Tom Shakespeare

Sir Thomas William Shakespeare, 3rd Baronet, (born 11 May 1966) is an English sociologist and bioethicist. He has achondroplasia and uses a wheelchair. == Early life and education == Son of Sir William [Geoffrey Shakespeare], 2nd Baronet, and Susan Mary, daughter of A. Douglas Raffel, of Colombo, Sri Lanka, his grandfather, Sir Geoffrey Shakespeare, was made a baronet following long service as a member of Parliament and in various senior government roles. While still a student, Tom was featured in a television documentary by Lord Snowdon connected to his 1976 report "Integrating the Disabled" about his restricted growth, along with his father, a prominent medical practitioner, who was also born with achondroplasia. His mother was a nurse of Sri Lankan Burgher descent. Shakespeare was educated at Radley College, Oxfordshire, taking A-levels in English, History, and History of Art; and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1984 to read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, completing that tripos in 1986. He gained an MPhil degree from King's College, Cambridge, in 1991. == Career == Shakespeare then lectured in sociology at the University of Sunderland from 1993 and returned to King's College in 1995 to obtain his PhD degree. His father died in 1996 and Shakespeare inherited his baronetcy, but does not use the title. He is also a campaigner for disability rights, a writer on disability, genetics and bioethics and was the co-author of The Sexual Politics of Disability (1996; ISBN 0-304-33329-8).