Francis Pakenham; British Earl, Politician, Reformer

The Earl of Longford, a politician, passionate social reformer and champion of society’s outcasts, has died. He was 95.

The earl, Francis Aungier Pakenham, died Friday at London’s Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, his family said.

Born and brought up a Protestant aristocrat and Conservative, he ended up a Socialist, a Roman Catholic and an Irish Nationalist.

Lord Longford’s persistent crusades overshadowed his political career, and in later years, it was largely forgotten that he had served as leader of the House of Lords from 1964 to 1968 and had held other ministerial posts.

He opposed the appeasement of Hitler before World War II and worked on social reforms that led to the creation of Britain’s welfare state. He chaired a committee that in 1963 proposed state compensation for victims of violent crime.

He was most noted for his prison reform campaign, particularly for arguing that one of Britain’s most notorious modern criminals, child killer Myra Hindley, should be paroled.

He was born Dec. 5, 1905, the second son of the fifth Earl of Longford and a great-great-grandson of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. He succeeded to the Irish earldom in 1961, when his elder brother died.

He attended Eton and Oxford University, earning honors degrees in philosophy, politics and economics.

Among his ministerial posts were undersecretary at the War Office, minister of Civil Aviation and first lord of the Admiralty. He was also an editorial writer for the Daily Mail newspaper and a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Oxford University. He wrote more than 20 books, including two autobiographies.

He is survived by his wife of 70 years, biographer Elizabeth Longford; and four sons and three daughters, including writers Lady Antonia Fraser and Thomas Pakenham.

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