Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu

Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu born 20 October 1926

Edward John Barrington Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 3rd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu is a British Conservative politician known for founding the National Motor Museum.

Montagu was born in London, and inherited his Peerage in 1929 at the age of two, when his father John Walter Edward Douglas-Scott-Montagu, 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu was killed in an accident. He attended St Peter's Court School and Ridley College in Canada, Eton College and New College, Oxford. He served in the Grenadier Guards including in Palestine before the end of the British Mandate.

On coming of age Montagu immediately took his seat in the House of Lords and swiftly made his maiden speech on the subject of Palestine. His interest in historic cars led him to open the National Motor Museum on his estate at Beaulieu, Hampshire in 1952.

Montagu knew from an early stage of life that he was bisexual, and while attending Oxford was relieved to find others with similar feelings. In a 2000 interview Lord Montagu stated, 'My attraction to both sexes neither changed nor diminished at university and it was comforting to find that I was not the only person faced with such a predicament. I agonised less than my contemporaries, for I was reconciled to my bisexuality, but I was still nervous about being exposed.'

In 1954 Montagu was imprisoned for twelve months for consensual homosexual offences along with Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood.

On the August Bank Holiday weekend in 1953 Edward Montagu and film director Kenneth Hume took two boy scouts to a beach hut at Beaulieu for a bathe. Edward Montagu had reported the loss of a camera to the police and the purpose of the visit to the beach hut had originally been to look for the camera. When the police arrived they took more interest in what had been happening and the boy scouts said that they had been indecently assaulted in the beach hut.

Edward Montagu was charged with an unnatural offence and an indecent assault and his trial took place at Winchester Assizes in December 1953. Edward Montagu was acquitted on the more serious charge of committing an unnatural offence but the jury disagreed on the lesser charge of indecent assault. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided that Edward Montagu and Kenneth Hume should be tried again on the charge of indecent assault.

Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood were arrested three weeks after the end of the first Montagu/Hume trial. Their premises were searched without a warrant. They were charged with several specific indecency charges with two RAF men, Edward McNally and John Reynolds, at the beach hut near Beaulieu and also at the Pitt-Rivers estate in Dorset. They were also accused of conspiring with Edward Montagu to commit these offences. This would prejudice the chances of Edward Montagu's aquittal at his re-trial. Unlike other defendants in the trial Montagu continued to protest his innocence.

Fifty years on, in an interview with the Mail on Sunday Lord Montagu acknowledged his bisexuality, but maintains that his guilt was mainly by association [with Peter Wildeblood], and that the police were seeking a high-profile prosecution as part of their government sponsored crackdown on homosexuals.

The trial was a consequence of concern in the early 1950s about the increasing 'incidence' of homosexuality but caused a backlash which led to the Wolfenden Report which recommended legalisation.

Following the trial and his imprisonment, Montagu quietly returned to his life and went on to marry twice, declining, generally, to speak publicly about the issue.

Montagu founded The Veteran And Vintage Magazine in 1956 and continued to develop the museum, making a name for himself in tourism. He was Chairman of the Historic Houses Association from 1973 to 1978 and Chairman of English Heritage from 1984 to 1992.

Lord Montagu on the court case which ended the legal persecution of homosexuals - this interview with the Mail on Sunday on 15 July 2007 is the first time Lord Montagu has spoken of the events that led to his conviction fifty years before.

The story of Lord Montagu's trial and unwitting role in the history of decriminalisation in England was told in a 2007 Channel 4 drama-documentary, A Very British Sex Scandal.