author
Henry Du Pré Labouchere
1831–1912
A sharp-tongued Victorian journalist and Liberal politician, he moved easily between Parliament, the press, and the theatre world. He is remembered both for founding the magazine Truth and for the 1885 amendment that cruelly widened the criminalization of sex between men in Britain.
1 Audiobook
Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris
by Henry Du Pré Labouchere
About the author
Born in London on 9 November 1831, he came from a wealthy Huguenot banking family and was educated at Eton. He entered the British diplomatic service in the 1850s, with postings that included Washington, Munich, St Petersburg, and Constantinople, before leaving diplomacy to pursue journalism and politics.
He became known as a Radical Liberal MP, serving Northampton for many years, and built a larger public reputation through the weekly magazine Truth, founded in 1877. Its mix of gossip, campaigning, and exposés made him one of the most recognizable and controversial public figures of late Victorian Britain. Outside politics, he was also closely involved with the theatre, and he lived for many years with the actress Henrietta Hodson, whom he later married.
Today, his legacy is mixed and often troubling. Alongside his reputation as an energetic journalist and anti-imperialist parliamentarian, he is also remembered for the Labouchère Amendment of 1885, the law that created the offence of "gross indecency" between men and became notorious in later prosecutions, including that of Oscar Wilde.