Originally published 2021-05-25.
Photos: PA; Daily Mail
William Shakespeare, the Warwickshire pensioner who became the first man in the world to receive an approved Covid-19 vaccine outside a clinical trial, died in May 2021 at the age of 81. His family said he died after a stroke, following a long period of illness, and that his death had nothing to do with Covid-19 or with the vaccine he had received five months earlier.
His jab on 8 December 2020 made headlines around the world, partly because of the history it represented and partly because of his name. This article looks at who he was, what that first week of vaccination meant, and why the timing of his death should not be read as a warning about vaccines.
Who was William "Bill" Shakespeare?
Known as Bill to his family and friends, Shakespeare was a retired Rolls-Royce employee from Warwickshire in the English Midlands. He had served his local community as a parish councillor for around 30 years and was involved in planting trees in his area. He was married and had two sons and four grandchildren, who called him "Pops".
On 8 December 2020 he rolled up his sleeve at University Hospital Coventry and received a dose of the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine. Within hours, photos of him, and plenty of jokes about the famous playwright from nearby Stratford-upon-Avon, were circulating online.
First man, second person: setting the record straight
Shakespeare is often described as "the first man to get the Covid vaccine", and that needs a little precision. Thousands of volunteers had already received experimental doses in clinical trials during 2020. What happened in Coventry was different: it was the start of the first public rollout of a fully tested, authorised vaccine.
The very first person in that rollout was Margaret Keenan, a grandmother from Coventry, who received her dose at the same hospital shortly before him. Some reports gave her age as 91, but she was 90 when she was vaccinated; her 91st birthday followed the next week, which explains the mix-up. Shakespeare followed as the second person and the first man.
The UK had become the first country to approve the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine on 2 December 2020, through a temporary authorisation from its medicines regulator, the MHRA. That gave Britain a head start of several days over the United States and the European Union.
How he died, and why timing is not cause
Shakespeare died at University Hospital Coventry, the same hospital where he had been vaccinated. According to his family, the cause was a stroke after a long illness. They stated plainly that his death was unrelated to the vaccine or to Covid-19 itself.
Some social media posts at the time tried to tie the two events together. That reasoning does not hold up. He was 81, he had been unwell for some time, and five months passed between the injection and his death. When millions of older people are vaccinated, some of them will inevitably die in the following months from the ordinary causes that affect people of that age. Researchers and regulators look for real safety signals by comparing rates of illness in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, not by linking individual deaths to earlier events.
Regulators in the UK ran a dedicated reporting system, the Yellow Card scheme, through which doctors and the public could report any suspected side effect after vaccination. Reports like these are signals to investigate, not proof of harm, and experts assess them against the background rate of illness in the population. A death in an 81-year-old after a long illness, five months after a jab, is exactly the kind of event that occurs at similar rates whether or not people have been vaccinated.
Anyone with personal questions about vaccines and their own health should talk to a doctor or pharmacist.
A family's tribute
His wife told reporters that Bill had been grateful to be one of the first people offered the vaccine and that it was something he "was hugely proud of". She said he enjoyed the media attention because it allowed him to make a positive difference, and that he often talked to people about his experience and encouraged them to get vaccinated.
She also thanked the hospital staff for the care he received in his final days, praising their compassion and respect and calling them a credit to the NHS. She described him as a sociable man who loved meeting people and helping wherever he could, and above all as a devoted husband, father and grandfather whose loss would be deeply felt.
Where the UK's rollout stood in May 2021
By the time of his death the British vaccination programme had moved at remarkable speed. More than 60 million doses had been given across the UK by late May 2021, according to figures reported at the time, with hundreds of thousands of people being vaccinated each day.
Some forecasts in spring 2021 suggested the country could reach herd immunity by the autumn. Those hopes proved too optimistic. The more transmissible Delta variant became dominant in the UK in the summer of 2021, and later Omicron spread widely even among vaccinated people. The vaccines remained highly effective at preventing severe illness and death, but they did not end transmission, and booster programmes followed. By August 2022 more than 150 million doses, including boosters, had been administered in the UK.
Why his story still resonates
Shakespeare's moment in December 2020 became one of the defining images of the pandemic's turning point: an ordinary older man in a face mask taking part in something that offered hope after a year of lockdowns. His family's account suggests he understood that, and spent his last months using his small slice of fame to reassure others.
His death, like any death, was a loss to those who knew him. It was not a verdict on the vaccine he helped to introduce.
Sources: Family statement as reported by the Daily Mail (photos: PA; Daily Mail); Wikipedia: Margaret Keenan; Wikipedia: COVID-19 vaccination in the United Kingdom.
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