LEO ABSE (1917-2008) : LAW REFORMER : “All The World’s A Stage”

 

LEO : LAW REFORMER

 

Tonight in Newport at The Newport Local History Society ( Pen and Wig PH, Stow Hill from 7pm )  local  Author  William Cross, FSA Scot, offers a talk on the life and work of the  former Pontypool & Torfaen MP, Leo Abse, (1917-2008),  a small, bespectacled “Lilliputian Welsh fire-cracker” brimming with self confidence, a charismatic dandy much  beloved as a local and national politician over many decades.

 

Leo was a lawyer by profession,  who in his time in Parliament (1958-1988) successfully sponsored more Private Members Bills than any other Parliamentarian. Leo Abse’s name can be attached to important changes in the law  from the 1960s to the 1980s  almost all in  highly controversial areas of life and death. These included  the law on  Suicide, Infanticide, Capital Punishment (Hanging),  Homosexual Reform, Divorce Reform, Family Planning and improving the rights of Children (Adoption) and Widows.  He was also prominent in Penal Reform and abolishing Nuclear Weapons.

 

Abse’s place in the hall of fame of  history is almost certainly to be as the sponsor of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, a piece of legislation (enacting the recommendations of the Wolfenden Report (of 1957))  that initiated  a monumental change in the law that allowed sexual relations between men over the age of 21, overturning legislation from the time of King Henry VIII and dire laws enacted in Victorian  times that were zealously applied by the police and courts & blighted lives. This change slowly but  inevitably led to other updates in the law resulting in parity between the sexes and genders and finally settling the age of consent at sixteen. It also removed the restrictions on homosexuals joining the armed services.

 

The talk takes a retrospective look at this law from Victorian times (and before)  with some of the most controversial and public of the cases that reached the courts before 1967, including the notorious Abergavenny case of 1942, the Turing case from 1952 and prosecution of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu in 1954.

 

Leo Abse was born in Cardiff in 1917. He was from  Welsh Jewish- Eastern European stock. His father Rudolf was a cinema manager , his mother Kate Shepherd was the daughter of strict orthodox Jews. Leo was the middle brother of three, the eldest being  Wilfred  ( who became a psychiatrist  in USA) and younger brother  Dannie, a doctor and notable poet. There was also a sister Hulda who was the first born ( in Bridgend) who emigrated to the USA.

 

Leo attended Howard Garden School in Cardiff and later the London School of Economics. He joined the Labour Party in the 1930s and after active service as an aircraftsman in WW2 with the RAF in the Middle East he was active in local politics, in Cardiff Young Socialists and on Cardiff Council. As a lawyer he formed ( in 1951) his own law firm Leo Abse and Cohen & specialised in criminal cases & family law, including offering a life line for men & youths caught up in sexual offences charges, in particular in gross indecency cases.

 

A flamboyant dresser,  Abse made enemies too especially on issues he opposed including Welsh devolution and abortion. He was MP for Pontypool from 1958-1983 and for Toefaen until he retired in 1988. He was the author of several pscho- political biographies taking a Freudian look at Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher & others.   He married twice, his second wife and son & daughter survive. He died in London with his funeral at St Gabriel’s Cwmbran.

 

Will Cross is a writer & lecturer based in Newport, South Wales. He is the author of  “ The Abergavenny Witch Hunt” which examined the law relating to homosexuality over the centuries and revealed the  human price paid in a  barbaric period of our history. Will has also written a variety of  books on the Morgans of Tredegar House, Newport & the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle ( Downton Abbey). 

Will is currently writing a book entitled  “TOM MITFORD : A FEARFUL OLD TWISTER” all about Tom Mitford, ( 1909-1945), the only brother in  the family of the famous, scandalous, Mitford Girls of Society trouble and strife.  Contact Will  by email for other talks/ books williecross@aol.com