Peter Wildeblood Dies
Associated Press, November 23, 1999
VICTORIA, British Columbia (AP) - Peter Wildeblood, who gained attention
for writing about his imprisonment under Britain’s anti-homosexual laws, has died. He
was 76.
Wildeblood died Nov. 14 at his home in Victoria, British Columbia. No cause of death
was announced, but he had been paralyzed by a 1994 stroke.
Along with Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Michael Pitt-Rivers, Wildeblood was convicted
in 1954 in Britain of charges relating to indecency between males and sent to prison for
18 months.
His 1955 book, "Against the Law," is credited with intensifying protests over
Britain’s laws prohibiting homosexual sex and ushering in their demise, the Guardian
newspaper reported in his obituary last week.
The book prompted a debate in the House of Lords and the publication of a 1957
government committee report calling for the decriminalization of gay sex for over
21-year-olds. The law was changed 10 years later.
He became a writer and producer for television in Britain, and in the early 1970s moved
to Toronto to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and became a Canadian
citizen, The Times reported.
He retired to a wooden cottage in Victoria, but five years ago a stroke left him
speechless and quadriplegic.
Information on burial and next of kin were not available Tuesday.
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