William Harcourt (politician) Attribution William Harcourt (politician) Sir William George Granville Venables Vernon Harcourt, KC (14 October 1827 – 1 October 1904) was a British lawyer, journalist and Liberal statesman. He served as Member of Parliament for various constituencies and held the offices of Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under William Ewart Gladstone before becoming Leader of the Opposition. A talented speaker in parliament, he was sometimes regarded as aloof and possessing only an intellectual involvement in his causes. He failed to engender much emotional response in the public and became only a reluctant and disillusioned leader of his party. Harcourt
Robert Harcourt (Liberal politician) Robert Harcourt (Liberal politician) Robert Venables Vernon Harcourt (7 May 1878 – 8 September 1962) was a British diplomat, playwright, farmer and Liberal Party politician. Harcourt was the son of a Liberal statesman, Sir William Harcourt, who was briefly leader of the Liberal Party from 1896 to 1898 and his second wife Elizabeth Cabot Motley who was the daughter of John Lothrop Motley sometime Minister of the United States in London and author of a number of works of history. His brother, Lewis Vernon Harcourt, was also a Liberal MP and government minister. Harcourt was educated at Eton College and