- Wolfenden report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Lord Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in Britain on
4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, includingPeter Wildeblood , were convicted ofhomosexual offences.The committee
The committee of 14 (three women and 11 men) was led by John Wolfenden (1906-1985) who had previously been headmaster of Uppingham and Shrewsbury and in 1950 became Vice Chancellor of the
University of Reading . He later became Director of theBritish Museum .In addition to the chairman, the committee members were the following:
*James Adair OBE, former Procurator-Fiscal for
Glasgow
*Mrs Mary G. Cohen, vice-president of the City ofGlasgow Girl Guides, Chairwoman of the Scottish Association of Girls' Clubs
*Dr Desmond Curran MB FCP DPM, seniorPsychiatrist atSt George's Hospital , London and psychiatric consultant to theRoyal Navy
*Rev Canon V.A. Demant, Canon ofChrist Church, Oxford and Regius Professor of Moral and PastoralTheology at theUniversity of Oxford (an Anglo-Catholic)
*Mr Justice Diplock QC, Recorder ofOxford and High Courtjudge
*SirHugh Linstead , Conservative MP for Putney, and pharmaceutical chemist
*Most Hon. the Marquess of Lothian, a Foreign Office minister
*Mrs Kathleen Lovibond CBE, chairwoman of the Uxbridge juvenileMagistrates' Court and member of the Conservative women's organisation
*Victor Mishcon, solicitor and Labour member of theLondon County Council
*Goronwy Rees , Principal of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth
*Rev. R.F.V. Scott, Presbyterian Minister ofSt Columba's Church, London (Church of Scotland )
*Lady Stopford; Doctor, Magistrate and wife of the Vice-Chancellor of theUniversity of Manchester
*William T. Wells, Labour MP for Walsall North andBarrister
*Dr Joseph Whitby, general practitioner with psychiatric experienceThe committee first met on
15 September 1954 and met on 62 days, 32 of which were used for interviewing witnesses. Wolfenden suggested at an early stage that for the sake of the ladies in the room, that they use the termsHuntley & Palmers after the biscuit manufacturers - Huntley's for homosexuals, and Palmers for prostitutes. Evidence was heard from police and probation officers, psychiatrists, religious leaders, andgay men whose lives had been affected by the law.The recommendations of the report
Disregarding the conventional ideas of the day, the committee recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence". All but James Adair were in favour of this and, contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects." The report added, "The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ... It is not, in our view, the function of the law to intervene in the private life of citizens, or to seek to enforce any particular pattern of behaviour." The recommended age of consent was 21 (the
age of majority in the UK then).The report also discussed the rise in street prostitution at the time, which it associated with "community instability" and "weakening of the family". As a result there was a police crackdown on street prostitution following the report. [Weeks, Jeffery, "Sex, Politics and Society", Longman, 1980, p.240]
Aftermath
The report's recommendations attracted considerable public debate, including a famous exchange of views in publications by
Lord Devlin , a leading British judge, whose speeches and publications argued against the report's philosophical basis, andH.L.A. Hart , a leading jurisprudential scholar, who provided argument in its support.It should be noted that "The enforcement of Morals" by Patrick Devlin, holds different account of the report's outcome. It is stated that " Adultery, fornication, and prostitution are not, as the Report points out, criminal offences: homosexuality between males is a criminal offence, but between females it is not." [Delvin, Patric "The Enforcement of Morals" (oxford: oxford uni press 1965) ]
The recommendations eventually led to the passage of the
Sexual Offences Act 1967 , applying to England and Wales only, that replaced the previous laws on homosexuality contained in theOffences Against The Person Act 1861 . The law was only narrowly passed and that a decade after the report was published in 1957.The report's publication was a turning point in the legalisation of homosexuality in Western countries, all of which have now legalized homosexuality and homosexual acts.vague|date=March 2008 Most have enacted anti-discrimination and equalised the age of consent between homosexual and heterosexual acts to 16.vague|date=March 2008 Many of these countries now have same-sex partnership laws.vague|date=March 2008
John Wolfenden came 45th in a list of the
top 500 lesbian and gay heroes , "Pink Paper ",26 September ,1997 , issue 500, p19.References
Bibliography
* Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution, 1957. "Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution." London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
**Reprinted 1963 as "The Wolfenden Report: Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution". New York: Stein and Day.
* Eustace Chesser, 1958. "Live and Let Live: The Moral of the Wolfenden Report". Taylor Garnett & Evans.
* Charles Berg, 1959. "Fear, Punishment, Anxiety and the Wolfenden Report". George Allen & Unwin.
* Grey, Antony "Quest for Justice", Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992
*Higgins, Patrick: "Heterosexual Dictatorship: Male Homosexuality in Postwar Britain": London: Fourth Estate: 1996: ISBN 1857023552ee also
*
LGBT rights in the United Kingdom
*Law reform
*Sodomy law
*Homosexual Law Reform Society
*Age of Consent
*Peter Wildeblood
* "Victim" - 1961 film starringDirk Bogarde widely held to have contributed to the liberalisation of cultural and legal attitudes to homosexuality in the UKExternal links
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/4/newsid_3007000/3007686.stm BBC History page - "Homosexuality should not be a crime"]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2551523.stm BBC Timeline: Gay fight for equal rights 2002-12-06]
* [http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/wolfenden.html Knitting Circle report]
* [http://www.gmax.co.za/think/history/2004/041111-wolfden.html Queer History @ GMax]
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