The sudden death on 20 September, 2003, of revered Labour politician and leader of the Lords, Lord Williams of Mostyn, came as a shock to the British political system.

Universally popular, he was also a brilliant Welsh lawyer whose own 1996 book proposing reforms to the House of Lords purportedly formed the foundations of Labour’s 1997 manifesto.

He worked tirelessly in his efforts to give women equal representation in parliament and, with his high intelligence and sparkling wit, won him fans from all sides of the political spectrum.

Former prime minister Tony Blair described him as a “a politician at the height of his powers,” while Mary Marsh, chief executive of the children’s charity NSPCC for which Lord Williams passionately campaigned, said, “Children have lost a wise and great champion.”

Gareth Wyn Williams was born on 5 February, 1941, in a taxi between the north Wales villages of Mostyn and Prestatyn. The son of a local schoolmaster, he was educated at Rhyl Grammar School and, later, Queen’s College, Cambridge, where, thanks to an open scholarship, he earned first-class honours in 1964.

He was admitted to the Bar at Gray’s Inn a year later, paving the way for stints as a QC and recorder during the late 1970s. Less than a decade later, he had been a deputy High Court judge, appointed Queen’s Counsel and built a strong reputation as a barrister, particularly in criminal and libel work.

The 1990s saw him become even more successful in the legal community as Chairman of the Bar Council, while, rather more politically, he was created a life peer as Baron Williams of Mostyn.

In 1992, he was hired by the Labour Party to become an opposition spokesman in the House of Lords. Legal affairs were of course his forte but, later in his career, Northern Ireland too would come to form much of his arguments in the House.

With Labour’s 1997 election victory, he briefly took on the roles of under secretary in the Home Office, deputy leader of the Lords and finally attorney-general, before eventually becoming leader of the Lords in 2001.

Despite it being a post which some have suggested he never particularly aspired to, Lord Williams nevertheless cut a powerful diplomatic figure in the chamber and, with his charm, geniality and dry wit, was able to diffuse tension with a simple joke.

So popular was he that, in later years, he had hoped to bring about the modernisation of the Lords by consensus.

Before he could minimise opposition to the proposed reforms, however, he collapsed and died suddenly at his home in Gloucestershire on 20 September, 2003. He was 62.

Aside from his many political honours, Lord Williams was also a fellow of the University College of Wales in Aberystwyth, as well as honorary professor at the University College of North Wales.

He was both pro-Chancellor at the University of Wales and president of the prestigious Welsh College of Music and Drama up until his death in 2003.

Of the fact that he never bought an ermine gown, he once remarked, “I borrow one for the state opening and give it back at the end of the day.”