(Q62586)

Eliot (Leonard Eliot) Crawshay-Williams (1879-1962) was the son of the barrister and politician A. J. Williams. He was educated at Eton, and Trinity College, Oxford. He joined the Royal Field Artillery and stood as a Liberal candidate for Chorley, Lancashire, in 1906. He had been employed by Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office from 1906 to 1908. He married Alice Crawshay-Williams in 1908, and had two children. From 1910-1913, he was M. P. for Leicester, serving as parliamentary private secretary to Lloyd George. His political career came to an end in 1913, when he was cited in a divorce action brought by his fellow M. P., Hubert Carr-Gomm. In 1915, he divorced Alice and married Kathleen Isabella Carr-Gomm (née Rome), after her divorce. They divorced in 1924, and he then married for the third time, marrying Weeta (daughter of William Cattanach Donaldson), with whom he had two sons, David (b. 1925) and Jonathan (b. 1928). In later life, he devoted his time to the writing of fiction, political texts and to Welsh affairs. Eliot Crawshay-Williams wrote numerous novels, short stories, poetry, plays and film scripts. He was also interested in Canada.