BRITISH EMPIRE: The Redoubtable F. E.

On August 24 Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Viscount Birkenhead and ex-Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, will lecture to the Institute of Politics at Williamstown, Mass. on Some World Problems Left by the Great War. Later he will address the American Bar Association at Minneapolis.

Lord Birkenhead’s career has been at once brilliant, diverse, meteoric and successful. In his 52nd year, comparatively a young man as public servants go in Britain, he can point back to distinguished academic achievements, a rapid and dazzling ascent to the apex of the legal profession—the Woolsack, and a political career, which, if erratic and opportune, has at least been singularly free of the unspectacular. “F. E.,” as Lord Birkenhead is known in Britain, can be said to have started his career at Oxford. There, in the year 1893, he was elected President of the Oxford Union Society — a debating society, the Presidency of which counts for much in a political metier. It was there that Birkenhead learned, as so many Oxfordians have, to speak on anything at any time with logic and eloquence. As a satirical speaker, Lord Birkenhead is probably unequaled in the world and few men have been able to face his onslaught with equanimity. In his early political days he was known as “Galloper Smith.” He earned this sobriquet while acting as lieutenant to the then Sir Edward Carson, whom he supported in fighting the “Home Rulers.” After having supported Ulster he somewhat callously deserted the Unionist cause after the War and was one of the prime movers in effecting the present settlement of the vexatious Irish question. For this act he has been both reviled and admired. Lord Birkenhead’s legal career started at Gray’s Inn, of which legal establishment he is now a Bencher. He became a King’s Counsellor, or to use legal phraseology, he took silk, in 1908. In 1915 he became Solicitor General and in the same year was appointed Attorney General, a post which he held until 1919, when he was appointed to the Woolsack in the House of Lords as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. This is the highest legal post obtainable in the Empire and superior to that of the Lord Chief Justice. After the fall of the Lloyd George Ministry last year Lord Birkenhead was forced to vacate the Woolsack in favor of Viscount Cave. Since then he has been “kicking his heels” and, is rumored pining to return to office. In 1901, Lord Birkenhead married Margaret Eleanor, a daughter of the Rev. Furneau, don of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He has one son and two daughters by this union.

Lord Birkenhead met his future wife in his undergraduate days. He never had any connection with ” Corpus,” having been a member of Wadham College, a fellow of Merton College, a lecturer of Oriel College.