Frederick Winston Furneaux Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead (7 December 1907 – 10 June 1975) was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 historian. He is best known for writing a controversial biography of Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

 that was suppressed by the Kipling family for many years, and which, in fact, he never lived to see in print.

The son of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead

Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead GCSI, PC, KC , 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...

, he was known as Viscount Furneaux from 1922, when his father, then 1st Viscount Birkenhead, was created Earl of Birkenhead. Lord Furneaux was educated at Eton

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

 and Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

 and inherited his father's peerages in 1930.

In 1935 he married The Hon. Sheila Berry, second daughter of the 1st Viscount Camrose

William Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose

William Ewart Berry, 1st Viscount Camrose was a British newspaper publisher.The second of three brothers born in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, Berry started his working life as a journalist and established his own paper, Advertising World, in 1901...

. The couple had a son, Frederick, Viscount Furneaux

Frederick William Robin Smith, 3rd Earl of Birkenhead

Frederick William Robin Smith, 3rd Earl of Birkenhead . Smith, the grandson of a British Lord Chancellor, succeeded to the Earldom upon his father's death in 1975....

, in 1936, and a daughter, Lady Juliet Margaret Smith (later Lady Juliet Townsend) in 1941.

For the first three years of the Second War, Lord Birkenhead served with a Territorial Army Anti-Tank unit

Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars

The Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars was the designated name of a Yeomanry regiment of the British Army between 1888 and 1922. In response a call by the government for troops of volunteers to be formed in the shires, meeting of “Nobility, Gentry, Freeholders and Yeomanry” was called at the Star Inn...

. Following a course at the Staff College, Camberley

Staff College, Camberley

Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, was a staff college for the British Army from 1802 to 1997, with periods of closure during major wars. In 1997 it was merged into the new Joint Services Command and Staff College.-Origins:...

, Major 'Freddy' Birkenhead was assigned to the Foreign Office's Political Intelligence Department, popularly known as the Political Warfare Executive

Political Warfare Executive

During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....

, or PWE for short. He saw action in Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

, as second-in-command of a sub-mission headed by Randolph Churchill

Randolph Churchill

Major Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill, MBE was the son of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament for Preston from 1940 to 1945....

, under Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean's 37th Military Mission, which included Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...

. As a result he plays a prominent role in Waugh's diaries.

Lord Birkenhead served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord Halifax (1938–39), and as Lord-in-Waiting to King George VI

George VI of the United Kingdom

George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...

 (1938–40 and 1951–52) and Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 (1952–55).

Books

• Frederick Edwin Earl of Birkenhead (1933 and 1936)
• Lady Eleanor Smith: a memoir (1953)
• F.E.: The Life of F.E. Smith, first Earl of Birkenhead" (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1960).
• Life of Lord Halifax (1965)
• The life of Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
  Walter Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
  Walter Turner Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, GCVO, KCMG, MC, PC was a British politician.-Early years:...
  
  (1969)
• Rudyard Kipling (1978)