Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby

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Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, PC (born 27 July 1930), is a British politician. Originally a Labour Member of Parliament (MP), she was one of the "Gang of Four" rebels who founded the (now-defunct) SDP (Social Democratic Party) in 1981. She became the leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords, but stepped down from the position at the November 2004 State Opening of Parliament.

Born Shirley Vivien Teresa Catlin, Williams is the daughter of political scientist and philosopher George Catlin and novelist Vera Brittain.

She began her career as a journalist, having graduated from Somerville College, Oxford with a second class degree. (She studied at Somerville several years after her political rival Margaret Thatcher.) In 1955 she married the philosopher Bernard Williams. At the 1964 general election, she was elected as Labour MP for the constituency of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, and rose quickly to a junior ministerial position. Between 1971 and 1973 she served as shadow Home Secretary. In 1974 she became Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection under Harold Wilson, and, when Wilson was succeeded in 1976 by James Callaghan, she became Secretary of State for Education.

Her 17-year marriage to Williams (which produced a daughter, Rebecca) came to an end in 1974 following her husband's affair with Patricia Law Skinner, then wife of the historian Quentin Skinner. Despite the couple spending much time apart due to the development of her political career, and the marked difference in their personal values – Williams was a confirmed atheist, his wife a devout Catholic - her former husband has referred to their marriage as one of the happiest times of his life. [1]

The Labour Party lost the 1979 general election, and she lost her seat (which had been renamed Hertford and Stevenage in 1974) to Bowen Wells. In 1981, unhappy with the influence of the far left, she resigned from the party along with Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Bill Rodgers, to form the SDP. Later that year, following the death of Conservative Sir Graham Page, she won a by-election in Crosby in Merseyside, becoming the first person elected as an SDP MP.

Despite becoming President of the new party, she lost her seat in the 1983 general election. She stood for Cambridge in the 1987 general election but failed to take the seat from the Conservatives. She supported the party's subsequent merger with the Liberal Party in 1988, to become the Liberal Democrats. Williams married Harvard academic Richard Neustadt, moved to the United States, and effectively retired from active politics. She returned to politics as a life peer with the title Baroness Williams of Crosby, of Stevenage in the County of Hertfordshire in 1993, and was leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2001 to 2004. She is on the Advisory Council of the Institute for Public Policy Research and is a president of Chatham House.

She made her last speech as her party's leader in the House of Lords at the Liberal Democrat party conference in autumn 2004, to rapturous applause.

Further Reading

Shirley Williams has published several books including:

• God and Caesar: Personal Reflections on Politics and Religion,(2003).

• New Party - The New Technology (1988).

• A Job to Live (1985).

• Politics is for People, (1981).

There is a substantial article on Shirley Williams by Phillip Whitehead in the Dictionary of Labour Biography, by Greg Rosen (ed), Politicos Publishing, 2001.

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