H Montgomery Hyde

Harford Montgomery Hyde (14 August 1907 – 10 August 1989), born in Belfast, was a barrister, politician (Ulster Unionist MP for Belfast North), author and biographer, who lost his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as a result of campaigning for homosexual law reform.

Born on 14 August 1907, on the Malone Road in Belfast, Hyde was schooled in England at Sedbergh, Cumbria. His father, James Johnstone Hyde was a linen merchant and Unionist councillor for Cromac. Hyde had great pride in his family's connection to the Irish linen trade. Although his mother came from a Protestant Home Rule background, all were involved in the 1914 UVF gun running, the 7-year old Harford being a dummy casualty for first-aid practice. He attended Queen's University Belfast where he gained a first-class history degree, and then Magdalen College, Oxford and a second-class law degree. He was a distant cousin of Henry James.

He was married in 1939 to Dorothy Mabel Brayshaw Crofts (divorced 1952), in 1955 to Mary Eleanor Fischer (dissolved 1966) and finally to Rosalind Roberts Dimond. By his will, the residue of his estate was left to his widow Robbie and his papers to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.