Frederick Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead

Frederick Winston Furneaux Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead (7 December 1907 – 10 June 1975) was a British biographer and Member of the House of Lords. He is best known for writing a biography of Rudyard Kipling that was suppressed by the Kipling family for many years, and which he never lived to see in print.

Background The son of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, he was born in London and was known as Viscount Furneaux from 1922, when his father, then 1st Viscount Birkenhead, was created Earl of Birkenhead. He had two sisters, Eleanor (1902–1945) and Pamela (1914–1982). Lord Furneaux was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He inherited his father's peerages in 1930.

For the first three years of the Second World War, Lord Birkenhead served with a Territorial Army Anti-Tank unit. Following a course at the Staff College, Camberley, Major "Freddy" Birkenhead was assigned to the Foreign Office's Political Intelligence Department, popularly known as the Political Warfare Executive, or PWE for short. He saw action in Croatia, as second-in-command of a sub-mission headed by Randolph Churchill, under Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean's 37th Military Mission, which included Evelyn Waugh. As a result, he plays a prominent role in Waugh's diaries.

Career Lord Birkenhead served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Halifax (1938–1939), and as Lord-in-waiting to King George VI (1938–1940 and 1951–1952) and Queen Elizabeth II (1952–1955).

In the documentary 'The Man Who Destroyed Oscar Wilde' broadcast by PBS America, Merlin Holland - grandson of Irish poet, author and playwright Oscar Wilde, explains that Lord Birkenhead (who was Holland's godfather) offered help to H. Montgomery Hyde with his biography of Edward Carson. Lord Birkenhead wrote Hyde a letter in 1950 (which is held in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland), that he had known Carson and could tell him first hand of what Carson had said about his part in the infamous court case which led to the downfall, disgrace and subsequent imprisonment of Wilde.

As a writer, Lord Birkenhead primarily authored political biographies, including books on Lord Cherwell and Lord Halifax.

Personal life and death In 1935, he married The Hon Sheila Berry (1913–1992), second daughter of the 1st Viscount Camrose. She died on 29 November 2014.

Lord Birkenhead died at a nursing home in Oxford on 10 June 1975, at age 67. At the time of his death, he was working on a biography of Winston Churchill (who was his godfather); the completed portion, covering Churchill's life until 1922, was published in 1989.

Books F.E.: The Life of F.E. Smith, first Earl of Birkenhead (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1960).

Frederick Edwin Earl of Birkenhead (1933 and 1936) Strafford (Hutchinson & Co. Ltd, 1938) Lady Eleanor Smith: a memoir (1953) Life of Lord Halifax (1965) The life of Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (1969) Rudyard Kipling (1978) Churchill, 1874–1922 (1989)

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