Everything about Frank Pakenham 7th Earl Of Longford totally explained
Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford,
KG,
PC (
5 December 1905–
3 August 2001) was a
politician,
author, and social reformer.
He was a noted
Labour minister and is considered by some to be a
human rights campaigner, however he 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
Gay Rights. He was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of
Europe which he'd attempted to close down.
He was a
peer four times over holding three baronies (Pakenham, Longford and Pakenham of Cowley) and one earldom (Longford).
Biography
The second son of
Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford, 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.
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
November 3 1931 and eventually had a total of eight children. In 1940, after a period of religious unease, he converted to Roman Catholicism. His wife was initially dismayed by this, as she'd been brought up as a Unitarian and associated Catholicism with
reactionary politics; however, she herself converted to Catholicism 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.
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
Eamon de Valera and was chosen as the co-author of his official biography
Eamon 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.
In 1961, he inherited from his brother the
Earldom of Longford in the
Peerage of Ireland. Longford was created a
Knight of the Garter in 1971. 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'd attempted to close down.
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.
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 - despite having only been arrested 12 years earlier - as she'd 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. In
1990,
Home Secretaries 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 even though 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.
He was also somewhat notorious for his homophobic views, and was a staunch opponent of any kind of gay rights legislation. In 1998, he famously made the following claim in the House Of Lords debate surrounding the Age Of Consent:
"...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'd ruin him for life. That is the fundamental distinction."
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, of Cowley in the County of Oxfordshire.
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, 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.
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