Robert Harcourt

Robert Venables Vernon Harcourt (7 May 1878 – 8 September 1962) was a British diplomat, playwright, farmer and Liberal Party politician. Family and education 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 Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took honours in the History Tripos. At Cambridge, he was a committee member of Cambridge University Liberal Club from 1899 to 1900. He was engaged to be married to Margery (or Marjorie) Cunard, the granddaughter and heiress of the founder of the famous Cunard shipping concern, but the engagement was twice broken off. However, Miss Cunard was eventually persuaded to relent, and she married Harcourt in 1911. They had one daughter, Mary Elizabeth.