H. Montgomery Hyde

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Harford Montgomery Hyde (August 14, 1907 – August 10, 1989) was a barrister, politician and author from Northern Ireland.

1 Background
2 Early career
3 Politics
4 Academia
5 Works
6 References

[edit] Background

He was a cousin of Henry James, and was educated at Sedbergh School and Queens University Belfast, and Magdalene College, Oxford. He was married in 1939 to Dorothy Mabel Brayshaw Crofts (divorced 1952), in 1955 to Mary Eleanor Fischer (dissolved 1966) and finally to Rosalind Roberts Dimond.

[edit] Early career

He was called to the Bar in 1934, and was for four years Private Secretary to the 7th Marquess of Londonderry. He joined the British Army Intelligence Corps in 1939. He became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the service. During the Second World War years he worked for MI6, and after the war was a Legal Officer in the Allied Control Commission for Austria.

[edit] Politics

Hyde was an Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast North, elected in 1950, 1951 and 1955. He left the House in 1959. In later life, he became somewhat disillusioned with the cause of Irish Unionism.

He famously moved a motion in Westminister calling for a tunnel to be constructed between Co Antrim and the Scottish coast. He spent 40 minutes outlining its advantages. Echoing Jules Verne, he pronounced: "The dreams of yesterday are the realities of today"^[1].

[edit] Academia

He was an extension lecturer in History at the University of Oxford in 1934, and Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Lahore from 1959 to 1962.

He also wrote a number of biographies of legal and political figures and books on spying, notably Room 3603 (1962) about Sir William Stephenson and the wartime efforts of British Security Coordination. Hyde also wrote extensively on the Oscar Wilde trials and Wilde's immediate circle, on the trial of Sir Roger Casement, and on T.E. Lawrence.

[edit] Works

Judge Jeffries, (Harrap, 1940); 2nd ed., Butterworth & Co (1948)
Carson, (Heinemann, 1953)
Sir Patrick Hastings, His Life and Cases, (Heinemann, 1960)
Famous Trials: Oscar Wilde, (Hodge, 1948), enlarged ed, Penguin (1962)
Room 3603: The Story of the British Intelligence Center in New York during World War II, (Farrar, Straus and Company, 1962). Also published as The Quiet Canadian.
Norman Birkett, the Life of Lord Birkett of Ulverston, (H Hamilton, 1964)
Lord Reading, The Life of Rufus Isaacs, First Marquess of Reading, (Heinemann, 1967)
The Love That Dared not Speak its Name, (Little, Brown, 1970)
The Other Love: An Historical and Contemporary Survey of Homosexuality in Britain London: Mayflower Books Ltd, 1972
Solitary in the Ranks: Lawrence of Arabia As Airman and Private Soldier, (MacMillan Publishing Company, 1978) ISBN 0-689-10848-6
The Londonderrys, a family portrait, (H. Hamilton, 1979), ISBN 0-241-10153-0