Founded 1980
Chair:        
Secretary: 
Treasurer: 

Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


PETER JOHN LEONARD 1945 –2019

After short periods at agricultural college and in the retail trade, Peter Leonard joined the Prison Service in 1968 as an officer at Leyhill OTS before being posted to Finnamore Wood. In 1970 he was promoted to the governor grade and after the 27th AGs Course at Wakefield, was posted to Wormwood Scrubs. Thereafter he served, in various grades, at Aberford Road OTS, Wellingborough, Morton Hall, and Lindholme. His last post in the field was as Governor I at Frankland. 

Peter also held headquarters posts, particularly in the DDG’s office and as Head of Standards Audit. He was sent, twice, to Albania as penal policy adviser to its post-Communist government and later, to Kosovo, to do the same. He was promoted to the senior civil service in 2000 and was appointed Operations Director of the Northern Ireland Prison Service from which he retired in 2004.

In 1998 Peter enrolled for the Master of Studies in Criminology course at Cambridge University where he was a member of Fitzwilliam College. He was awarded his Master’s degree in 2000.

Peter Leonard was something of a polymath. He was fond of the theatre and of the arts in general. With a lifelong love of the work of John Betjeman, he was a member of the Betjeman Society, contributed to its journal and won a competition for the best pastiche of a Betjeman poem in 2013. He repeated this exercise in the Journal of the Cricket Society, published just a few days after he died.
Born in Epsom and growing up in Battersea, Peter had an abiding love for his adopted county of Lincolnshire. He was a member of its Historical and Archaeological Society and published in its journals too. His love of history led him to completing a second Master’s degree, this time at Leicester University, where the focus of his research was the administration of the Poor Law in various Lincolnshire parishes. He then embarked upon doctoral research, also at Leicester, which was sadly cut short some 12 months ago by a diagnosis of mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer.

Peter and his wife, Christine, had a deep Christian faith and commitment to the Church of England. They found great comfort in the support of the Church during Peter’s final months and weeks. He had recently established contact with his father’s second family in Canada and thus got to know his half-siblings.

A very well attended funeral was held at St Mary Magdelene Church in Lincoln on 9th May. Those present from the Prison Service included Joe Pilling, Nigel Hancock, Walter McGowan, Peter Atkinson, Brodie Clark, Hazel Banks, Peter Earnshaw, Val Halward (widow of Robin) and me. Also present was Christine Turner Voakes who was with us on the 27th AGs course and who later resigned but remained a close family friend. 

Peter Leonard is survived by Christine, their children Karl and Elizabeth and their five grandchildren.

Peter Quinn.

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