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Trustees

As trustees and associates we are not of one opinion ourselves concerning the authorship. We purposefully maintain a group of varied opinion in order to serve the space between different authorship societies and individuals, including those who believe that William Shakspere of Stratford is the author of the Shakespeare works. Our common aim is to encourage a beneficial sharing of insight while also refining and sharpening the enquiry.

Charles Beauclerk

is President of the De Vere Society, and has lectured extensively on the Shakespeare authorship question in Britain and in North America. He writes both fiction and non-fiction and his biography of the 17th century English actress Nell Gwyn was published by Macmillan in 2005. His next book Shakespeare's Identity Crisis will be published by Grove Atlantic.

Mark Rylance.

Actor and Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe between 1996 and 2006. A professional actor since 1980, he has acted in 48 productions of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Mark is an Associate Artist of the RSC, a friend of the Francis Bacon Research Trust, President of the Marlowe Society, an honorary bencher of the Middle Temple Hall, and Chairman of the Shakespearean Authorship Trust. His first play, The Big Secret Live "I am Shakespeare" Webcam Daytime Chatroom Show, premiered in Chichester in August 2007. Mark has most recently been acting on Broadway in Boeing Boeing, for which he won a Tony Award. He next appears at The Royal Court in Jerusalem by Mr. Jez Butterworth.

Peter Dawkins

M.A., Dip. Arch., St Catharine's College, Cambridge University; author, lecturer, workshop and pilgrimage leader. Founder-director of the Francis Bacon Research Trust, specialising in research into Bacon, Shakespeare, the Rosicrucians and other philosophers and artists of the Renaissance and founder-director of Zoence Academy, which provides a training course in the spiritual, geomantic and cosmological wisdom of the West. Peter teaches the wisdom in Shakespeare and from 1997-2006 he gave Wisdom of Shakespeare weekends with Mark Rylance at Shakespeare's Globe, and since then has been giving Wisdom of Shakespeare summer schools in Warwickshire with Temenos fellow, Jill Line. Peter's many publications include a series on The Wisdom of Shakespeare in each Shakespeare play, and an introduction to Zoence, entitled Zoence, Science of Life. His principal books on the Shakespeare authorship are The Shakespeare Enigma and Bacon's Shakespeare, whilst Building Paradise describes the Baconian project of which the Shakespeare plays form a vital part.

Bill Leahy

is Head of English at Brunel University, West London, UK. His research specialises in Elizabethan Processions, Shakespeare's History Plays and, more recently, issues surrounding Shakespeare and Authorship. He has published widely on both Shakespeare and early modern spectacle, culminating in a book entitled Elizabethan Triumphal Processions, which was published in May 2005 by Ashgate. He is the convenor for the MA in Shakespeare Authorship Studies and is currently editing two collections of essays on the Shakespeare Authorship Question. These collections will appear in late 2009.

Julia Cleave

MA (Oxon) is a member of the academic board of the Temenos Academy. She originally studied Shakespeare with Professor Hugo Dyson, the most puckish of the Inklings, the literary group based in Oxford which included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Subsequently, in her career as a teacher and teacher trainer, she taught Shakespeare in the context of training courses for foreign teachers and lecturers sponsored by the British Council. Since 1998 she has worked as an independent scholar, tracing the presence of Hermetic traditions in Renaissance and seventeenth century art and literature. Her interest in the Authorship Question was first piqued by reading John Michell's Who Wrote Shakespeare? This interest has since deepened and developed through participation in Wisdom of Shakespeare workshops at The Globe, and the Shakespearean Authorship Trust conferences and lectures. She is a member of the Francis Bacon Research Trust and the De Vere Society.

Lisa Wilson


Associates

Through our circle of Associates we endeavour to develop and sustain good relations with all those researching the authorship of the Shakespeare Canon.
Dr Tarnya Cooper: Sixteenth-century Curator of The National Portrait Gallery
Mike Frohnsdorff: Former Chairman of the Marlowe Society
Stephanie Hopkins Hughes: Editor of The Oxfordian
Sir Derek Jacobi: Actor
Carol Sue Lipman: Chair of The Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable
Professor William Rubinstein: Historian, Co-author of The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare
Randall Sherman: Past President of the Shakespeare Oxford Society
Professor John Spiers Former Vice-Chairman and Librarian of the Francis Bacon Society. Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, University of London
Hank Whittemore is an author and actor whose 900-page book The Monument (2005) presents a new 'macro' theory of the Sonnets from an Oxfordian perspective.
Robin Williams: Founder of The Wilton Circle; Author of Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?
Michael Wood: Historian; Presenter of In Search of Shakespeare
Professor Daniel Wright: Director of the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre, Concordia University