30 Facts About Shirley Williams

Shirley Williams was one of the "Gang of Four" rebels who founded the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and, at the time of her retirement from politics, was a Liberal Democrat.

Shirley Williams served as minister for Education and Science from 1967 to 1969 and Minister of State for Home Affairs from 1969 to 1970.

Shirley Williams served as Shadow Home Secretary from 1971 and 1973.

Shirley Williams lost her seat to the Conservative Party at the 1979 general election.

Shirley Williams won the 1981 Crosby by-election and became the first SDP member elected to Parliament, but she lost the seat in the 1983 general election.

Shirley Williams served as President of the SDP from 1982 to 1987 and supported the SDP's merger with the Liberal Party that formed the Liberal Democrats.

Shirley Williams remained an active member of the House of Lords until announcing her retirement in January 2016, and was a Professor Emerita of Electoral Politics at Harvard Kennedy School at the time of her death at age 90, having been one of the last surviving members of the Labour governments of the 1970s.

Shirley Williams 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.

Shirley Williams retained the seat, renamed Hertford and Stevenage after boundary changes in 1974, until 1979.

Shirley Williams just liked people and liked them to like her.

Previously, in 1972, as her daughter Rebecca approached secondary school age, Shirley Williams had moved into the catchment area of the voluntary aided school Godolphin and Latymer School allowing her daughter to gain a place there.

Always a passionately committed supporter of European integration, Shirley Williams was one of 68 Labour MPs to defy a three-line whip in the 28 October 1971 Commons vote on membership of the European Communities.

Shirley Williams lost her seat when the Labour Party was defeated at the 1979 general election.

Shirley Williams's defeat came two years after her appearance and arrest on the Grunwick picket lines, for which she had been harshly criticised in the press.

At the 1987 general election, Shirley Williams stood for the SDP in Cambridge, but lost to the sitting Conservative candidate Robert Rhodes James.

Shirley Williams then supported the SDP's merger with the Liberal Party that formed the Liberal Democrats.

In 1988, Shirley 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.

Shirley Williams 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.

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

Shirley Williams 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.

Shirley Williams was an attendee of the 2013 and the 2010 Bilderberg conferences in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, and Sitges, Spain, respectively.

In June 2007, after Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as Prime Minister, Shirley Williams accepted a formal Government position as Advisor on Nuclear Proliferation provided she could serve as an independent advisor; she remained a Liberal Democrat.

Shirley Williams was a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.

The marriage was dissolved in 1974; Bernard Shirley Williams subsequently married Patricia Skinner and had two sons with her.

Shirley Williams had a daughter with Bernard Williams, a stepdaughter, and two grandchildren.

Shirley Williams 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.

Shirley Williams was a Roman Catholic and, from 2009, attended church every Sunday.

Shirley Williams died at her home in the early hours of 12 April 2021, at the age of 90.

Shirley Williams was made an Honorary Fellow of her alma mater, Somerville College, Oxford, in 1970, and of Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1977.

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