David Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham

David James George Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham and Baron Hennessy CVO , PC , FBA (* 28. January 1932 in London , † 21st December 2010 ) was a British politician of the Conservative Party and television producer .

life and career

Hennessy was born January 28, 1932 to James Hennessy, 2nd Baron Windlesham , a brigadier , and Angela Duggan. He had three sisters. Hennessy came from a Catholic Irish family; Parts of the extensive family emigrated to France in the 18th century and made wealth through the production of cognac . Hennessy attended Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire and the Trinity College of the University of Oxford , he participated in the 1957 with a Master of Arts in Law ( Law graduated). His later main areas of activity were criminal law and criminology . He did his military service with the Grenadier Guards in his father's regiment , with whom he was stationed in Tripoli .

In 1957 he joined the advertising department of the television channel Associated Rediffusion . After only a few months he was involved in the development of his own television programs; among other things, he worked for the series This Week . He became the Program Director ( Chief Executive Programs promoted). In 1965 he became Director General ( General Manager ). The following year, he was executive producer of the BBC and ITV in Anthony de Lotbinieres Christmas show ( Christmas Day Special ), the first time the interior of Buckingham Palace revealed and five other royal houses. From 1967 to 1970, Hennessy was Managing Director of Grampian Television .

In October 1974, after retiring from the frontline of politics , Hennessy returned to television and became the Joint Managing Director of Associated Television ( ATV ). Hennessy was particularly committed to the freedom of the press and turned against state and private influence in the field of broadcasting and television. In 1977, he had a dispute with the food company Tate & Lyle when they tried to prevent ATV from documenting the company's activities in South Africa . He also defended, despite diplomatic disagreements, the broadcast of a documentary entitled Death of a Princess , which portrayed the execution of a young member of the Saudi elite for their Western lifestyle.

In terms of corporate policy, Hennessy campaigned in the early 1980s to maintain the Midlands branch ( ATV Midlands ); However, this came at the high price of selling 49% of the company's shares, relocating production to Birmingham and Nottingham and creating separate management teams.

In 1982, Hennessy left ATV's Midlands Operation after Central TV began broadcasting in January 1982. After the company was taken over by media entrepreneur Robert Holmes à Court , he briefly served on the Board of Directors of ATV Network , but then took over the chairmanship of the Parole Board for England and Wales that same year .

In 1989, Hennessy co-led an official investigation into a Thames Television documentary with Crown Attorney and Libel Lawyer Richard Rampton . The documentary Death on the Rock investigated and recorded the deaths of three members of the IRA who were shot dead in March 1989 by members of the Special Air Service in Gibraltar . The documentation came to the conclusion that the IRA members may have been wrongly shot due to a wrong assessment of the facts. In his final report, after a three-month investigation, Hennessy largely confirmed the presentation of the documentation , contrary to the opinion of the Foreign Office and the British Department of Defense , whereupon the government under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher went on the counter-offensive. Thatcher, who had spoken of a "court case via television" in relation to the documentation, had a 17-page dossier published as a refutation . Geoffrey Howe questioned Hennessy's impartiality.

Hennessy ran twice for both the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority . In the late 1970s / early 1980s, he turned down several offers from Thatcher to return to politics. He also rejected the offer to become EU Commissioner in order to continue working in the television business.

Hennessy wrote several books that dealt with the topics of freedom of broadcasting , freedom of the press and the tension between politics, business and the press. He has also published books on his legal specialties, particularly the penal system and criminology.

Political career

David Hennessy was a member ( Councilor ) of Westminster City Council from 1958 to 1962 . In 1959 he became chairman ( chairman ) of the Bow Group ; he held this office in 1959/1960 and from 1962 to 1963. In 1959 he joined the Conservative Party for the constituency of Tottenham unsuccessfully .

After the Tories won the 1970 general election , Edward Heath appointed Hennessy Minister of State in the Home Office under Reginald Maudling . As Secretary of State, Hennessy disclosed the fact that select law enforcement officers serving at Borstal Juvenile Detention Center received firearms training from British Forces instructors during their training; the reactions to it were controversial. He also opposed a law that allowed Americans to evade military action in Vietnam by seeking refuge in Britain .

In March 1972, after Heath dissolved the Regional Parliament in Northern Ireland ( Stormont ) and installed the Northern Ireland Office (NIO), he appointed Hennessy and Paul Channon ministers of state in the Northern Ireland Office; Hennessy was the first Catholic to hold a ministerial office in Northern Ireland. In September 1972 he attended the Darlington Conference, which tried to explore policy options for Northern Ireland. In 1973 he declared: "We have defeated the IRA ." In May 1973, Hennessy brought the bill for the Northern Ireland Assembly through all instances of the House of Lords within 90 minutes .

In June 1973, Hennessy became a member of the Cabinet and Privy Council . He became Lord Privy Seal and was the youngest Leader of the House of Lords ever. He assumed responsibility for the public service and for cooperation with non-profit organizations. As the energy crisis deepened, Heath put him in charge of the government's press and information office.

Membership in the House of Lords

After the death of his father, James Hennessy, 2nd Baron Windlesham , who was killed in a plane crash, he inherited his title and the associated seat in the House of Lords . He gave his inaugural address on March 28, 1963. He was active there from the start.

During the opposition of the Tories , he was one of the leading spokesmen of the opposition in the fields of social services and technology . He was a member of a group of parliamentarians who are against the nationalization of the steel industry turned and kicked a bill of Barbara Castle to transport one. In 1969 he introduced a bill to prevent invasion of privacy through the improper use of stored computer data . He worked with the National Council for Civil Liberties .

After the general election in February 1974 , he was from February 1974 to October 1974 shadow chairman of the House of Lords ( Shadow Leader of the Lords ). He was a member of the Radcliffe Committee , which established new guidelines for the prior checking and publication of ministers' memoirs , and a member of a House of Lords Review Panel. He was a member of the House of Lords Special Committee in 1988/1989, which recommended the suspension of compulsory life imprisonment for murder ( Select Committee on Murder and Life Imprisonment ). He rejected Michael Howard's judicial policy .

In 1993 he was a member of the Committee on the Penalty for Homicide under the leadership of Lord Chief Justice Geoffrey Lane .

Through the House of Lords Act 1999 he lost the traditional right to sit in the House of Lords , whereupon he was named a life peer as Baron Hennessy , of Windlesham in the County of Surrey .

The last time he spoke up was on October 18, 2005. He last took part in a vote on November 17, 2008.

Further offices and honors

In 1977 he was Deputy Chairman ( Deputy Chairman ) of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Appeal . He was chairman ( chairman ) of the Oxford Preservation Trust (1979-1989) and also in the Oxford Society (1985-1988). In 1981 he became trustee of the British Museum , where he was responsible for the collections of prehistoric and Romano-British antiquities . In 1986, Burke Trend died, Hennessy Chairman ( Chairman ). He chaired it until 1996. In 1989 he was elected director of Brasenose College and remained so until 1992.

In 1982 he was appointed Chairman of the Parole Board for England and Wales by William Whitelaw ; he held this office until 1988. Hennessy particularly advocated the use of suspended sentences and rehabilitation . Hennessy was known for his liberal attitude; However, he declined an early release from serial killer Myra Hindley . He later belonged, along with Douglas Hurd , to the Prison Reform Trust .

Appointed by the government, he also served intermittently (1981-1989) as the independent director of The Observer newspaper . He was Governor of the Ditchley Foundation , Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple Bar Association and Honorary Fellow of the British Academy (2005).

In 1981 he was awarded the Royal Victorian Order (CVO). In 1995 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Doctor of Letters (DLitt) for his writings on criminology, in particular the four-volume work Responses to Crime . In 1992 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College . He was also a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College (1986). He was visiting professor at Princeton University (1997, 2002/2003), where he taught on the subject of penal systems and criminology ( Criminal Justice Policy ), as well as at various other institutions. In 2003 he received the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic ( Commendatore ).

Family and death

Hennessy married fashion journalist Prudence Glynn in 1965 , who died in 1986. They had previously divorced in 1983. Together they have a daughter and a son who inherited his title.

Hennessy died on December 21, 2010 at the age of 78.

Publications

• Communications and Political Power , Jonathan Cape, 1966, ISBN 978-0224610896
• Politics in Practice , Jonathan Cape, 1975, ISBN 978-0224011273
• Broadcasting In A Free Society , Blackwell Publishers, 1980, ISBN 978-0631113713
• Responses to Crime: volume 1 , Clarendon Press, 1987, ISBN 978-0198255833
• The Windlesham / Rampton Report , Faber and Faber, 1989, ISBN 978-0571141500
• Responses to Crime: Volume 2: Penal Policy in the Making: 002 , Clarendon Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0198254164
• Responses to Crime: Legislating With the Tide: 003 , Clarendon Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0198262404
• Politics, Punishment and Populism , Oxford Univ. Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0195115307
• Responses to Crime: Dispensing Justice Volume 4: 004 , Clarendon Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0198298441

Web links

• David Hennessy at Hansard (English)
• The Rt Hon the Lord Windlesham, CVO, PC biography at Debretts
• David Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham Theyworkforyou
• David Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham The Public Whip
• Lord Windlesham obituary obituary in: The Guardian 23 December 2010
• Lord Windlesham obituary in The Daily Telegraph 23 December 2010

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Lord Windlesham obituary: in The Daily Telegraph, December 23, 2010
2. ↑ Lord Windlesham: Government minister who fell out with Thatcher over 'Death on the Rock' obituary in the Independent, February 5, 2011
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lord Windlesham obituary obituary in: The Guardian of 23 December 2010
4. ^ The Darlington Conference on political options for Northern Ireland, September 25-27, 1972
5. ↑ David James George Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham on thepeerage.com , accessed September 11, 2016.
6. ^ Minutes and Order Paper - Minutes of Proceedings , on the British Parliament homepage
7. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed August 22, 2020 . 
8. ↑ Lord Windlesham To Speak on Criminal Justice Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School

predecessor	Office	successor
James Hennessy	Baron Windlesham 1962-2010	James Rupert Hennessy
George Jellicoe	Lord Seal Keeper 1973–1974	Malcolm Shepherd