Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead GCSI, PC, KC (12 July 1872 – 30 September 1930), best known to history as F. E. Smith, was a British Conservative statesman and lawyer of the early 20th century. He was a skilled orator, noted for his staunch opposition to Irish nationalism, his wit, pugnacious views, and hard living and drinking. He is perhaps best remembered today as Winston Churchill's greatest personal and political friend until B...
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Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead GCSI, PC, KC (12 July 1872 – 30 September 1930), best known to history as F. E. Smith, was a British Conservative statesman and lawyer of the early 20th century. He was a skilled orator, noted for his staunch opposition to Irish nationalism, his wit, pugnacious views, and hard living and drinking. He is perhaps best remembered today as Winston Churchill's greatest personal and political friend until Birkenhead's untimely death at age 58.
Smith was born in Birkenhead in Cheshire and was educated at Birkenhead School. After two years at the University College of Liverpool, he went up to Wadham College, Oxford, in 1896, where he was a contemporary of the politician John Simon and the athlete C.B. Fry. He became President of the Oxford Union, where a bust of him now stands. He obtained only a Second in Mods before switching to Law, in which he obtained a First and won the Vinerian Scholarship, although to his disappointment he only obtained a...
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