On This Day

23 September 1893

Birth of Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare

Geoffrey Shakespeare was born in Norwich. Called to the Bar in 1922, he served as private secretary to David Lloyd George 1921-23 and attended the negotiations which led to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. Briefly Liberal MP for Wellingborough 1922-23 he was subsequently elected for Norwich 1929-45 (as a Liberal National from 1931). Shakespeare served as a junior minister in the National Government at Health, Education and the Admiralty. He wrote an entertaining autobiography Let Candles be Brought in (1949) and outside politics, was a longstanding director of the Abbey National Building Society. His grandson is the academic, disability rights campaigner and broadcaster Tom Shakespeare.