Geoffrey Shakespeare

Sir Geoffrey Hithersay Shakespeare, 1st Baronet (23 September 1893 – 8 September 1980) was a British Liberal Party politician. Life Born in Norwich, the second son of Rev. John Howard Shakespeare, secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, he was educated at Highgate School. He was a descendant of Richard Shakespeare, the grandfather of William Shakespeare. He served in the First World War. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated with an MA and an LLB degree. He was president of the Cambridge Union Society in Lent Term 1920. He was called to the Bar in 1922, was Private Secretary to David Lloyd George in 1921–1923, and worked as a political journalist. As Private Secretary, he attended the peace negotiations leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, of which he gave a valuable account in his memoirs, Let Candles be Brought In. He was National Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Wellingborough, Northamptonshire in 1922–1923 and Liberal Member for Norwich in 1929–1931 and Liberal National member in 1931–1945.