About Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury
Christopher Robert Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury, (born 24 July 1951) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington South and Finsbury from 1983 to 2005 and was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer in 2005 and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 2025. In 1984, Smith became the first openly gay male British MP and in 2005, the first MP to acknowledge that he is HIV positive. He served as Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 2015 to 2025 and was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 2025. == Early life and education == Chris Smith was born in Barnet, London, and privately educated at George Watson's College in Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge where he was an undergraduate at Pembroke College, Cambridge starting in 1969. At Cambridge, he gained a first class honours degree in English, and a PhD degree in 1979 with a thesis on Wordsworth; he was also president of the Cambridge Union Society. He also attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar from 1975 to 1976. == Member of Parliament == He worked for a housing charity and became a councillor in the London Borough of Islington. He came third at Epsom and Ewell in the 1979 general election before narrowly winning the seat of Islington South and Finsbury at the 1983 general election, defeating George Cunningham, who had ultimately defected to the Social Democrats from Labour. Cunningham stood again at the 1987 general election when Smith retained the seat.
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