Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford

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Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, KG, PC (5 December 1905–3 August 2001) was a politician, author, and social reformer.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Titles from birth to death 3 Films about Lord Longford 4 Books about Lord Longford 5 External links

[edit] Biography

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 Research Department where he developed Education policy for the Conservative Party. His future wife persuaded him to become a socialist [1]. They married on November 3, 1931. In 1940, after a period of religious unease, he converted to Roman Catholicism. His wife was initially dismayed by this, as she had been brought up as an Unitarian and associated Catholicism with reactionary politics; however, she herself converted to Catholicism in 1946 (Mary Craig Longford - A Biographical Portrait (London, 1978) pp59-61)

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. 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 murderess", Myra Hindley, which led to the tabloid press branding him "Lord Wrongford". He 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.

[2] His anti-pornography campaigning made him the butt of jokes 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.

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.

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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] Films about Lord Longford

• Longford (2006): Lord Longford's efforts to allow parole of Moors murderer Myra Hindley are dramatized in a Channel 4 film starring Jim Broadbent, Samantha Morton and Andy Serkis

[edit] Books about Lord Longford

• Stanford, Peter (2003). The Outcast's Outcast : A Biography of Lord Longford. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 512 pp. ISBN 0-7509-3248-1.

[edit] External links

• "Campaigner Lord Longford dies" - BBC News article dated Friday, 3 August 2001
• "Lord Longford: Aristocratic moral crusader" - BBC News obituary dated Friday, 3 August 2001
• "Tributes to humanist peer" - BBC News article dated Friday, 3 August 2001
• Lord Longford - Guardian obituary by Peter Stanford dated Monday, 6 August 2001
• Announcement of his taking the oath for the first time as Lord Pakenham of Cowley, House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 17 November 1999

Political offices
Preceded by John Burns Hynd	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1947–1948	Succeeded by Hugh Dalton
Preceded by The Lord Nathan	Minister of Civil Aviation 1948–1951	Succeeded by The Lord Ogmore
Preceded by The Viscount Hall	First Lord of the Admiralty 1951	Succeeded by James Thomas
Preceded by The Lord Carrington	Leader of the House of Lords 1964–1968	Succeeded by The Lord Shackleton
Preceded by Selwyn Lloyd	Lord Privy Seal 1964–1965	Succeeded by Sir Frank Soskice
Preceded by Anthony Greenwood	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1965–1966	Succeeded by Frederick Lee
Preceded by Sir Frank Soskice	Lord Privy Seal 1966–1968	Succeeded by The Lord Shackleton
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by New creation	Baron Pakenham 1945–2001	Succeeded by Thomas Pakenham
Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by Edward Pakenham	Earl of Longford 1961–2001	Succeeded by Thomas Pakenham