David Keith Williamson, AO (born 19 or 24 February 1942) is one of Australia's best-known dramatists and playwrights. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.
David Williamson was born in Melbourne in 1942 and was brought up in Bairnsdale. Sources are divided as to whether he was born on 19 February or 24 February. He initially studied mechanical engineering at the University of Melbourne from 1960, but left and graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1965. His early forays into the theatre were as an actor and writer of skits for the Engineers' Revue at Melbourne University's Union Theatre at lunchtime during the early 1960s, and as a satirical sketch writer for Monash University student reviews and the Emerald Hill Theatre Company.
After a brief stint as design engineer for GM Holden, Williamson became a lecturer in mechanical engineering and thermodynamics at Swinburne University of Technology (then Swinburne Technical College) in 1966 whilst studying social psychology as a postgraduate part-time at the University of Melbourne. Williamson later lectured in social psychology at Swinburne, where he remained until 1972.
David Francis Williamson, Baron Williamson of Horton GCMG CB PC (8 May 1934 – 30 August 2015) was a senior British and European civil servant, as well as a member of the House of Lords.
Williamson was educated at Tonbridge School and Exeter College, Oxford. He served in the Royal Signals 1956-58 as his national service. He married Patricia Smith in 1961; they had two sons.
He began his civil service career in 1958 at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, becoming Principal Private Secretary to the minister in 1967. He was Deputy Director-General for Agriculture in the European Commission from 1977 to 1983 and Secretary-General of the European Commission from 1987 to 1997. From 1983 until 1987, Williamson had returned to the United Kingdom to serve as Deputy Secretary and head the European Secretariat in the Cabinet Office.
After leaving Brussels, Williamson was created a Life Peer on 5 February 1999 with the title Baron Williamson of Horton, of Horton in the County of Somerset, and sat as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. Lord Williamson of Horton was the convenor of the crossbenchers, a task that involves keeping the other non-aligned members up-to-date with the business of the House.
David Williamson (1752–1814) was a Colonel in the Pennsylvania militia during the American Revolutionary War. He was born near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He led the expedition that murdered 100 Moravian Delaware Indians at the town of Gnadenhutten, Ohio. It became known as the Gnadenhutten massacre. He was also second in command of the Crawford expedition which was defeated by the combined Native American and British force at the Battle of Sandusky on June 4–6, 1782 near the Wyandot village of Upper Sandusky, Ohio. He led the majority of the remaining force home and was in command during the subsequent Battle of Olentangy during the retreat home on June 6, 1782. Following the war, Williamson was elected to several terms as Sheriff of Washington County, Pennsylvania; however, his attempts at various business ventures failed and he died in poverty in 1814.