Andrew Motion Andrew Motion Sir Andrew Motion (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson. Motion was born on 26 October 1952 in London; his mother was Catherine Gillian Bakewell (known as Gillian) and his father Andrew Richard Michael Motion (known as Richard). The family
John Francis Amherst Cecil John Francis Amherst Cecil John Francis Amherst Cecil (1890 – 22 October 1954) was the first secretary of the British Embassy, Washington, known for his marriage to Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt. John Francis Amherst Cecil was born in 1890 in London, England to Lord William Cecil (1854–1943) and Mary Rothes Margaret Tyssen-Amherst, 2nd Baroness Amherst of Hackney (1857–1919). His father, a Groom-in-Waiting to Queen Victoria until her death in 1901 and an Extra Gentleman Usher from 1924 under King George V until 1937, was a younger son of the William Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Exeter (1825–1895) and Lady Georgina Sophia Pakenham