Harford Hyde
Encyclopedia
Harford Montgomery Hyde born in Belfast
, was a barrister
, politician (Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast North
), author and biographer, who lost his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a result of campaigning for homosexual law reform.
in Belfast
, Hyde was schooled in England at Sedbergh
, Cumbria
. His father, James Johnstone Hyde was a linen merchant and Unionist
councillor for Cromac
. Hyde had great pride in his family's connection to the Irish linen
trade. Although his mother came from a Protestant Home Rule
background, all were involved in the 1914 UVF gun running
, the 7-year old Harford being a dummy casualty for first-aid practice. He attended Queen's University Belfast where he gained a first-class history degree, and then Magdalen College, Oxford
and a second-class law degree. He was a distant cousin of Henry James
.
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. By his will, the residue of his estate was left to his widow Robbie and his papers to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
.
whose wife Edith
was a famous London political hostess and whose influence on Ramsay MacDonald
was held by some to be suspect. From 1935-39, Hyde was librarian and Private Secretary to the Marquess in his ‘appeasement’ period, hired specifically to research the family papers and write its history. His works on the family included Londonderry House
and its Pictures (1937), The Rise of Lord Castlereagh (1933), a book which remains very highly regarded, and The Londonderrys: A Family Portrait.
Lt. Col. Hyde, as he became, and was so addressed throughout most of his parliamentary career, had a good war, mostly in intelligence but he continued writing and publishing. He joined the British Army
Intelligence Corps in 1939 serving as an Assistant Censor in Gibraltar
in 1940. He was then commissioned in the intelligence corps (MI6) and engaged in counter-espionage work in the United States under Sir William Stephenson
, Director of British Security Coordination
in the Western Hemisphere. He was also Military Liaison and Security Officer, Bermuda
from 1940 to 1941 and Assistant Passport Control Officer in New York
from 1941 to 1942. He was with British Army Staff, USA from 1942 to 1944, attached to the Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force in 1944, and then seconded to the Allied Control Commission
for Austria until 1945 as a legal officer. After the war, he became assistant Editor of the Law Reports until 1947 and was legal adviser to the British Lion Film Corporation
, then managed by Alexander Korda
, up to 1949; in 1948 he published The Trials of Oscar Wilde, a precursor of three more books about Wilde
.
Unionist
candidature and was unfortunate enough to miss the nomination by one vote. Five years later, North Belfast
was to select him. He could have expected to hold his seat for a quarter of a century or more. In the event, he represented the constituency for just nine years. His maiden speech was on the uncontentious subject of the unenforceability of Northern Ireland maintenance orders in Great Britain, and the consequent problem of border-hopping husbands.
He was a UK delegate to the Council of Europe
Consultative Assembly in Strasbourg
from 1952 to 1955, majoring on simplifying European visa and border controls. He was also an incessant traveller, a visit in 1958 to East Germany
and Czechoslovakia
getting him into difficulty with political exiles when he lamely defended himself saying, "there are terrible things going on. Cultural matters are a safe subject in common."
Hyde was Unionist
MP for Belfast North
, elected in 1950
,and re-elected in 1951
and 1955
.
He was deselected by his party in 1959 after arguing in favour of the decriminalisation of homosexuality
in a debate about implementing the Wolfenden report
on 26 November 1958: a debate he had been most prominent in seeking. Indeed, Hyde was the most vocal of any MP in the 1950s about homosexual law reform.
Hyde’s reselection failed to be ratified by 171 votes to 152. By 19 votes, the Unionist Party lost its one respected voice at Westminster and abroad, and the only MP who ever advised his people of changing times, while attempting to modernise and moderate Unionist opinion. The Belfast Telegraph
reported, “Mr Hyde’s rejection is a result of criticism amongst constituents over his attitude over certain problems particularly the Wolfenden report, capital punishment
and the return of the Lane pictures to Ireland; further there was a feeling he did not visit the division sufficiently.” One view expressed was that as the vote was so close he might have carried the day, had he been present.
Two days later, from Belize
city, Hyde complained that it was a “rank discourtesy holding the meeting without him,” especially as there were 3,000 members in the constituency. His wife in London the next day said, “I shall advise him to cut out the rest of his tour if that is possible and deal with the matter on the spot.” She had however written earlier to him in Jamaica: “SO THAT’S THAT. I’m sorry darling perhaps it’s for the best. No more politics. No more Belfast politics. Oh bliss.” Hyde did make efforts to have the decision overturned by Unionist Party headquarters on procedural grounds but he had no high-level political support.
Although he had made little secret of his progressive views during the capital punishment debates, the campaign for access to the Casement diaries and his writings on Oscar Wilde, Hyde’s political undoing were his parliamentary interventions and outspoken views on the decriminalisation of homosexuality
.
He contributed a half-hour speech to that 1958 debate covering both aspects of the Wolfenden report. He concluded by demanding equality for the homosexual and the prostitute. Earlier he quoted a letter from a consenting adult who had been gaoled and released, only to be informed on again, losing his new job. He pointed out "three popular fallacies that have been exposed by the Report": that "male homosexuality always involves sodomy
", that homosexuals are "necessarily effeminate", and that most relevant court cases "are of practising male homosexuals in private." Only one hundred men a year, he said, were convicted of sex in private with consenting adults. Hyde's reform efforts at decriminalising homosexuality in England and Wales were not to be successful for another ten years. It took 25 years until 1982 for the same to happen in Northern Ireland.
In later life, he became somewhat disillusioned with the cause of Irish Unionism.
He famously moved a motion in Westminster calling for a tunnel to be constructed between County 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".
Hyde later in 1972 authored the first history of homosexuality in Great Britain and Ireland, The Other Love perhaps his most memorable and long lasting work. With its rich and detailed narratives, “fusing legal knowledge with illustrative anecdotage,” it was the most extensive book on the subject. Antony Grey
, secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society
(HLRS) provided case histories and cuttings from the society’s files for its contemporary section.
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
. He also wrote a biography of the British spy Amy Elizabeth Thorpe
Pack Brousse with the British Security Coordination
code name "Cynthia". 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
.
His involvement in progressive and controversial issues did not cease after he left parliament. He continued his work opposing capital punishment while he published two articles in May 1965 in The People to advance the cause of homosexual law reform. The second entitled The Million Women, appeared after the House of Commons had rejected Leo Abse’s first Bill, showing “itself more reactionary than the Lords,” as he stated. That article dealt with lesbians whose “association” was not regarded as an offence, and “Sappho
the poetess who wrote passionate verses about the lovely maidens who gathered round her.”
Hyde was awarded an honorary degree by Queen’s University Belfast in 1984. He lived at Westwell House, Tenterden
in Kent in a house once inhabited by Horatio Nelson's daughter. Hyde was earlier a tenant of Lamb House in Rye, once home to his distant cousin, Henry James. He worked up to his death on 10 August 1989, just short of his eighty-second birthday. His third wife Robbie survived him. Many of his papers are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). Others were sold to the University of Texas at Austin.
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, was a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
, politician (Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast North
Belfast North (UK Parliament constituency)
Belfast North is a Parliamentary Constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.-Boundaries:The seat was created in 1922 when, as part of the establishment of the devolved Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland, the number of MPs in the Westminster Parliament was drastically cut...
), author and biographer, who lost his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a result of campaigning for homosexual law reform.
Background
Born on 14 August 1907, on the Malone RoadMalone Road
The Malone Road is a radial road in Belfast, Northern Ireland, leading from the university quarter southwards to the affluent suburbs of Malone and Upper Malone, each a separate electoral ward...
in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
, Hyde was schooled in England at Sedbergh
Sedbergh School
Sedbergh School is a boarding school in Sedbergh, Cumbria, for boys and girls aged 13 to 18. Nestled in the Howgill Fells, it is known for sporting sides, such as its Rugby Union 1st XV.-Background:...
, Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
. His father, James Johnstone Hyde was a linen merchant and Unionist
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
councillor for Cromac
Belfast Cromac (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)
Belfast Cromac was a constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.-Boundaries:Belfast Cromac was a borough constituency comprising part of southern Belfast...
. Hyde had great pride in his family's connection to the Irish linen
Irish linen
Irish linen is the brand name given to linen produced in Ireland. Linen is cloth woven from, or yarn spun from the flax fibre, which was grown in Ireland for many years before advanced agricultural methods and more suitable climate led to the concentration of quality flax cultivation in northern...
trade. Although his mother came from a Protestant Home Rule
Home rule
Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
background, all were involved in the 1914 UVF gun running
Larne Gun Running
The Larne gun-running was a major gun smuggling operation organised in Ireland by Major Frederick H. Crawford and Captain Wilfrid Spender for the Ulster Unionist Council to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force...
, the 7-year old Harford being a dummy casualty for first-aid practice. He attended Queen's University Belfast where he gained a first-class history degree, and then Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
and a second-class law degree. He was a distant cousin of Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
.
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. By his will, the residue of his estate was left to his widow Robbie and his papers to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is situated in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a division within the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure ....
.
Early career
Hyde was called to the Bar in 1934 working briefly in London and on the North East circuit. His first salaried employment was with the 7th Marquess of LondonderryCharles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry
Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry, KG, MVO, PC, PC , styled Lord Stewart until 1884 and Viscount Castlereagh between 1884 and 1915, was an Anglo-Irish peer and had careers in both Irish and British politics...
whose wife Edith
Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry
Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry DBE was a noted socialite and philanthropist in the United Kingdom between World War I and World War II.-Family:...
was a famous London political hostess and whose influence on Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
was held by some to be suspect. From 1935-39, Hyde was librarian and Private Secretary to the Marquess in his ‘appeasement’ period, hired specifically to research the family papers and write its history. His works on the family included Londonderry House
Londonderry House
Londonderry House was an aristocratic townhouse situated on Park Lane in the Mayfair district of London, England.The house was the home to the Irish, titled family called the Stewarts who are better known as the Marquesses of Londonderry....
and its Pictures (1937), The Rise of Lord Castlereagh (1933), a book which remains very highly regarded, and The Londonderrys: A Family Portrait.
Lt. Col. Hyde, as he became, and was so addressed throughout most of his parliamentary career, had a good war, mostly in intelligence but he continued writing and publishing. He joined the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
Intelligence Corps in 1939 serving as an Assistant Censor in Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
in 1940. He was then commissioned in the intelligence corps (MI6) and engaged in counter-espionage work in the United States under Sir William Stephenson
William Stephenson
Sir William Samuel Stephenson, CC, MC, DFC was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid...
, Director of British Security Coordination
British Security Coordination
British Security Coordination was a covert organization set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service in May 1940 upon the authorization of Winston Churchill.-Operation:...
in the Western Hemisphere. He was also Military Liaison and Security Officer, Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
from 1940 to 1941 and Assistant Passport Control Officer in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
from 1941 to 1942. He was with British Army Staff, USA from 1942 to 1944, attached to the Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force in 1944, and then seconded to the Allied Control Commission
Allied Commission
Following the termination of hostilities in World War II, the Allied Powers were in control of the defeated Axis countries. Anticipating the defeat of Germany and Japan, they had already set up the European Advisory Commission and a proposed Far Eastern Advisory Commission to make recommendations...
for Austria until 1945 as a legal officer. After the war, he became assistant Editor of the Law Reports until 1947 and was legal adviser to the British Lion Film Corporation
British Lion Films
British Lion Films Corporation is a film production and distribution company active under several forms since 1919. Until 1976 they were also film distributors as British Lion Films Ltd, with a distributor filmography of 232 films. As a production company they are still active and have produced...
, then managed by Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
, up to 1949; in 1948 he published The Trials of Oscar Wilde, a precursor of three more books about Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
.
Politics
Hyde had planned a parliamentary career since the 1930s and actively scouted for seats until the war intervened postponing an election until 1945. He then applied for the South BelfastBelfast South (UK Parliament constituency)
Belfast South is a Parliamentary Constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.-Boundaries:The seat was created in 1922 when, as part of the establishment of the devolved Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland, the number of MPs in the Westminster Parliament was drastically cut...
Unionist
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
candidature and was unfortunate enough to miss the nomination by one vote. Five years later, North Belfast
Belfast North (UK Parliament constituency)
Belfast North is a Parliamentary Constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.-Boundaries:The seat was created in 1922 when, as part of the establishment of the devolved Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland, the number of MPs in the Westminster Parliament was drastically cut...
was to select him. He could have expected to hold his seat for a quarter of a century or more. In the event, he represented the constituency for just nine years. His maiden speech was on the uncontentious subject of the unenforceability of Northern Ireland maintenance orders in Great Britain, and the consequent problem of border-hopping husbands.
He was a UK delegate to the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
Consultative Assembly in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
from 1952 to 1955, majoring on simplifying European visa and border controls. He was also an incessant traveller, a visit in 1958 to East Germany
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
getting him into difficulty with political exiles when he lamely defended himself saying, "there are terrible things going on. Cultural matters are a safe subject in common."
Hyde was Unionist
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
MP for Belfast North
Belfast North (UK Parliament constituency)
Belfast North is a Parliamentary Constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons.-Boundaries:The seat was created in 1922 when, as part of the establishment of the devolved Stormont Parliament for Northern Ireland, the number of MPs in the Westminster Parliament was drastically cut...
, elected in 1950
United Kingdom general election, 1950
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...
,and re-elected in 1951
United Kingdom general election, 1951
The 1951 United Kingdom general election was held eighteen months after the 1950 general election, which the Labour Party had won with a slim majority of just five seats...
and 1955
United Kingdom general election, 1955
The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election. It resulted in a substantially increased majority of 60 for the Conservative government under new leader and prime minister Sir Anthony Eden against Labour Party, now in their 20th year...
.
He was deselected by his party in 1959 after arguing in favour of the decriminalisation of homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
in a debate about implementing the Wolfenden report
Wolfenden report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution was published in Britain on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, were convicted of homosexual offences.-The committee:The...
on 26 November 1958: a debate he had been most prominent in seeking. Indeed, Hyde was the most vocal of any MP in the 1950s about homosexual law reform.
Hyde’s reselection failed to be ratified by 171 votes to 152. By 19 votes, the Unionist Party lost its one respected voice at Westminster and abroad, and the only MP who ever advised his people of changing times, while attempting to modernise and moderate Unionist opinion. The Belfast Telegraph
The Belfast Telegraph
The Belfast Telegraph is a daily evening newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland by Independent News & Media.It was first published as the Belfast Evening Telegraph on 1 September 1870 by brothers William and George Baird...
reported, “Mr Hyde’s rejection is a result of criticism amongst constituents over his attitude over certain problems particularly the Wolfenden report, capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
and the return of the Lane pictures to Ireland; further there was a feeling he did not visit the division sufficiently.” One view expressed was that as the vote was so close he might have carried the day, had he been present.
Two days later, from Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
city, Hyde complained that it was a “rank discourtesy holding the meeting without him,” especially as there were 3,000 members in the constituency. His wife in London the next day said, “I shall advise him to cut out the rest of his tour if that is possible and deal with the matter on the spot.” She had however written earlier to him in Jamaica: “SO THAT’S THAT. I’m sorry darling perhaps it’s for the best. No more politics. No more Belfast politics. Oh bliss.” Hyde did make efforts to have the decision overturned by Unionist Party headquarters on procedural grounds but he had no high-level political support.
Although he had made little secret of his progressive views during the capital punishment debates, the campaign for access to the Casement diaries and his writings on Oscar Wilde, Hyde’s political undoing were his parliamentary interventions and outspoken views on the decriminalisation of homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
.
He contributed a half-hour speech to that 1958 debate covering both aspects of the Wolfenden report. He concluded by demanding equality for the homosexual and the prostitute. Earlier he quoted a letter from a consenting adult who had been gaoled and released, only to be informed on again, losing his new job. He pointed out "three popular fallacies that have been exposed by the Report": that "male homosexuality always involves sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
", that homosexuals are "necessarily effeminate", and that most relevant court cases "are of practising male homosexuals in private." Only one hundred men a year, he said, were convicted of sex in private with consenting adults. Hyde's reform efforts at decriminalising homosexuality in England and Wales were not to be successful for another ten years. It took 25 years until 1982 for the same to happen in Northern Ireland.
In later life, he became somewhat disillusioned with the cause of Irish Unionism.
He famously moved a motion in Westminster calling for a tunnel to be constructed between County Antrim and the Scottish coast
Irish Sea Tunnel
An Irish Sea Tunnel is a proposed tunnel that would link the island of Ireland to Great Britain beneath the Irish Sea. It has been suggested in the past largely for political reasons. It would be a railway tunnel, similar to the Channel Tunnel beneath the English Channel...
. He spent 40 minutes outlining its advantages. Echoing Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, he pronounced: "The dreams of yesterday are the realities of today".
Hyde later in 1972 authored the first history of homosexuality in Great Britain and Ireland, The Other Love perhaps his most memorable and long lasting work. With its rich and detailed narratives, “fusing legal knowledge with illustrative anecdotage,” it was the most extensive book on the subject. Antony Grey
Antony Grey
Antony Grey was a leading English lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights activist. He lived with his partner, Eric Thompson, for 50 years after first meeting in 1960...
, secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society
Homosexual Law Reform Society
The Homosexual Law Reform Society was an organisation that campaigned in the United Kingdom for changes in the laws that criminalised homosexual relations between men.- History :...
(HLRS) provided case histories and cuttings from the society’s files for its contemporary section.
Academia
He was an extension lecturer in History at the University of OxfordUniversity of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in 1934, and Professor of History and Political Science at the University of Lahore
University of Lahore
The University Of Lahore was established in 1999 as a private university by the Ibadat Educational Trust. It is accredited by the Pakistan Engineering Council , Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and Pharmacy Council of Pakistan...
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
William Stephenson
Sir William Samuel Stephenson, CC, MC, DFC was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. He is best known by his wartime intelligence codename Intrepid...
and the wartime efforts of British Security Coordination
British Security Coordination
British Security Coordination was a covert organization set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service in May 1940 upon the authorization of Winston Churchill.-Operation:...
. He also wrote a biography of the British spy Amy Elizabeth Thorpe
Amy Elizabeth Thorpe
Amy Elizabeth "Betty" Thorpe was, according to William Stephenson of British Security Coordination, an American spy, codenamed "Cynthia," who worked for his agency during World War II...
Pack Brousse with the British Security Coordination
British Security Coordination
British Security Coordination was a covert organization set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service in May 1940 upon the authorization of Winston Churchill.-Operation:...
code name "Cynthia". Hyde also wrote extensively on the Oscar Wilde trials and Wilde's immediate circle, on the trial of Sir Roger Casement
Roger Casement
Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....
, and on T. E. Lawrence
T. E. Lawrence
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO , known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18...
.
His involvement in progressive and controversial issues did not cease after he left parliament. He continued his work opposing capital punishment while he published two articles in May 1965 in The People to advance the cause of homosexual law reform. The second entitled The Million Women, appeared after the House of Commons had rejected Leo Abse’s first Bill, showing “itself more reactionary than the Lords,” as he stated. That article dealt with lesbians whose “association” was not regarded as an offence, and “Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
the poetess who wrote passionate verses about the lovely maidens who gathered round her.”
Hyde was awarded an honorary degree by Queen’s University Belfast in 1984. He lived at Westwell House, Tenterden
Tenterden
Tenterden is a Cinque Port town in the Ashford District of Kent, England. It stands on the edge of the Weald, overlooking the valley of the River Rother....
in Kent in a house once inhabited by Horatio Nelson's daughter. Hyde was earlier a tenant of Lamb House in Rye, once home to his distant cousin, Henry James. He worked up to his death on 10 August 1989, just short of his eighty-second birthday. His third wife Robbie survived him. Many of his papers are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). Others were sold to the University of Texas at Austin.
Works
- 1933: The Rise of Castlereagh, (Macmillan, 1933)
- 1940: Judge Jeffries, (Harrap, 1940); 2nd ed., Butterworth & Co (1948)
- 1948: Famous Trials: Oscar Wilde, (Hodge, 1948), enlarged ed, Penguin (1962)
- 1953: Carson, (Heinemann, 1953)
- 1959: The Strange Death of Lord Castlereagh, Heinemann, London, 1959
- 1960: Sir Patrick Hastings, His Life and Cases, (Heinemann, 1960)
- 1962: The Quiet Canadian: The Secret Service Story of Sir William Stephenson, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1962 [later released as Room 3603: The Story of the British Intelligence Center in New York during World War II, Farrar Straus and Company, New York, 1963].
- 1964: Norman Birkett, the Life of Lord Birkett of Ulverston, (Hamish Hamilton, 1964)
- 1964: A History of Pornography (Heinemann, 1964)
- 1965: Cynthia - the Story of the Spy Who Changed the Course of the War, (Hamish Hamilton, 1965)
- 1967: Lord Reading: the Life of Rufus Isaacs, First Marquess of Reading, (Heinemann, 1967)
- 1970: The Love That Dared not Speak its Name, (Little, Brown, 1970)
- 1970: The Other Love: an Historical and Contemporary Survey of Homosexuality in Britain, Heinemann, London, 1970
- 1977: Solitary in the Ranks: Lawrence of Arabia as Airman and Private Soldier, London: Constable, 1977; New York: Atheneum, 1978) ISBN 0-689-10848-6
- 1979: The Londonderrys, a family portrait, (H. Hamilton, 1979), ISBN 0-241-10153-0
- 1982: Secret Intelligence Agent (Constable, 1982) ISBN 0-09-463850-0; (St. Martin's Press) ISBN 0-312-70847-5
Further works
Hyde titles not included in the above list.- The Russian Journals of Martha and Catherine Wilmot (Co-author with Marchioness of Londonderry)
- The Empress Catherine and Princess Dashkov
- Air Defence and the Civil Population (co-author with G F Falkiner Nuttall)
- Londonderry House and Pictures
- Princess Lieven
- Mexican Empire
- A Victorian Historian: Letters to W E H Lecky
- Privacy and the Press
- John Law
- Mr and Mrs Beeton
- Cases that Changed the Law
- The Trial of Craig and Bentley
- Stalin, the History of a Dictator (New York: Harford Ltd, 1971).
- United in Crime (Kingswood: Windmill Press) (New York: Roy Publishers 1955)
- The Trial of Sir Roger Casement
- Simla and the Simla Hill under British Protection: 1815-1835
- An International Casebook of Crime (co-author with John H Kisch)
- Henry James at Home (London: Methuen, 1969)