Wolfenden had been appointed to head the committee by the then Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe to consider whether the existing laws on these should be changed.

Geraldine Bedell noted the irony of this, and commented: "Perhaps he [Maxwell-Fyfe] thought, by handing over to a committee, to shelve the issue.

"[4] In 1957, Wolfenden chaired an independent committee initiated by the Central Council of Physical Recreation which investigated the role of various statutory and voluntary groups in sport in the United Kingdom.

[3] His elder son was Jeremy Wolfenden, a foreign correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and a British spy.

[8][3] He was created a life peer on 12 July 1974 with the title Baron Wolfenden, of Westcott in the County of Surrey.