Michael Schofield

Michael Schofield produced pioneering work on topics from sexuality to drug-taking and prison reform. Photograph: Frank Martin

Michael Schofield, who has died aged 94, was at the centre of social reform in the 1960s and 70s, nicely known in law pressure groups and, in his quiet way, a figure of considerable influence via his books, reports and articles. He produced pioneering work about gay folks, and his best-known guide was the Sexual Behaviour of Young Individuals (1965).

His first book, Society and the Homosexual (1952), was published below the pen-identify Gordon Westwood, because homosexuality was then a criminal offence. It was the initial non-health care book on homosexuality, a thorough study of its social factors significantly quoted by journalists, politicians and sociologists for the duration of the discussions that led up to the Wolfenden report (1957), whose suggestions that homosexual acts be legalised came into result ten years later on.

Born in Leeds, Schofield was the fourth youngster of a big, content family. Educated at Orleton college, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, he obtained a degree in psychology at Cambridge University, in which he also led and played the saxophone with the Footlights dance band. Following investing 6 many years as a fighter pilot in the RAF (1940-46), he went to Harvard Enterprise College, contentedly expecting that he would join his significantly-admired brothers in the family business, Schofields, the well-identified division keep in Leeds. But after two many years in the firm, he left. Portion of his character, he realised, was at odds with his conventional middle-class upbringing it puzzled him that individuals discovered it so challenging to accept his homosexuality.

This was the begin of his career as a researcher and author on sociological topics. In 1960, yet another book, A Minority, was the initial in depth investigation into the lives of homosexuals who had had no trouble with the law and who had not felt the require for health care treatment. The sociologist Kenneth Plummer later claimed that in Britain, “minor of sociological significance had appeared till Scholfield’s intervention, and that it is tempting to recommend that all the sociological insights grew from the operate of a single guy, Michael Schofield”.

Soon after these publications, Schofield turned to the review of other minority subjects: single-mother or father families, teenage premarital sex, contraception, abortion, drug-taking and prison reform. “It was refreshing,” he mentioned, “to grind other axes.” The Sexual Behaviour of Youthful Individuals showed once more his customary rigorous methodology, and his research benefits were widely reported.

His later on books integrated the textbook Social Study (1969), The Odd Situation of Pot (1971), The Sexual Behaviour of Youthful Adults (1973) and Promiscuity (1976). He also wrote a spoof Report of the Committee on the Operation of the Sexual Containment Act (1978), a satire on those who look upon intercourse as one thing that distorts ordinary existence alternatively of becoming a regular element of it.

Schofield was the study director of the British Social Biology Council (1959-62), and held a similar position in the Central Council for Well being Education (1963-65). He served on the government advisory committee on drug dependence (1967-69) and on the Wootton committee (1969), whose report on cannabis advised that the legal penalties linked with it have been far too severe.

He campaigned to make contraceptives free of charge on the NHS, and on behalf of the Abortion Law Reform Association. An early supporter of frank sex education, gay rights and a more tolerant frame of mind to marital infidelity, in the 60s and 70s he was often to be identified opposing the broadcasting requirements campaigner Mary Whitehouse and her supporters on Tv and radio. But he created number of enemies and, in committee, his shrewd thoughts was not to be fobbed off with anything at all significantly less than a satisfactory response.

For many many years, Schofield was active in law reform groups: he was a member of the executive committee of the Nationwide Council for Civil Liberties (1968-76) and a trustee of its associated charity, the Civil Liberties Trust, now Liberty. Campaigning towards censorship led him to seem as an expert witness for the defence in several trials under the Obscene Publications Acts. He founded, endowed and largely guided the Lyndhurst Settlement, a charitable basis that donated hundreds of thousands of lbs to modest struggling charities, notably these doing work for civil liberties and for the protection of the environment.

In 1982, Schofield retired. He was a great-humoured companion, and loved a contented personal daily life with his partner, Anthony Skyrme, who survives him.

• Michael George Schofield, law reformer, sociologist and author, born 24 June 1919 died 27 March 2014

Michael Schofield