The Independent obituary

Newspaper letter column editors will henceforth have a much lighter postbag. Few individuals have had greater tenacity for a single cause than Enid Lakeman had for electoral reform over the past fifty years. Her commitment to preferential voting and her ability to apply a rock solid foundation in theory to the practical opportunity of the moment, serviced by the simple combination of a good press cuttings service and an increasingly battered typewriter, enabled her to produce a swift and sharp response to each and every electoral nonsense or wayward statement. Not even the most far flung of local newspapers was immune from a Lakeman thunderbolt. Most of them were so surprised to get a letter from a London office that they printed them.

David Butler once commented that, however timorously he might dare to hint that there might just be circumstances in which a voting system other than the Single Transferable Vote could conceivably be justified, he would await the inevitable riposte. Though increasingly enfeebled physically in recent years, Enid Lakeman's letter writing lost none of its edge and I have no doubt that in the next few days further pro STV blasts will be appearing posthumously. Many supporters of STV attribute their initial interest to the clarity and thoroughness of her arguments. She appeared to be impervious to both darkness and low temperatures and would work in the half light in the library at the Electoral Reform Society offices in Blackfriars, with her lunch box at the ready, with younger colleagues shivering in the gloom but hardly daring to confront Enid's resentment at any waste of scarce resources on heating and lighting.

Enid Lakeman was intensely political and her reforming zeal, feminism and internationalism sat comfortably with her lifelong membership of the Liberal Party and, latterly, the Liberal Democrats. She contested four postwar elections in the Liberal interest and was briefly a Liberal Councillor on the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council. She wrote numerous books and pamphlets either on liberalism and electoral matters and was a familiar figure at Liberal Assemblies, limping strenuously from meeting to meeting. Through her Liberal Party connection she was made an OBE in 1980. She had appeared frail for many years but hip replacement operations gave her a new lease of mobility. Fiercely self sufficient she would struggle on her own on public transport to meetings, and only reluctantly accepted help, even in the last two years after a fall had impeded her progress still more.

Enid Lakeman loved to travel and was a fine linguist. When well into her 80s she would make it plain that she was intending to go, say, to Buenos Aires for a meeting of the International Association of Political Scientists and would suggest that her presence would be useful to the electoral reform cause. Would it be possible, therefore, to have a grant towards the travel? Trustees of the small charitable fund at Chancel Street, thinking that it would be nice to help Enid to go to one last conference, would produce a modest sum. This tactic carried on enabling her to keep going to "last" conferences right up to her attendance in Berlin in her 90th year! Both Liberal and electoral reform organisations honoured her with 90th birthday dinners in tribute to her work. An annual Lakeman lecture will ensure that this doughty warrior is well remembered.

Enid Lakeman OBE, politician and electoral reformer, born 28 november 1903, died 7 January 1995.

Eric Reginald Lubbock, 4th Baron Avebury, by Godfrey Argent - NPG x136Eric Lubbock - and no-one who had any connection with the Orpington by-election of 1962 ever knew him as anything else - was instantly likeable, unassuming and an espouser of a series of Liberal causes, the only consistent qualification for which was that they were all vote losers. He was the least likely aristocrat imaginable and yet he had a very distinguished ancestry of Barons and Knights going back over two centuries. As a consequence of a curious combination of circumstances he had greatness thrust upon him. Living quietly with his wife and three children in the small Kent village of Downe he joined the Liberal party in 1960. A year later he was elected as a Liberal councillor from the village on to the Orpington Urban District Council. Later in 1961 the Orpington parliamentary seat became vacant with the appointment of its Conservative MP Donald Sumner to be a High Court judge.

In the years before this the Orpington Liberals had built up a well organised political organisation and had elected a very able group of councillors. The party had seen a national upsurge in support under leader Jo Grimond and, in conjunction with party headquarters, who seconded its Local Government Officer, Pratap Chitnis, to be the by-election agent, it was determined that a broad-based and well financed campaign to win the by-election would be launched. The one problem was that Jack Galloway, the popular and articulate Liberal candidate in place, who had fought the previous general election, was beset by personal problems which were known to the press. It was clear that he would be a liability in the spotlight of a by-election and, eventually, he was persuaded to resign. The local party decided that it needed a solid local respected individual as its candidate. The lot fell on Eric Lubbock and he was catapulted into the limelight.

Everything else worked together for good: the Tories left the seat vacant for seven months and then selected a Central Office intellectual whom they thought could just be imposed on what they considered to be a safe seat - having a 14,000 majority in 1959. Although a brilliant candidate, Peter Goldman was wholly wrong for Orpington, particularly for a by-election in the special circumstances. Following a brilliantly run campaign, both tactically and organisationally, Eric Lubbock was elected with almost 8,000 majority. Very soon he was appointed as Chief Liberal Whip which was an ideal job both for his fast-developing political skills and personable style. He did this tough job for seven long years. He had a quixotic tilt at the Liberal party leadership in 1967 following Jo Grimond's retirement but it was not really his scene and he attracted only two parliamentary supporters in addition to his own vote.

He held the Orpington constituency in the 1964 and 1966 general elections and even in the disastrous Liberal year of 1970 he almost won and did, in fact, put up the Liberal vote slightly. The following year his cousin, the third Lord Avebury, died and Eric, as his cousin, inherited the title and a seat in the House of Lords. Eric pondered briefly whether to go with his instincts and disclaim the title or to take the pragmatic view that he would be more useful to the many causes he was involved with, and to the Liberal party, if he went to the Lords, given that it was likely that it would take some years before he could win Orpington back. He chose the latter option and for forty-five years - including being elected as one of the few "continuing" hereditary peers - used the position in the Lords to pursue human rights, immigration, race relations and minority causes around the world. For a time it seemed that wherever I was sent to on electoral missions Eric was already there battling with the government on behalf of one oppressed minority or another.

He was a very distinguished NLC member both on account of his long parliamentary career and for his consistent support of Liberal causes. His involvement with the Club led to the formation of the Orpington Dinner which regularly raises funds for Liberal Democrat by-election campaigns.

Lord Avebury 1928-2016

This enquiry led to my uncovering the remarkable history of Joseph Mellor, a member from 1920 until his death in 1938. The general impression of NLC members, past and present, is of a club that has attracted a preponderance of its members from the broad liberal arts - lawyers, writers, civil servants, artists and musicians, just as the world of politics has done. A much needed examination of the membership application forms would quantify the impression but certainly there have not been many visible scientists around over the years.

Joseph Mellor was, therefore, quite an exception, though by the time of his application, his position as Principal of the Central School of Science and Technology in Stoke-on-Trent rather masked his distinguished scientific career. Incidentally his proposer in 1920 was a rather shady individual, Rudd Chislett Rann, sometimes known as Chislett Rudd Rann! Rann himself had only been a member from 1916 prior to which he had been an entrepreneur who criss-crossed the Atlantic in following his business deals. In 1904, along with business colleagues, he had been sued in a New York court in relation to alleged "corruptly diverting" funds from share deals. He was acquitted by the court but there was no mention of his business background when he applied to the Club for membership.

Mellor was born in Huddersfield in 1869 and when he was ten the family emigrated to New Zealand. The family's poverty prevented him from continuing his education and at thi rtee n he was employed in boot making. However. in the evenings. by the light of a paraffin lamp. he studied borrowed chemistry books. The principal of the local technical school heard of him and. in effect, adopted him and aided his education. enabling him to enter the University of Otago in 1892 as a part-time student. Six years later he grad uated with Ist Class honours and took up a teac hing post. In the same year, 1898, he married the organist at the local Methodist chu rch and. later that year, they came to Engla nd. He earned his doctorate at Manchester University in 1902 and took up a teaching post at what was then the North Staffordshire Technical College. He became Principal of the College and in 1927 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He published 116 papers and held six patents in clays, ceramics and, particularly, refractories. He became known as the leading authority in the UK on the chemistry and physics of ceramics. Between 1927 and 1937 he published a sixteen volume work amounting to 15.320 pages! - on inorganic chemistry. He eventually retired in 1934 and died in 1938. He stated that his relaxation was chess. which he no doubt practised with the Club's active Chess Circle.

Yet another remarkable personality who had been tucked away in the pages of the Club's history.

My friend Min Marks, a communist activist and wartime Bletchley Park associate, has died at the age of 100. She and her husband, Jack, who died in 2017 aged 98, were associated with virtually every peace movement, anti-racism and anti-fascist campaign in Leeds for over seventy years. Despite her own sturdy Communist affiliations Min was ecumenical in her attitude to political campaigns, happily working with all who shared the objective in view. She and Jack were essentially secular Jews and their support of the Palestinian cause inevitably brought difficulties with some members of the Leeds Jewish community. Min also cultivated a wide array of friends and was a very convivial hostess.

She was born in Leeds to Isaac Druyan, a presser, and his second wife, Rachel, née Israel, and attended Allerton High School. During the second world war she joined the ATS, (the Auxiliary Territorial Service) becoming an Intercept Operator, taking down encrypted German morse code messages that were then sent to Bletchley Park to be decoded. She is included on the Roll of Honour there and is commemorated on the Codebreakers' Wall. She became very skilled at Morse code and retained the ability to read it until very late in her life.

She married Jack in 1946 and thereafter they were both active in the city's Young Communist League. Unlike a number of Leeds party colleagues they remained in the Communist Party of Great Britain following the Soviet regime's crushing of the Hungarian party's revolt against the rigidity of Stalinist control, saying that the cause was more important than any individual's deviation from it. Min deplored the UK party's 1991 decision to disband and she and Jack then put their efforts into supporting the Communist party's daily newspaper, the Morning Star, which had been able to continue independently.

Min worked for many years for the Social and Market Research Company, RSL, as an interviewer, trainer and area supervisor, not retiring until well into her 70s. She was a fundraiser for a number of charities, particularly the Yorkshire PHAB (Physically Handicapped and Able Bodied), who put her and Jack's names on one of the PHAB minibuses.

She is survived by their three children, Ruth, Estelle and Anthony, five grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren.

Minnie (Min) Marks, née Druyan, born 12 December 1920, died 23 October 2021. Married Jack 2 July 1946.

Albert McElroyAlbert McElroy’s oneness with a fellow Liberal was instinctive and mutual. He neither talked down to younger colleagues nor deferred to anyone in authority. This callow youth always looked forward to his regular visits to Brook House in the early sixties. I knew it would mean rigorous debate into the small hours, and Albert would pounce on any shallowness of logic or shading of principle. His gift was to take arguments on their merits, whoever propounded them, and he could be assertive without being arrogant.

I thought at first that he enjoyed the debate for its own sake but I eventually realised that that was not so and that, in fact, he wanted to test you to the limit and in so doing to test himself. Because of this he despised the simplistic bigotry of those who substituted prejudice for persuasion. I recall his satisfied chuckle after a meeting at which he, nominally a Protestant, had been heckled as a “papist”.

He was a considerable influence on those who came within his wide circle of friends and his presence at Liberal Assemblies was always appreciated as evidence of Liberal constancy within the most illiberal area of our islands.

He had one commendable defect: he could not comprehend the duality of human nature with its varied-proclivity towards evil. It was this obstinate refusal to acknowledge the possibility of malevolent motivation that eventually undermined his peace of mind and his will to fight on into the 1970s.

He saw, | think, the narrowing opportunity for promoting Liberalism within an insecure, unstable and violent society, and found himself emotionally and intellectually incapable of coming to terms with what he saw.

He was also hurt by the drift away from the Liberal cause of those who continued to profess their Liberalism. but who argued that the Liberal Party could not be the vehicle for those values. To Albert it was patently obvious that only the Liberal Party could profess Liberal values and he felt understandably frustrated and isolated at the burdens which were heaped on him.

Gordon Gillespie has written an excellent, and beautifully produced, memorial biography. So often a volume like this can be syrupy and can annoy the reader who knew the subject well. Gordon Gillespie avoids such pitfalls and evokes the flavour of Albert McElroy’s personality with considerable skill — so much so that it distressed me to be reminded of aspects of his struggle for honesty and political justice in Ireland.

I stayed at Brook House with Albert and Jan shortly before Albert’s death. He was a very different man to ten years earlier. He despaired of change in Ireland and could see no future for the values that were absolutely intrinsic to his personality and his life. I still feel, as I felt at the time, that Albert McElroy died of a broken heart.

My selfish thought after that last visit was that I regretted seeing him in such deep gloom. I now feel otherwise. His example, even in extremis, encourages me to fight on with greater determination, to maintain the conditions for Liberalism and to maximise Liberal influence.

I’m glad I knew Albert McElroy. He helped and encouraged me in more ways than he realised. He lit many candles without ever pondering whether the darkness would be dispelled.

Two stalwarts of west country Liberalism

David Morrish was one of the very best of us. He had everything - an instinctive and innate Liberalism, considerable intelligence, great debating skills, always with a ready anecdote in his attractive Devonian burr, an immediate charisma and a political integrity and loyalty which meant that he had many opponents but no enemies. He was one of that band of Liberals denied a role in national politics by an electoral system that excludes all but a handful of Liberals from office. That he chose not to seek party office beyond the Devon and Cornwall Region was a loss to the Liberal cause. His death in February at the age of 86 brings a sense of what might have been.

David came from a Liberal background and his first taste of campaigning came as a fourteen year old in Plymouth in the 1945 general election. Also campaigning in that election was Joan Squire, a Liberal party member in Tavistock. She and David met at the Liberal Party Assembly in Ilfracombe in 1953 and they eventually married in 1959, with a courtship interrupted by David's year at Wisconsin University on a Rotary Foundation scholarship and time spent working with the United Nations in Iran. This latter post left him with a lifetime's interest in and concern for that country and its people. On his return to Exeter in 1959 his first - and last - teaching post was as a geography tutor at St Luke's College, now part of Exeter University, where he stayed until his retirement in 1990. His professional life was as an educator, particularly in the training of teachers. Their daughter, Claire, arrived in 1962 and a granddaughter, Emma, in 1996.

David's early personal involvement in Liberal politics in 1956 was even preceded by joining what is now the Electoral Reform Society and, just, by becoming a member of the Society of Friends in 1955. He retained a lifelong involvement with the Quakers and with the peace movement. He refused to undertake National Service in 1956 choosing instead to register as a conscientious objector and stating his willingness to serve in the Friends' Ambulance Unit.

My friendship with David began in 1962, the year after David had first been elected to Exeter City Council. I went to the city as part of my regular tour of Liberal council groups as the party's Local Government Officer. I stayed overnight with the Morrishs and found that we shared the same radical Liberalism. Exeter and the Morrishs became a regular convivial stop on future tours. David was a member of Exeter City Council from 1961 until 1974 and from 1996 until his retirement in 2011. He switched to Devon County Council from 1973 to 2004, all the time representing the same Heavitree ward. His fifty years service was recognised by being made a freeman of the city of Exeter in 2011. He recalled his first city council meeting when he had been advised not to speak and not to challenge the Mayor - he did both! He fought the Exeter constituency five times and the Tiverton seat four times. He also contested the Devon constituency for the European Parliament election in 1994. During my time in parliament, the Chief Whip, David Alton, told me with considerable astonishment, that a Liberal councillor had turned down a knighthood. Knowing how much such honours were often coveted, even by Liberals, I could understand his surprise. I went through possible names in my head and I came to the conclusion that it must be David Morrish. The next time I was with him, I looked at him with a sideways smile and asked, "Did you turn down a knighthood, David?" "Ah," he responded, "you'll have wait for my memoirs!" Alas, he only reached page 12 of his draft! I fear that the concept of memoirs was also somewhat un-Quakerly to David!

In 1985, to the Conservatives' huge surprise, they lost control of the Devon County Council for the first time in living memory. David set about putting together a three party coalition - Liberal, SDP and Labour. Eventually the Liberals and SDP put together a two-party administration, with Labour supporting from the wings. It proved to be a fractious blend and David survived as leader of the council for only two years. Interestingly David's somewhat naive but typically "pure" antipathy to having a group whip was a contributory factor in the joint administration eventually petering out.

In 1987 David and I found ourselves in minority within the Liberal party, opposing the leaders' proposal to form a merged party with the Social Democrats. At the special Liberal Assembly in Blackpool in December David made one of the better speeches against the proposal, telling delegates that, "Our constitution, preamble, membership scheme and name are worth fighting for .... they are not memorabilia but assets for the future fight." The merger proposal was inevitably passed with a large majority. Rather than abandon the cause we became part of a small continuing Liberal party, huddling together for mutual warmth and comfort. David typically held on to his Exeter ward seat, "without prefix or suffix" and his wife, Joan, won the next door ward. Together with two other Liberal party stalwarts they had a group of four on the city council. Some twenty years later I made the decision to join the mainstream Liberal Democrats but David remained loyal to the "mighty handful" to the end of his life. It was typical of the high esteem he was held by all that Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, and a local Conservative Councillor visited David in his final nursing home and that Ben attended the funeral. His final years were accompanied by a great frustration at his increasing frailty.

Joan Morrish survived David by just six weeks. She was a Liberal Exeter City Councillor for the Barton and St Loyes ward for twenty years, eventually stepping down in 2012, and a Devon County Councillor for ten years.

David Morrish, 17 May 1931 to 14 February 2018
Joan Morrish, 18 July 1926 to 31 March 2018

An appreciation written for the Journal of Liberal History

Few Liberal Democrat members today are aware how tenuous was the Liberal party's hold on electoral survival in the early 1950s and how indebted we are to Liberals such as Richard Moore, who has died aged 88. At the 1951 general election there were only 109 candidates, and 110 in 1955. At both elections the party returned just six MPs, five of whom had no Conservative opponent. It was the existence of a core of key individuals whose deep attachment to Liberalism, and whose awareness of its fundamental difference from both conservatism and to socialism, fuelled their determination to maintain an independent party and to continue to fight elections.

Though a number of this mighty handful of Liberals were survivors of the golden age of Liberalism, there were some young activists, including Richard. Born in 1931 he fought his first election in 1955 at the age of 24. In total he contested eight parliamentary elections between 1955 and October 1974¹, plus the 1984 European Parliament election in Somerset and Dorset West. Remarkably for the time he lost his deposit just once and this in unusual circumstances. Being deeply concerned at the increasing polarisation of Northern Ireland he believed it was important for the Liberal party to make a non-sectarian stance, and he contested the North Antrim constituency in 1966. Then, when in 1970 the Reverend Ian Paisley was nominated as a more extreme "Protestant Unionist" candidate, Richard regarded this as a dangerous and highly illiberal development and told the Liberal party national executive committee that it was vitally important that a Liberal candidate challenged him. There was a brief silence whereupon Richard added that, if no-one else was prepared to stand, he would do so himself. He packed a bag and went directly to Northern Ireland. He made powerful speeches condemning the bigotry of Paisley and his party - a stance which put him in physical danger from Paisley supporters. It was inevitably a quixotic fight and Paisley was duly returned with Richard fifth - and a lost deposit.

Richard was the son of a Baronet and had a somewhat torrid early education. However, he won an Exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1949, where he became President of the Union and anchored the Liberal Club. He joined the Liberal party in 1951 and went to his first Liberal Assembly in 1953, thereafter attending every year, including latterly Liberal Democrat conferences, until 2017. It is said that it was the existence of Jewish refugees from Hitler in the family home before the war that instilled a young awareness of the consequences of totalitarianism which imbued all his politics. It also gave him an affection for the state of Israel which remained with him, supporting it even when the idealistic principles that underpinned its origins were eroded by later more right-wing governments.

A modest legacy enabled Richard to take on a succession of relatively poorly paid jobs within the Liberal family. Soon after graduation he joined the Liberal daily, the News Chronicle, as a leader writer. When that folded in October 1960 he became secretary to the Liberal Peers and, later, his internationalism found expression in becoming adviser to the Liberal Group in the European Parliament², in between two terms as Secretary General of Liberal International. His key role, however, was as Political Secretary and Speech Writer to Jeremy Thorpe on his election as Liberal party leader in 1967, a post he held for seven years. He was Thorpe's key aide throughout most of the turbulent years of the Norman Scott affair but he resolutely refused to comment on Thorpe's behaviour apart from the understatement that, "he was not very wise in his choice of friends." Even after Thorpe's death, when, over a recent lunch at the National Liberal Club, I gently tackled him about his papers from the Thorpe era he professed to have very few items still in his possession. Richard's time with Thorpe began at the time of the Young Liberals' "Red Guard" period when they were a thorn in the flesh of the party establishment; one of the first speeches he drafted was for Thorpe to denounce them as "Marxists." It was not a particularly diplomatic position for a party leader to take and I played a minor role in conciliating between the two sides. The episode led to the appointment of Stephen Terrell QC as chair of a commission to look into the situation. Inevitably its outcome was inconclusive, with majority and minority reports supporting the different sides.

Richard was a brilliant platform performer with some of the phrases from his perorations staying in the memory. I recall him enlivening the audience in London in the 1960s by telling them that the "Conservative party recently took over offices in Victoria Street for its research department. The name of the previous occupants is still on the office door: 'Activated Sludge Limited.' I can think of no better name for the Conservative party." Curiously there is only one publication extant under his own name, "The Liberals in Europe,"³ and his main literary endeavours appeared under others' names.

His dedication to the Liberal cause, combined with his oratory and his consistent presence at many party meetings, ensured his popularity but a number of his political positions increasingly estranged him from the evolving radicalism of the party. His passionate internationalism and the consequent support for European unity was certainly popular with Liberals, as was his opposition to strict immigration controls, but his visceral hostility to authoritarian regimes led him to oppose the Liberals' acceptance of some rapprochement with countries behind the Iron Curtain. In 1961 he prepared a policy statement for Liberal International, "Winning the Cold War", arguing that the ability to attack the Communist regimes was necessary and proposed that there should be a set period of conscription in all NATO countries. In the same year, when the Liberal party conference voted for de facto recognition of the East German regime, Richard told delegates that they were failing to show solidarity with oppressed people. The fraternal delegation from the party's German sister party, the Free Democrats, duly walked out and it fell to Richard to fly to Bonn to assuage them.

Much later, in 2003, Richard's consistency on opposing authoritarian regimes led him to disagree publicly with the Liberal Democrat MPs' united opposition to the invasion of Iraq. In essence Richard's political position had hardly changed throughout his career but, whereas he was on the radical wing of the party in his early days, the party had evolved into a generally more radical movement. None of his disagreements with the party ever troubled his loyalty to Liberalism and neither did party members ever doubt his commitment. Ironically it was a former Conservative Cabinet Minister and old friend, Sir Oliver Letwin, who summed up Richard best: Somehow the whole tolerant, civilised liberal disposition that is the greatest glory of our country seemed to have been distilled into its purest form and infused into him at birth."

He married Ann Miles in 1955 and she is a dedicated and active Liberal in her own right⁴ and was a Liberal and then Liberal Councillor on East Sussex County Council and Rother District Council for forty years. They had two sons, Charles, sometime editor of the "Daily Telegraph" and official biographer of Margaret Thatcher, and Rowan, and one daughter, Charlotte, both of the latter are also writers.

¹ Tavistock, 1995 and 1959; Cambridgeshire, 1961 (by-election) and 1964; North Antrim, 1966 and 1970; and North Norfolk, February and October 1974.
² Officially called "The Liberal and Democratic Group".
³ Unservile State Paper 20, Liberal Publication Department, 1974; {with detailed appendix by Christine Morgan).
⁴ See her entry in "Why I am a Liberal Democrat", ed Duncan Brack, Liberal Democrat Publications, 1996.

Guardian obituary

My long-standing Liberal colleague, Richard Moore, has died at the age of 88. Richard was one of the few remaining party stalwarts from the 1950s whose understanding of Liberalism, added to a determination to promote it, ensured the Liberal party's survival when at times it seemed precarious. He told me that he had attended every Liberal Assembly and Liberal Democrat Conference from 1953 to 2017. His whole working life was occupied with various aspects of Liberalism, domestic or international.

Richard was the son of Sir Alan Hilary Moore and Lady Hilda Mary Moore, (née Burrows) who were able to give him a private education from which he won an Exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read history. At Cambridge he became President of the Union and anchored the Liberal Club. It is said that it was the existence of Jewish refugees from Hitler in the family home before the war that instilled a young awareness of the consequences of totalitarianism that imbued all his politics.

A modest legacy enabled him to take on a succession of relatively poorly paid jobs within the Liberal family. Soon after graduation he joined the Liberal daily, the News Chronicle, as a leader writer. When that closed in 1960, he became secretary to the Liberal Peers and, later, political secretary and speech writer to Jeremy Thorpe, on whose behaviour he studiously refused to comment, apart from the understatement that, "he was not very wise in his choice of friends." His internationalism found expression in becoming adviser to the Liberal Group in the European Parliament in between two terms as Secretary-General of Liberal International.

Richard was eight times an unsuccessful parliamentary Liberal candidate, between 1955 and October 1974. Remarkably for the time, he lost his election deposit only once, in 1970 when, believing that it was vital that a Liberal opposed the Rev Ian Paisley in Antrim North, packed a bag and did it himself. He also fought the 1984 European Parliament election in Somerset and Dorset West.

He was a brilliant platform orator and some of his phrases stayed in the memory for years afterwards but, surprisingly, there is only one publication under his own name, "The Liberals in Europe" in the 1970s. His main literary endeavours appeared under others' names. His Liberalism was on the radical wing of the party in the 1950s but became more establishment in later years. For instance, his lifelong opposition to totalitarian regimes and his belief in the need to intervene to counter them led him to disagree openly with the party over its opposition to the Iraq invasion in 2003.

He married Ann Miles in 1955 and she was also a dedicated Liberal activist in her own right, becoming a Liberal County and District Councillor in Sussex.

Richard Gillachrist Moore, born 20 February 1931, died 15 May 2019; married Ann Hilary Miles, 1955; two sons, Charles and Rowan, and one daughter, Charlotte - all writers; seven grandchildren and a great-grand-daughter.

Colleagues at the National Liberal Club and in the legal profession have been saddened by the sudden death of Trevor Millington. Paradoxically he combined a highly convivial personality with being a very private person. He disliked personal publicity and it was rare for him to divulge details of his background. His friends at the NLC knew him as an enthusiastic member of the Wine Committee, a popular friend and colleague and a loyal supporter of club functions - unless they were "black tie" events which he strongly opposed.

Trevor was the only son of respectable Methodist parents in Northwich, Cheshire, who were leading lights of the local Liberal association. Trevor imbibed much of their politics but not their religious beliefs and, as an individual who always held strong opinions, he had a firmly secular outlook. With typical unconventionality he was the only boy at his school to do shorthand and typing 'O' level. Early on, having been attracted by the television series "Rumpole of the Bailey" and "Crown Court", he was determined to become a lawyer and was the only student taking A level law at his local grammar school. Leading Liberal lawyer Alex Carlile QC, later MP for Montgomery and now a Liberal Democrat peer, agreed to help Trevor with his essays. Trevor thereafter always spoke warmly of his help in achieving his aim.

He was called to the Bar in 1981 but, possibly because of his background and personal style he struggled after university to be taken seriously as a barrister and was unable to find a place in chambers. He initially became a Justices Clerk. The turning point of his career came when he joined the solicitor's office of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise. By his late twenties he had emerged as a real talent in his chosen area of law.

In 1989 he was asked to set up a specialist asset forfeiture section within HMCE. This he did with relish. In 1994 he was seconded to Gibraltar where he became responsible for drafting legislation to give effect to the EU Money Laundering Directive.

In 1996 he wrote his first book on asset forfeiture Five years later with Mark Sutherland Williams he co-authored what became the seminal text book on the confiscation of fraudulently obtained assets and was regarded rightly as a leading authority on that esoteric subject. He transferred to the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office on its creation in 2005 and led the Customs legal team at the Enforcement Task Force thereafter. In 2008 he was awarded the OBE for his work and this meant a great deal to Trevor. Typically there was no fuss but the provision of some very good champagne at the next meeting of the National Liberal Club wine committee.

He was unhappy with trends in the civil service and was not enthused by the incorporation of the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions office into the Crown Prosecution Service. In 2010 he took the difficult but brave decision to commence life in chambers and to practise at the Bar as he had always wanted. He wanted to be more independent and in control of his time and was confident that there would be a strong demand for his skills and specialist knowledge, particularly in an advisory capacity.

He had a great love of opera which he shared with his close friend Margaret of whose children he was also very fond. Perhaps it was the contrast of his later success with his early problems of establishing himself in his chosen career that led him to become a member of a number of professional and City of London organisations.

Trevor John Millington OBE FRSA, born 9 October 1958, died 16 February 2012.

See also The Guardian, Other Lives

Sam Micklem, a splendid Liberal and Liberal Democrat colleague has died at his home in Eldwick, near Bradford, at the age of 79. Always known as "Sam," from a dislike of his given names of "Ambrose Martin," he was the third generation of a distinguished Liberal family. His grandfather, Nathaniel, was Liberal MP for Watford in 1906 and his father, also Nathaniel, was Principal of Mansfield College - the first nonconformist college in Oxford - and President of the Liberal Party, 1957-58. I recall his avuncular presence and gentle speeches at Liberal gatherings in the early 1970s.

Sam, attended Mill Hill School and, in common with both his father and grandfather, went to New College, Oxford. Then, after six years teaching in Nigeria and Lebanon, he attended Leeds University to gain further qualifications for teaching English, particularly to foreign students - at the time much less on the agenda than it is today. He had a passionate love of English literature and communicated that enthusiasm to his students as well as to his friends.

He was a keen advocate of Christians being involved in politics and he followed his own precepts by contesting the Shipley constituency at the 1970 general election. He was a Liberal Democrat member for Baildon on Bradford Metropolitan Council, 1997-2001 and later also contested the Craven ward.

Sam was always a loyal supporter of Liberalism. I knew him well when I was the party's Yorkshire secretary and I appreciated his gentle but firm awareness of Liberal values - plus his invariable wry humour when commenting on current political issues. His wise counsel on party problems was always appreciated, often accompanied by glasses of incomparable sherry!

In some ways Sam was too gentle for the rough and tumble of frontline politics and as, in the proper sense, an intellectual, he would probably have fared better as a politician in an earlier era. Nevertheless, he would tackle the hustings when the need arose, not least when nudged and even teased into action by his urbane and elegant wife, Claudette.

Latterly Sam had struggled with the aftermath of a severe stroke, compounded by his lifelong diabetes.