Chris Smith was born in 1951, and was educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh, and Pembroke College, Cambridge where he took a double first in English. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard, and completed his Cambridge PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1979.

Chris was a Labour councillor for Islington Borough for five years, and was chairman of housing from 1981 to 1983. In 1983 Chris Smith became MP for Islington South and Finsbury. In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Environmental Protection, and two years later moved to heritage, then Social Security and Health.

When Labour came to power in 1997 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. He returned to the back benches after the 2001 election, where he retained his commitment to the arts and heritage.

Chris is currently the Founding Director of the Clore Leadership Programme, Chairman of the Wordsworth Trust, Chairman of the Wordsworth Trust, Chairman of the Donmar Warehouse, a member of the board of the National Theatre, Chairman of Classic FM's consumer panel, and is on the advisory council of the London Symphony Orchestra. He is a Visiting Professor in Culture and the Creative Industries at the University of the Arts London, an honorary Fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge, and Chair of the London Cultural Consortium. He was Chair of the Judges for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2004, and remained MP for Islington South and Finsbury until the 2005 election when he stepped down after 22 years. He was given a peerage in June 2005.