born to Succeed. She also wrote a two-volume biography of the Duke of Wellington, and a volume of memoirs, The Pebbled Shore. She stood for Parliament as Labour candidate for Cheltenham in the 1950 general election. Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford's Timeline 1905 Kids.Net.Au - Encyclopedia > Francis Pakenham Encyclopedia > Francis Pakenham Redirected from Francis Pakenham Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford ( December 5 , 1905 - August 3 , 2001 ), better known to the British press simply as Lord Longford, or as the author Frank Pakenham, was a politician , author , and social reformer. He was the second son of the 5th Earl of Longford, and was educated at Eton , and at the University of Oxford , where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman , and graduated with a First in Modern Greats.

At the age of 25, he joined the Conservative Party , but was soon convinced to become a socialist , partly by his future wife, whom he then married on November 3 , 1931 . He embarked on a political career, and was a junior minister in the Labour government of 1946 - 1951 , and a Cabinet member from 1964 to 1968 . He was created a Knight of the Garter in 1971 . Over the years he gained a reputation as an eccentric, and became known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders, campaigning for the release from prison of the "Moors murderer", Myra Hindley . Under the House Of Lords Act (1999)[?] the majority of hereditary peers lost the priviledge of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords . Lord Longford was one of a number of long-standing active memebers of the house who were made life peers allowing them retain their seats. He thus became Baron Pakenham of Cowley.

He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, had eight children, among them the writers Antonia Fraser , Rachel Billington[?] , and Thomas Pakenham[?] . frank pakenham 7th earl of longford : definition of frank pakenham 7th earl of longford and synonyms of frank pakenham 7th earl of longford (English) New College, Oxford Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, KG , PC (5 December 1905 – 3 August 2001), known as The Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician, author, and social reformer. He was a Labour minister who attracted much controversy with his unsuccessful campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison, and also for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement. He was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to his being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media.

He was known to his family and friends as Frank Longford. Contents 15 External links Background and education Born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family, he was the second son of The 5th Earl of Longford , of the second creation, in the Peerage of Ireland . He was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford , where, despite having failed to be awarded a scholarship, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics . He became a don at Christ Church . At Oxford he met his future wife, Elizabeth Harman , an undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall . Political career Longford at his wedding in 1931. After a disastrous spell at stockbroking with Buckmaster and Moore, in 1931, 25-year-old Pakenham joined the Conservative Research Department where he developed Education policy for the Conservative Party . His future wife persuaded him to become a socialist . [1] They married on 3 November 1931 and eventually had a total of eight children. In 1940, after a period of religious unease, he became a Catholic .

His wife was initially dismayed by this, as she had been brought up as a Unitarian and associated Catholicism with reactionary politics ; however, she herself became a Catholic in 1946. [2] Pakenham embarked on a political career. In October 1945 he was created Baron Pakenham, of Cowley in the City of Oxford, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom , [3] by the Labour government of Clement Attlee , and took his seat in the House of Lords as one of the few Labour peers. He was immediately appointed a Lord-in-Waiting by Attlee. In October 1946 he was made Under-Secretary of State for War . When that office was merged with that of Financial Secretary to the War Office in April 1947, Pakenham was instead made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster . In May 1948 he entered the cabinet as Minister of Civil Aviation and was sworn of the Privy Council in June of that year. He continued in this post until May 1951, although it was not of cabinet rank after February 1950.

From May until the fall of the administration in October 1951, he was First Lord of the Admiralty . In 1961, Pakenham inherited from his brother the earldom of Longford in the Peerage of Ireland and from then onwards was generally known to the public as Lord Longford. When Labour returned to power in October 1964 under Harold Wilson , Longford was appointed Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords . In December 1965 he became Secretary of State for the Colonies (while continuing as Leader of the House of Lords). After only a few months as the Colonial Office he once again became Lord Privy Seal in April 1966. He remained in this role and as Leader of the House of Lords until January 1968. In 1971 he was created a Knight of the Garter . [4] Campaigning Longford was a founding member of New Bridge, an organisation founded in 1956, which aims to help prisoners stay in touch with society and integrate back into it.

[5] He was a leading figure in the Nationwide Festival of Light of 1971, protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence in Britain, and advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to recovering moral stability in the nation. His anti-pornography campaigning made him the subject of derision as Lord Porn when he and former prison doctor Christine Temple-Saville set out on a wide-ranging tour of sex industry establishments in the early 1970s to compile a self-funded report. The press made much of his visits to strip clubs in Copenhagen at the time. Myra Hindley Over time he gained a reputation for eccentricity, becoming known for his efforts to rehabilitate offenders and in particular campaigning for the parole and release from prison of the Moors murderer Myra Hindley which led to the soubriquet Lord Wrongford from the tabloid press. It also coincided with Longford's contact with Hindley becoming public knowledge in 1972, and allegations of hypocrisy were frequently made against him.

In 1977, Longford appeared on television and spoke openly of his belief that Hindley should now be released from prison as she had repented for her sins and was no longer a danger to the public. In 1985, he condemned the Parole Board's decision not to consider Hindley's release for another five years as "barbaric", and his campaign for Hindley continued even after she admitted to two more murders in 1986—this development led to widespread subsequent public and media allegations that Hindley's remorse was nothing than a ploy to try to bring herself closer to release. In 1990, Home Secretary David Waddington ruled that "life should mean life" for Hindley (who had originally been told by earlier Home Secretaries and High Court judges that she would have to serve a minimum of 25 and then 30 years before being considered for parole), as did the next three home secretaries. Hindley did make three appeals against her tariff between 1997 and 2000, but the High Court rejected each one.

Longford spoke of his disgust that she was being kept in prison, saying that she was a changed woman who was no longer a threat. He regularly commented, along with several other of Hindley's supporters, that she was a " political prisoner " who was being kept in prison for votes, claiming that successive Conservative and Labour home secretaries feared that their party would fall out of favour with the voters if they sanctioned Hindley's release. Hindley died in November 2002, having never been paroled. Longford met several of the relatives of the Moors victims, most notably Ann West , the mother of Lesley Ann Downey. He regularly condemned the media for manipulating West and feeding her desire for revenge, being particularly critical of The Sun newspaper for their "exploitation" of West—she gave numerous television and newspaper interviews calling for Hindley to remain imprisoned for life, and vowed to kill Hindley if she was ever set free. [6] In 1986, he reportedly told West that unless she forgave Hindley and fellow Moors Murderer Ian Brady , she would not go to heaven when she died.

Longford also commented that he was "tremendously sorry for her, but letting her decide Myra's fate would be ludicrous". [7] The story of Longford's campaign to free Hindley was told in the Channel 4 film Longford in 2006. Longford was played by Jim Broadbent (who won a BAFTA for his role) and Hindley was played by Samantha Morton . Frank Beck Longford's association with the convicted child sex offender, Frank Beck , was also a source of great contoversy. Despite the fact that Beck received five life terms (one of the harshest sentences since the abolition of the death penalty) for systematic physical and sexual abuse of children in his 'care', whilst in charge of three Leicestershire children's homes, Longford was convinced of his innocence and attracted criticism after sending a bouquet of flowers to his funeral in 1994, Beck having died from a heart attack in Whitemoor Prison.

[8] "Personally I am convinced that not only did Frank Beck act throughout as an idealist, but that he did not exceed the bounds of propriety and certainly did not commit any criminal act," wrote Longford in his autobiography, 'Avowed Intent.' Opposition to homosexuality Longford was a staunch opponent of Gay Rights . In the 1960s, despite taking a lead in the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales , he stated that homosexuality was "nauseating" and that, regardless of any change in the law, it was "utterly wrongful". [9] In the mid-1980s, Longford was a vocal supporter of the introduction of Section 28 by Margaret Thatcher 's Conservative government and, during the Parliamentary debates, he famously stated his opinion that homosexuals are "handicapped people". [10] Section 28 became law in 1988, but Longford continued to support it and fought against its repeal when the new Labour government came to power in 1997. Section 28 was ultimately removed from the statute books in 2003.

In a 1998 House of Lords debate concerning equalisation of the age of consent for gay men, Longford remarked that: “ ...if someone seduced my daughter it would be damaging and horrifying but not fatal. She would recover, marry and have lots of children... On the other hand, if some elderly, or not so elderly, schoolmaster seduced one of my sons and taught him to be a homosexual, he would ruin him for life. That is the fundamental distinction. [11] ” The age of consent for gay men was equalised with that of heterosexuals (16) in 2000. Longford's highly publicised condemnation of homosexuality in the late 1980s made him a regular target of comedian Julian Clary , who would satirise him in his stage shows and television appearances. [12] House of Lords reforms (1999) Under the House of Lords Act 1999 the majority of hereditary peers lost the privilege of a seat and right to vote in the House of Lords . However, Longford had already been made a hereditary peer in his own right as Baron Pakenham in 1945.

Along with all other living recipients of hereditary peerages, he was created a life peer as Baron Pakenham of Cowley, of Cowley in the County of Oxfordshire, [13] which allowed him to remain a member of the House of Lords. At the age of 93, he became the second-oldest person ever to be granted a peerage (after Lord Maenan ). Writings Known for his interest in Irish history he wrote a number of books on the topic. Peace By Ordeal: An Account from First-Hand Sources of the Negotiation and Signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, published in 1935, is arguably his best known work which documents the negotiations of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 between the Irish and British representatives. His account uses primary sources from the time and is widely recognised as the definitive account of this aspect of Irish history. [14] Longford also came to greatly admire Éamon de Valera and was chosen as the co-author of his official biography Éamon de Valera which was published in 1970 and which was co-written by Thomas P. O'Neill.

He also campaigned for decades to have the Hugh Lane bequest pictures restored to Dublin, resulting in a compromise agreement in 1959.[ citation needed ] Personal life Lord Longford died in August 2001 at the age of 95. He and his wife, who died in October 2002 at the age of 96, [15] had eight children, among them the writers Lady Antonia Fraser , Lady Rachel Billington , Lady Judith Kazantzis , diplomat Sir Michael Pakenham and Thomas Pakenham (the 8th Earl of Longford ). His wife Elizabeth was a noted writer herself, her most famous book being Victoria R.I. (1964), a biography of Queen Victoria, published in the US as Born to Succeed. She also wrote a two-volume biography of the Duke of Wellington , and a volume of memoirs, The Pebbled Shore. She stood for Parliament as Labour candidate for Cheltenham in the 1950 general election . Notes ^ Bradford, Sarah (24 October 2002). "The Countess of Longford" . The Independent (London: Independent News & Media ). .

Retrieved 22 October 2008. Titles from birth to death The Hon. Francis Pakenham (1905–1945) The Rt Hon. The Lord Pakenham (1945–1948) The Rt Hon. The Lord Pakenham, PC (1948–1961) The Rt Hon. The Earl of Longford, PC (1961–1971) The Rt Hon. The Earl of Longford, KG, PC (1971–2001) Films about Lord Longford Longford (2006): Lord Longford's efforts to allow parole of Moors murderer Myra Hindley are dramatised in a Channel 4 film in which Longford was portrayed by Jim Broadbent . Also starring in the film were Samantha Morton as Myra Hindley , Lindsay Duncan as Lady Longford and Andy Serkis as Ian Brady . Books about Lord Longford Stanford, Peter (2003). The Outcast's Outcast : A Biography of Lord Longford. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. pp. 512 pp.

ISBN 0-7509-3248-1 . See also

Question: Social reformer Frank Pakenham was better known as whom?
Answer: Lord Longford