{"product_id":"the-problem-of-homosexuality-privately-circulated-1954-church-report","title":"The Problem of Homosexuality - Privately Circulated 1954 Church Report","description":"\u003cp data-start=\"161\" data-end=\"350\"\u003eCHURCH OF ENGLAND MORAL WELFARE COUNCIL. \u003cstrong data-start=\"202\" data-end=\"254\"\u003eThe Problem of Homosexuality: An Interim Report.\u003c\/strong\u003e Produced for the Church of England Moral Welfare Council by the Church Information Board, 1954.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"352\" data-end=\"462\"\u003eFirst edition. Marked on the upper wrapper “Private - Not for publication” and “For Private Circulation only.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"464\" data-end=\"751\"\u003eOctavo pamphlet. Original printed wrappers, priced two shillings and sixpence to the front cover. 27 pp., including statistical tables of offences known to the police in England and Wales. Foreword by the Lord Bishop of St Albans, Chairman of the Church of England Moral Welfare Council.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"753\" data-end=\"1238\"\u003eA scarce and historically important Church of England report on homosexuality, produced by “a group of Anglican clergy and doctors” at a moment when legal, medical, moral and theological attitudes were beginning to be formally reconsidered in Britain. The foreword states that the report was intended to stimulate informed comment ahead of a fuller study, and the introduction makes clear that the group had spent over a year examining the legal, theological and moral issues involved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1240\" data-end=\"1654\"\u003eThe report is especially significant in relation to the wider context of the Wolfenden Committee and the movement toward homosexual law reform. Contemporary scholarship records that the Church of England Moral Welfare Council’s submissions anticipated and encouraged the Wolfenden recommendations, with \u003cem data-start=\"1543\" data-end=\"1573\"\u003eThe Problem of Homosexuality\u003c\/em\u003e forming part of that pre-Wolfenden debate. \u003cspan class=\"\" data-state=\"closed\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1656\" data-end=\"2083\"\u003eThis copy comes from the library of Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Portal of Hungerford, wartime Chief of the Air Staff and a senior public figure in post-war Britain. Its presence in Portal’s library places the pamphlet within the reading world of Britain’s governing and administrative elite at a point when church, law and state were beginning to re-examine one of the most controversial social questions of the period.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CHURCH OF ENGLAND MORAL WELFARE COUNCIL","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53122676785419,"sku":null,"price":400.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0794\/7848\/9355\/files\/20260515_091802921_iOS.jpg?v=1779182775","url":"https:\/\/www.archbooks.co.uk\/products\/the-problem-of-homosexuality-privately-circulated-1954-church-report","provider":"Arch Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}