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.

In 1954 the Conservative government set up a Departmental Committee to look into aspects of British sex laws. The resulting report, the Wolfenden Report, was published on 3 September 1957.

On 5 March 1958, the academic A.E. (Tony) Dyson wrote a letter to The Times, published on the 7th, calling for reform of the law by the implementation of the Wolfenden Committee's recommendations and was signed by many distinguished people including Clement Attlee, A. J. Ayer, Isaiah Berlin, Trevor Huddleston, Julian Huxley, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Donald Soper, Angus Wilson and Barbara Wootton.

The correspondence that this letter generated helped bring together supporters of the Wolfenden Report and this led to the Homosexual Law Reform Society being founded on 12 May 1958 with members including Victor Gollancz, Stephen Spender, and MP Kenneth Younger. Most of the founders were not homosexual.

Advertisements inviting people who supported the Wolfenden Report to contact the Homosexual Law Reform Society resulted in Tony Dyson being joined by Antony Grey, businessman Nigel Bryant and architect Duncan Wright.

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