Shirley Williams

Born at 19 Glebe Place Chelsea, London, Williams was the daughter of the political scientist and philosopher Sir George Catlin and the pacifist writer Vera Brittain. Williams's grandmother, Brittain's mother, was born in Aberystwyth, Wales.[2] She was educated at various schools, including Mrs Spencer's School in Brechin Place, South Kensington; Christchurch Elementary School in Chelsea; Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth; and St Paul's Girls' School in London. During the Second World War, from 1940 to 1943, she was evacuated to St. Paul, Minnesota, in the United States, where she attended the all-girls' Summit School.[3][4]

While living in the US, she took a screen test to play Velvet Brown in the 1944 film National Velvet, a role that was eventually given to Elizabeth Taylor. In 1943, on the sea voyage returning to Britain, she narrowly avoided being gang-raped by a group of sailors.[5]

While she was an undergraduate and an Open Scholar at Somerville College, Oxford, Williams was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) and toured the United States playing the role of Cordelia in an OUDS production of Shakespeare's King Lear directed by a young Tony Richardson. In 1950, she became chair of the Oxford University Labour Club, believing herself to be the first woman to hold the position[6] though it has been shown that Betty Tate had chaired a session in 1934.[7] After graduating as a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, politics and economics, Williams was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and studied American trade unionism at Columbia University in New York City for a master's degree, awarded by Oxford in 1954.[8]

On returning to Britain, she began her career as a journalist, working firstly for the Daily Mirror and then for the Financial Times. In 1960, she became General Secretary of the Fabian Society, a role she held until 1964.[9][6]

After unsuccessfully contesting the constituency of Harwich at the 1954 by-election and the general election the following year, as well as the constituency of Southampton Test at the 1959 general election, Williams was elected in the 1964 general election as Labour MP for the constituency of Hitchin in Hertfordshire. She retained the seat, renamed Hertford and Stevenage after boundary changes in 1974, until 1979.[6] As Minister for Education and Science (August 1967 – October 1969), Williams launched the first Women in Engineering Year in 1969.[10]

Her colleague David Owen recalled: "You'd watch her work a room at a local Labour event and she'd never start by smarming up to a regional leader or a councillor. She'd settle down next to somebody whom she'd have no political reason to talk to – a solid party worker – and you'd watch this person's face light up. This was always done spontaneously, without any ulterior motives. She just liked people and liked them to like her."[11]

Between 1971 and 1973, she served as Shadow Home Secretary. In 1974, she became Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection in Harold Wilson's cabinet. When Wilson announced his resignation in 1976 and was succeeded by James Callaghan, she became Secretary of State for Education and Paymaster General, holding both cabinet positions at the same time. Williams stood for the Labour deputy leadership in October of that year but lost to Michael Foot.[6]

Williams lost her seat (renamed Hertford and Stevenage) when the Labour Party was defeated at the 1979 general election.[23] Her defeat came two years after her appearance and arrest on the Grunwick picket lines, for which she had been harshly criticised in the press.[6] When, soon afterward, she was interviewed by Robin Day for the BBC's Decision 79 television coverage of the election results, both Norman St John-Stevas – the Conservative's Education Spokesman who had frequently clashed with her at the despatch box – and Merlyn Rees, the outgoing Home Secretary, paid tribute to her.[24]

Following the election, she hosted the BBC1 TV series Shirley Williams in Conversation, interviewing, in turn, a number of political figures, including former West German chancellor Willy Brandt, former Conservative prime minister Edward Heath and her recently deposed colleague James Callaghan.[25] She later appeared on many television and radio discussion programmes in Britain – in particular, the BBC's Question Time, where her 58 appearances earned her a "Most Frequent Panellist" award.[5][6] During this period, Williams remained a member of the National Executive of the Labour Party.[26] From 1980 to 1981, she was Chairman of the Fabian Society.[9]

In 1981, unhappy with the influence of the more left-wing members of the Labour Party, she resigned her membership to form – along with fellow Labour resignees Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers – the Social Democratic Party (SDP). They were joined by 28 other Labour MPs and one Conservative. Later that year, following the death of the Conservative MP Sir Graham Page, she won the Crosby by-election and became the first SDP member elected to Parliament. Two years later, however, having become the SDP's President, she lost the seat at the 1983 general election. At the 1987 general election, Williams stood for the SDP in Cambridge, but lost to the sitting Conservative candidate Robert Rhodes James. She then supported the SDP's merger with the Liberal Party that formed the Liberal Democrats.[6]

Sitting beside Peter Ustinov during an episode of the late-night TV discussion programme After Dark, 1989

In 1988, Williams moved to the United States to serve as a professor at Harvard Kennedy School, remaining until 2001, and thereafter as Public Service Professor of Electoral Politics, Emerita.[27] Nonetheless, she remained active in politics and public service in Britain, the United States and internationally. During these years, Williams helped draft constitutions in Russia, Ukraine, and South Africa.[6] She also served as director of Harvard's Project Liberty, an initiative designed to assist the emerging democracies in Central and Eastern Europe; and as a board member and acting director of Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP). Upon her elevation to the House of Lords in 1993, she returned to the United Kingdom.[19][28]

Williams was made a life peer on 1 February 1993, as Baroness Williams of Crosby, of Stevenage in the County of Hertfordshire,[29] and subsequently served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004.[30]

Among other non-profit boards, Williams was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the EU's Comité des Sages (Reflection Group) on Social Policy,[31] the Twentieth Century Fund, the Ditchley Foundation, the Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. She also served as President of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, as Commissioner of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and as president of the Cambridge University Liberal Association. Williams was also an attendee of the 2013 and the 2010 Bilderberg conferences in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, and Sitges, Spain, respectively.[32]

In June 2007, after Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister, Williams accepted a formal Government position as Advisor on Nuclear Proliferation provided she could serve as an independent advisor; she remained a Liberal Democrat. Her interest and commitment to education continued, and she served as Chair of Judges of the British Teaching Awards. Williams was a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.[33]

Williams was originally opposed to the Cameron–Clegg coalition's Health and Social Care Bill, describing it as "stealth privatisation" during 2011.[34] The government made some changes to the Bill, described by Williams as "major concessions",[35] but dismissed as "minor" by Guardian commentator Polly Toynbee.[36] Williams urged Liberal Democrats to support the amended Bill during the conference in March 2012,[37] saying "I would not have stuck with the bill, if I believed for one moment it would undermine the NHS."[38]

Williams spoke against same-sex marriage in the House of Lords, saying that "equality is not the same as sameness. That is the fundamental mistake in this Bill" and that women and men "complement one another", arguing that marriage between people of the same sex should not be called marriage but should have "different nomenclature". This was based on her belief that marriage is "a framework for procreation and the raising of children."[39] In late 2015, she announced her intention to retire from the House of Lords.[40] On 28 January 2016 she made her valedictory speech in the chamber, and on 11 February she officially retired, in pursuance of Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.[18] In the 2017 New Year Honours, Williams was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour for "services to political and public life".[41]

Williams married twice. At Oxford she met Peter Parker (the future head of British Rail) and they had a relationship. In her autobiography (Climbing the Bookshelves) Williams said that "...by the spring of 1949 I was in love with him, and he, a little, with me...". In 1955, she married the moral philosopher Bernard Williams. Bernard left Oxford to accommodate his wife's rising political ambitions, finding a post first at University College London (1959–64) and then as Professor of Philosophy at Bedford College, London (1964–67), while she worked as a journalist for the Financial Times and as Secretary of the Fabian Society. The marriage was dissolved in 1974;[42] Bernard Williams subsequently married Patricia Skinner and had two sons with her.[43] Shirley said of her marriage to Bernard:

... [T]here was something of a strain that comes from two things. One is that we were both too caught up in what we were respectively doing — we didn't spend all that much time together; the other, to be completely honest, is that I'm fairly unjudgmental and I found Bernard's capacity for pretty sharp putting-down of people he thought were stupid unacceptable. Patricia has been cleverer than me in that respect. She just rides it. He can be very painful sometimes. He can eviscerate somebody. Those who are left behind are, as it were, dead personalities. Judge not that ye be not judged. I was influenced by Christian thinking, and he would say "That's frightfully pompous and it's not really the point." So we had a certain jarring over that and over Catholicism.[43]

Her first marriage was annulled in 1980.[19][44] In 1987 she married the Harvard professor and presidential historian Richard Neustadt, who died in 2003.

She had a daughter with Bernard Williams, a stepdaughter, and two grandchildren. Her daughter, Rebecca, became a lawyer.[45] She was a longtime resident of Hertfordshire, living in Furneux Pelham after she was elected MP for Hitchin, and moving to Little Hadham later in life.[46]

Williams was a Roman Catholic and, from 2009, attended church every Sunday.[47] In Who's Who, she listed her recreations as "music, poetry, hill walking".[9]

She died at her home in the early hours of 12 April 2021, at the age of 90.[48][49][50] Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called Williams a "Liberal lion and a true trailblazer" and stated that "political life will be poorer without her intellect, her wisdom and her generosity".[49]

Williams was made an Honorary Fellow of her alma mater, Somerville College, Oxford, in 1970, and of Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1977. Williams received a number of honorary doctorates:

• Honorary DEd (Doctor of Education), Council for National Academic Awards, 1969
• Honorary DLitt (Doctor of Letters), Heriot-Watt University,1980[51]
• Hon. LLD (Doctor of Laws), University of Sheffield, 1980; University of Southampton, 1981; University of Liverpool, 2008; University of Cambridge, 2009
• Honorary Doctor of Politics and Economics, University of Leuven, 1976; Radcliffe College, Harvard, 1978; University of Leeds, 1980; University of Bath, 1980
• Honorary DSc (Doctor of Science), Aston University, 1981
• Honorary Doctor, Monterey Institute, California, 2006[9]

Shirley Williams wrote several books, including:

• Climbing the Bookshelves: The Autobiography of Shirley Williams, Virago Press (2009). ISBN 9781844084753.[52]
• God and Caesar: Personal Reflections on Politics and Religion, University of Notre Dame Press (2003). ISBN 9780268010461.[53]
• Ambition and Beyond: Career Paths of American Politicians, with Edward L. Lascher Jr, Institute of Governmental Studies Press, University of California, Berkeley (1993). ISBN 9780877723387.[54]
• New Party – The New Technology Social and Liberal Democrats by Hebden Royd, (1988). ISBN 9781851870752.[55]
• Politics is for People Harvard University Press, (1981). ISBN 9780140058888.[56]

For details of Williams's early life see:

• Vera Brittain: A Life by Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge (1995).[57]
• Testament of Experience by Vera Brittain (1957).[58]

There is a substantial article on Shirley Williams by Phillip Whitehead in the Dictionary of Labour Biography, edited by Greg Rosen, Politico's Publishing, 2001, and one by Dick Newby in the Dictionary of Liberal Biography, edited by Duncan Brack, Politico's Publishing, 1998.

See also:

• John Campbell (2014). Roy Jenkins, a Well-Rounded Life. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-08750-6.[59]

Williams was a main character in Steve Waters' 2017 play Limehouse, which premiered at the Donmar Warehouse; she was portrayed by Debra Gillett.[60]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shirley Williams.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Shirley Williams.

• Profile at the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Portraits of Shirley Williams at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Shirley Williams at IMDb
• Shirley Williams collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Baroness Williams of Crosby at the Liberal Democrats
• Faculty profile Archived 13 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine at Harvard Kennedy School
• The NS Interview: Shirley Williams (New Statesman, 12 May 2010)