Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, died in London on 30 September 1930, aged 58. A barrister and Conservative politician, he held some of Britain’s highest legal and political offices.

Smith entered Parliament as MP for Liverpool Walton in 1906. Known as a formidable advocate and speaker, he rose rapidly during the First World War and became Attorney General in 1915. In 1919, David Lloyd George appointed him Lord Chancellor, placing him among the leading members of the post-war coalition government.

As Lord Chancellor, Birkenhead helped negotiate the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. The agreement created the Irish Free State and brought most of Ireland out of the United Kingdom, while Northern Ireland remained within it.

Birkenhead left office when Lloyd George’s government fell in 1922 but returned to the Cabinet under Stanley Baldwin as Secretary of State for India from 1924 to 1928.

His health deteriorated after leaving government. He died at 58, ending a career that took him from the Liverpool bar to the office of Lord Chancellor in little more than two decades.