The 4th Lord Acton, who died on October 10 aged 69, was a banker, lawyer, human rights campaigner, writer and politician, who sat both as an hereditary peer and, following his ejection from the Upper House under the constitutional reform of 1999, an independent-minded life peer on the Labour benches.
In the Lords he was often seen in the tea room, drinking Coca-Cola alongside Ruth Rendell, the novelist and fellow Labour peer, a particular friend.