The Irish peer, Lord Longford, died in London last night aged 95. He courageously fought the most unpopular causes - such as those on behalf of the Moors killers.
Lord Longford was a lanky 6ft 2in, and seemed everybody's idea of an absent-minded professor. He was absent-minded, being known to have tried to eat the table-mats during a meal, but his was a towering intellect. Everyone who met him was struck by his generous nature, his venomous wit, and his readiness to ridicule himself.
He was leader of the House of Lords from 1964 to 1968, and held other ministerial posts.
Lord Hailsham once said of him that "one is glad from the bottom of one's heart that there exists in the world a man so single-hearted that he is prepared to espouse such hopeless causes".
Lord Longford was born Francis Aungier Pakenham on December 5th, 1905, second son of the 5th Earl of Longford and the great-great grandson of prime minister Robert Peel.
At Eton he was not very popular because of his brother Edward's Sinn Fein sympathies. At Oxford Edward was almost drowned by young bloods for his republican sympathies.
He gained a first class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics. As a student he shared digs with Hugh Gaitskell.
He enjoyed a round of breakfast parties, riding, arguing and laughing. But he was also politically active in the Conservative Party.
In 1927 became an primary school teacher and Workers' Educational Association lecturer. He then became a leader writer on the Daily Mail, lectured at the London School of Economics, working at a boys' club in the evenings, then two years as a Conservative Party research secretary.
He and Elizabeth Harman, a history graduate, were married in 1931 and had four sons and four daughters. She was a highly regarded author.
In 1932 Lord Longford withdrew from London politics to lecture in politics at Christ Church, Oxford, and was a don for 13 years. He turned his enthusiasm towards Ireland and wrote a book on the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 called Peace by Ordeal, published in 1935.
A year later he attended a Mosley Fascist meeting at Oxford where Mosleyite stewards beat up protesting leftwingers. Lord Longford waded in to their defence and received a terrible beating. He joined the Labour Party, having been strongly influenced by his socialist wife. He soon became an Oxford councillor.
With the outbreak of war he joined the Territorial Army and was invalided out after a nervous breakdown in 1940. He joined the Roman Catholic Church. His wife also converted a few years later.
In 1941 he joined Lord William Beveridge as his assistant and played an important role in producing the Welfare State report. In the 1945 election he stood for Labour and lost. But his party won and he was made Baron Pakenham of Cowley and a government whip.
In 1946 he became UnderSecretary, War Office and six months later was given responsibility for the British zones in Germany and Austria. Sent in 1947 to Germany, there was a delay in bringing steps to his aircraft and he jumped, just as steps were slid into place, smashing his face. In 1961 he succeeded to the Irish Earldom of Longford when his brother died. But he handed the inheritance to his eldest son because he felt too old for it.
In 1963 he chaired the Justice Committee which proposed to pay state compensation to victims of crimes of violence. Harold Wilson was reputed to have said that Longford had "the mind of a 12-year-old", but Longford hit back indignantly, saying that that was "the judgment of a 12-year-old".
He chaired a Labour committee to prepare a programme of penal reform, including the abolition of capital punishment. He became colonial secretary from 1965-66. In 1968 he resigned as leader of the Lords.
Meanwhile, he was involved in assisting young people and had helped to found the New Horizon Youth Centre. In 1969 his daughter Catherine (23), died in a car crash. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1972, the year his Pornography Report was published, challenging the view that pornography did no harm.
He was a staunch advocate of prison reform and had been an official prison visitor since the 30s. His most controversial campaign was his persistent and unremitting call for parole for Myra Hindley. In 1985 when the Parole Board refused to release her after 20 years in jail he said the decision was "barbaric". He also visited the Yorkshire ripper Peter Sutcliffe and Dennis Neilsen in jail.
Lord Longford also courted controversy by inviting the released and reformed IRA letter bomber Shane O'Doherty to tea in the House of Lords.
His life was driven by an endless attempt to be and do good and part of his charm was that he admitted his failures and near-comic adventures. In 1990 when he was nearly 85, he said: "It's hard not to be vain at being still here and not obviously gaga. I'm very lucky."
Alongside his campaigns on behalf of society's underdogs he wrote more 20 books, including two autobiographies, and was the joint author with the late Tom O'Neill of the authorised biography of Eamon de Valera.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said Lord Longford "was a great man, a man of passionate integrity and humanity and a great reformer committed to modernising the law while also caring deeply for individuals. I will miss him deeply."
Lady Longford and the rest of the family expressed "deep sadness". "It was a great life and he was a great man."
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, said: "I remember Lord Longford as a great friend and a man not afraid to be different. He was an outstanding Christian witness who devoted his entire life to the Catholic faith. May he rest in peace."
Former Labour MP Mr Tony Benn remembered the peer as a "kindly and thoughtful" man. He said the controversy over his support for Hindley should not overshadow memories of his pre-war opposition to the appeasement of Hitler, his work leading to the creation of the welfare state and his lengthy service in government.
The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, said in a statement last night: "It is with sadness that I have learned of the death of Lord Longford, a friend of my family. He was a decent and good man who campaigned tirelessly for human rights. He was a good friend of Ireland."