Wolfenden report

The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Sir John Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a succession of well-known men, including Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Michael Pitt-Rivers, John Gielgud, and Peter Wildeblood were convicted of homosexual offences.

After the Second World War, there had been an increase in arrests and prosecutions, and by the end of 1954, in England and Wales, there were 1,069 men in prison for homosexual acts, with a mean age of 37 years.

[9] All but James Adair were in favour of this and, contrary to some medical and psychiatric witnesses' evidence at that time, found that "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects."

The report added: The law's function is to preserve public order and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive or injurious, and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others ...

In The Enforcement of Morals, Devlin states that the Wolfenden report "is recognized to be an excellent study of two very difficult legal and social problems".

[12] In late 1957, shortly after the report was published, the General Assembly of the Church of England, by a vote of 155 to 138, passed a resolution "That this Assembly generally approves the principles on which the criminal law concerned with sexual behaviour should be based as stated by the Wolfenden Committee, and also its recommendations relating to homosexuality, but considers that the recommendations relating to prostitution require further study".