The Homosexual Law Reform Society was an organisation that campaigned in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and No ...

for changes to the set of laws which criminalised

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...

at the time.

History

In 1954 the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...

government set up a Departmental Committee to look into aspects of British sex laws. The resulting report, the

Wolfenden Report The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Sir John Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a suc ...

, was published on 3 September 1957. On 5 March 1958, the academic A.E. (Tony) Dyson wrote a letter to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its s ...

,'' published on the 7th, calling for reform of the law by the implementation of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations and was signed by many distinguished people including

Clement Attlee Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Min ...

, A. J. Ayer,

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talk ...

Trevor Huddleston Ernest Urban Trevor Huddleston (15 June 191320 April 1998) was an English Anglican bishop. He was the Bishop of Stepney in London before becoming the second Archbishop of the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean. He was best known for ...

Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...

, J. B. Priestley,

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...

Donald Soper Donald Oliver Soper, Baron Soper (31 January 1903 – 22 December 1998) was a British Methodist minister, socialist and pacifist. He served as President of the Methodist Conference in 1953–54. After May 1965 he was a peer in the House of Lo ...

Angus Wilson Sir Angus Frank Johnstone-Wilson, CBE (11 August 191331 May 1991) was an English novelist and short story writer. He was one of England's first openly gay authors. He was awarded the 1958 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for '' The Middle Age o ...

and Barbara Wootton. The correspondence that this letter generated helped bring together supporters of the Wolfenden Report and this led to the Homosexual Law Reform Society being founded on 12 May 1958 with members including

Victor Gollancz Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Chris ...

Stephen Spender Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the ...

, and

Kenneth Younger Sir Kenneth Gilmour Younger KBE (15 December 1908 – 19 May 1976) was a British Labour politician and barrister who served in junior government posts during the Attlee government and was an opposition spokesman under Hugh Gaitskell but ret ...

MP. Most of the founders were not homosexual. Advertisements inviting people who supported the Wolfenden Report to contact the Homosexual Law Reform Society resulted in Tony Dyson being joined by

Antony Grey Anthony Edgar Gartside Wright (6 October 1927 – 30 April 2010), better known by his pseudonym Antony Grey, was an English LGBT rights activist. Grey was credited by Lord Arran to have "done more than any single man to bring this social proble ...

, businessman Nigel Bryant and architect Duncan Wright. In May 1958 the related charity the Albany Trust was set up. In October 1958 the Albany Trust opened an office and the HLRS was able to use these facilities for its campaigning work. The pamphlet ''Homosexuals and the Law'' was sent to MPs in preparation for their first debate on the Wolfenden Report. The first parliamentary debate was initiated on 4 December 1957 by Frank Pakenham (Baron Pakenham, later known as Lord Longford). However, it had become clear that the government had shelved the report and was not planning to implement any reform. The

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...

, Viscount Kilmuir, had said "I am not going down in history as the man who made sodomy legal." On 12 May 1960 over 1000 people attended the first HLRS public meeting in Caxton Hall in central London. In 1962

became acting secretary of the HLRS. In the spring of 1963 this became a full appointment. Some people questioned the appropriateness of this appointment since Grey was a homosexual who was living with another man; there was concern that he might be subject to the same type of police attention that the organisation was campaigning against. The HLRS was most active during the campaign which led to the passing of the

Sexual Offences Act 1967 The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom (citation 1967 c. 60). It legalised homosexual acts in England and Wales, on the condition that they were consensual, in private and between two men who had attained th ...

. For example, they provided advice and support to the Dorian Society of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country ...

. However, many (in particular the Campaign for Homosexual Equality and the

Gay Liberation Front Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK and Canada. The GLF provided a v ...

) considered that the new law did not go far enough and blamed the HLRS for what they saw as a weakening of the Wolfenden Committee's proposals, calling the HLRS/Albany Trust "a conformist outfit of

Uncle Tom Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to protect ...

s". In March 1970 the HLRS became the Sexual Law Reform Society (SLRS) in order to campaign for further legal changes, particularly relating to the age of consent. In 1974 it produced a report for the Criminal Law Revision Committee on lowering the age of consent to 14, with the requirement that below the age of 18 the burden of proof that consent for sexual activities between the parties existed would be the responsibility of the older participant.Waites, Matthew (2005, op.cit., p.132). Professor A. J. Ayer was President of the HLRS for a time; he remarked that "as a notorious heterosexual I could never be accused of feathering my own nest."

References

External links

Catalogue of the Antony Grey papers
at th

of the London School of Economics. {{LGBT topics in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1958 Defunct LGBT organisations in the United Kingdom 1958 establishments in the United Kingdom Law reform in the United Kingdom LGBT law in the United Kingdom LGBT political advocacy groups in the United Kingdom

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links