David Lloyd George
Philip Steele
David Lloyd George’s roots were buried deep in Wales. His father William George was originally from Trecoed in Pembrokeshire, but moved to Pwllheli in north-west Wales to become a teacher. A Baptist, he was an admirer of the socialist reformer Robert Owen.
It was at Pwllheli that William met his future wife Mary Lloyd, who was in domestic service. Following their marriage, the couple moved to Manchester, where William took up another job as schoolmaster. It was there that their son David was born on 17 January 1863. However, William was soon taken ill and returned to Pembrokeshire, where he died when his son was only 18 months old.
Childhood in Wales
Mary Lloyd George took her young son back to north-west Wales, to her home village of Llanystumdwy. David was raised in the home of his uncle Richard Lloyd, a shoemaker and Baptist pastor. The boy did well at the local school, and Richard Lloyd encouraged in his nephew a concern for social justice.
It was then difficult to earn a living in that part of Wales, where the economy depended on slate quarrying, hill-farming and shipping. Wealth and political power were in the hands of a small number of English-speaking Conservative landowners, all of them supporters of the Church of England, which was then the established Church in Wales.
Most of the local population was poor, Welsh-speaking and radical or liberal in their politics. They attended Non-conformist (Baptist, Methodist or independent) chapels, which dominated the cultural and social life of the time. These were the people among whom Lloyd George grew up, and whose interests he came to champion.
Lawyer and journalist
Lloyd George left school in 1878 and in the following year became an articled clerk to a firm of solicitors in Porthmadog. He qualified in 1884 and set up an independent legal practice based in Porthmadog and Criccieth. In court, he used his powerful skills of persuasion to defend disadvantaged clients. Four years after he began practising law, he founded a Welsh-language newspaper, Udgorn Rhyddid (‘The Trumpet of Freedom’) in Pwllheli.
Marriage and children
In 1888, Lloyd George married Margaret Owen, a farmer’s daughter from Mynydd Ednyfed, near Criccieth. In the 14 years that followed, they had two sons – Richard and Gwilym – and three daughters: Mair, Olwen and Megan.
Margaret was constant in her support for her husband, but when his career took him away from home, he did not remain faithful. The couple lived apart for most of the rest of their lives, although there remained a sincere affection between them.
The young MP
The young Lloyd George, fascinated by politics, was very ambitious. By 1889, at the age of 26, he had become the youngest alderman on the county council, and a year later, he stood as Liberal candidate for Caernarfon Boroughs in a parliamentary by-election. Unexpectedly, he beat the Tory candidate H J Ellis Nanney by just 18 votes. He would remain an MP for 55 years.
The new Member of Parliament was something of a firebrand. He made his mark by challenging the Liberal tradition of party leader (and sometime prime minister) William Gladstone and criticising his own party’s policies on Welsh affairs. At first, he campaigned for Welsh home rule, supporting the demands of the Cymru Fydd (Young Wales) movement, but after that organisation declined, he concentrated on the wider British political arena.
The Second Boer War
From 1899 to 1902, Britain was again at war with the Boer (Afrikaner) settlers of the Transvaal and Orange Free State in South Africa (they had first fought in 1880-1). In England, the hostilities were greeted with a wave of jingoism, but were far less popular in Lloyd George’s home constituency. As a one-time supporter of Welsh home rule, Lloyd George always felt drawn to defend minorities and small countries, and that was how he viewed the Boers.
The MP with the pro-Boer stance held on to his seat at the general election of 1900. The following year, when he spoke out against the war in Birmingham, such was the fury of the mob outside the Town Hall that he had to be escorted from the scene disguised as a policeman.
Education and faith
In 1902, when the Conservatives introduced a new Education Act that forced local education authorities to fund Church of England schools, Lloyd George condemned it because it discriminated against Non-conformists. It is hardly surprising then that his political support in Wales was strengthened by a popular religious revival in 1904-05.
The Conservative government was defeated in 1905. The new Liberal administration created a Welsh department within the Board of Education, to deal with the issue of Church schools. This became part of a political process that, by 1920, had led to ‘disestablishment’, the end of the Church of England’s official supremacy in Wales.
The Cabinet member
Lloyd George was offered a Cabinet post in the new Liberal government, becoming president of the Board of Trade. He introduced the Merchant Shipping Act, improving the working conditions of merchant seamen, which at that time were often appalling.
In 1907, Lloyd George was grief-stricken when his much-loved eldest daughter Mair died, aged only 17. He threw himself into his political work with ever greater energy.
Votes for women?
Women were still not allowed to vote in general elections in the United Kingdom. Lloyd George was himself an early supporter of women’s suffrage, but as part of the government was often heckled by the militant campaigners known as the suffragettes, who belonged to the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU).
In 1910, believing that the proposal was principally designed to favour the Tories at the ballot box, he opposed the extension of the vote to women already entitled to vote in local elections. However, the WSPU saw the measure as a necessary step towards its goal of votes for all women. As a result, the suffragettes targeted Lloyd George personally, and not only with verbal abuse: in February 1913, his home was destroyed by a bomb.
Old age pension
In the new Liberal government of 1908, Lloyd George had been appointed chancellor of the Exchequer. His economic reforms marked the beginnings of the UK’s welfare state, in which government aimed to provide financial support for those most at need.
State pensions had already been introduced in countries such as Germany and New Zealand. Lloyd George’s Old Age Pensions Act 1908 offered security to the British elderly for the first time. The pensions were greatly welcomed in the UK – the first payments, made on 1 January 1909, were accompanied by public celebrations with bonfires, flags, parades and brass bands.
Welfare and reform
The new welfare benefits had to be funded. In addition, Germany and Britain were competing to build large fleets of battleships, and this arms race had become very costly. Lloyd George’s answer was the so-called ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909, which set out to tax the rich to help the poor.
The House of Lords refused to accept the budget, creating a constitutional crisis. Should the unelected Lords be allowed to block the decisions of the elected House of Commons? A new general election was held, which gave the Liberals a mandate for their policy. Their revenge was to limit the powers of the House of Lords in the 1911 Parliament Act.
The year 1911 also saw Lloyd George introduce a national insurance scheme to fund welfare benefits. Working people contributed money to the scheme from their wages, as they still do today.
War and munitions
In 1914, the First World War broke out. The British empire was allied with France and Russia against Germany, Austria and Turkey. Although Lloyd George had always been known for his anti-war feelings, this time he decided to support the case for war, having been shocked by Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium.
Lloyd George was one of the few politicians who realised the immense size of the task ahead. In 1915, in a wartime coalition government with the Conservatives, headed by the Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith, he became the minister responsible for munitions. His tireless determination was recognised in June 1916, when he was made secretary of state for war.
A wartime leader
Six months later, Lloyd George was chosen by a majority of the governing coalition to replace Asquith as prime minister – the first prime minister to come from a humble background and the only Welshman to hold the office. However, Asquith’s supporters never forgave Lloyd George for this betrayal, and the Liberals remained split until 1926.
In 1917, the Russian government was overthrown by the Bolsheviks, and in December, Russia withdrew from the war. However, France and Britain had already been joined, eight months earlier, by a new ally, the United States.
In Britain, Lloyd George took all the measures he could to win the war. He introduced food rationing, increased agricultural production and countered the threat from submarines with a convoy system for merchant shipping. He often clashed with military leaders over their willingness to sacrifice vast numbers of troops on the battlefield.
Lloyd George’s policies finally helped to bring victory in November 1918, but the war had been won at a terrible price. Over 10 million young men from the various armies had been killed.
Winning the peace?
Lloyd George was re-elected as an MP after the war, but with the Liberal majority in Parliament much reduced, he had to join with the Conservatives to create another coalition government.
In 1919, at Versailles, outside Paris, he played a skilful role negotiating the peace settlement, alongside US President Woodrow Wilson and the French prime minister Georges Clemenceau (whom he nicknamed ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘Napoleon’). However, the Treaty of Versailles failed in its aim of creating world peace, for within 20 years the world was at war again.
Lloyd George faced a host of political problems in post-war Britain. He was hampered by his uneasy alliance with the Conservatives and by the split within the Liberal ranks. He brought down on himself the anger of the labour movement by refusing to nationalise the coal mines. There was growing unemployment and industrial unrest. This was clearly not the ‘country fit for heroes’ that had been promised to the returning soldiers.
The Irish Free State
Ireland, too, was in a state of crisis, following the Easter uprising against British rule in 1916. In 1921, Lloyd George entered negotiations with Sinn Féin, a party that demanded Irish independence from the United Kingdom, and forced through a settlement that resulted in the Irish Free State. However, the new state excluded the six counties that comprised the northern province of Ulster.
This division of Ireland was rejected by many Irish nationalists, and was also opposed by many pro-British politicians. It resulted in many decades of conflict.
Forced from office
The Conservatives added to Lloyd George’s problems by accusing him of corruption – handing out national honours such as knighthoods and peerages in return for contributions to party funds.
Before this argument was resolved, the Tories’ anger erupted over another issue – Lloyd George’s policy in southern Europe. He was accused of fanning the flames of a conflict between Greece and Turkey. As a result, he was forced from power by his coalition partners in 1922.
On the sidelines
David Lloyd George was never prime minister again, although he represented Caernarfon Boroughs as an MP until 1945. He was leader of a reunited Liberal Party from 1926 to 1931, but by then, the Labour Party (founded in 1900) had taken its place as chief opposition to the Conservatives.
Lloyd George travelled, wrote his memoirs and tried to exert influence on the world of politics. However, his proposals for ending the economic depression of the 1930s were ignored. He was offered a place in the War Cabinet during the Second World War, but by then he felt that he was too old to be of use.
Family matters
Lloyd George had spent most of the years between the two world wars at his home in Churt, Surrey, with Frances Stevenson. She had been his lover – and close political adviser – since 1911 and had given birth to their daughter Jennifer in 1929. According to Jennifer’s daughter, Lloyd George had ‘asked her to become his secretary, but explained that he could work with her only if he made her his mistress as well’.
Meanwhile Lloyd George’s wife Margaret remained at their Welsh home in Criccieth. Although her death in 1941 caused him genuine sorrow, he married Frances in 1943. In January 1945, he was made Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor and Viscount Gwynedd, but died in March, just as the Second World War was drawing to a close. He was buried at his boyhood village of Llanystumdwy.
His son Gwilym (1894-1967) also became a successful politician, as did his beloved younger daughter Megan (1902-66).
Lloyd George’s legacy
David Lloyd George was a poor boy who became a lord, a peace campaigner who became a war leader, a supporter of Welsh home rule who entered British politics. In 1963, the newspaper proprietor Lord Beaverbrook wrote that Lloyd George ‘did not seem to care which way he travelled providing he was in the driver’s seat’. The Welshman was certainly a volatile politician, but he was guided by abiding principles.
In 1945, Winston Churchill described him as: ‘... a man of action, resource and creative energy.’ He concluded: ‘The greater part of our fortunes in war and peace were shaped by this one man.’
David Lloyd George is remembered as a skilled war leader and negotiator – he was known as the ‘Welsh wizard’ – but his greatest achievement was probably the programme of social reform that he introduced in the years 1908-11. His political philosophy has affected the policies of three of today’s leading British parties – the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru (the Party of Wales).
Philip Steele lives in north-west Wales. He has written a wide range of information books for an international audience, including histories and biographies.
Find out more
Websites
David Lloyd George Exhibition
www.llgc.org.uk/ardd/dlgeorge/dlg0002.htm
The results of an exhibition set up in 1995 by the Department of Pictures and Maps of the National Library of Wales. Has copious images relating to Lloyd George, all thoroughly annotated.
If love were all … the story of Frances Stevenson and David Lloyd George
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/
reviews/if-love-were-all-the-story-of-
frances-stevenson-and-david-lloyd-george
-by-john-campbell-404151.html
An Independent book review by a Welsh MP that gives a concise account of the long-term affair between the prime minister and his secretary.
The War Memoirs of Lloyd George – The Churchill Centre
www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=521
Here two of the major figures of 20th-century British politics go head to head: Winston Churchill reviews Lloyd George’s memoirs of World War I.
Books
Lloyd George by John Grigg (Penguin, 2002)
A definitive four-volume biography, which sadly, due to the author’s death, ends prematurely at 1918.
The biography comprises:
The Young Lloyd George
Covers the future prime minister's life from 1863 to 1902.
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The People’s Champion: 1902-1911
Lloyd George moves from being the liveliest opposition back bencher to the most dynamic and controversial member of a grand Liberal government.
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From Peace to War 1912-1916
The outbreak of World War I altered the whole course of Lloyd George's life. As minister of munitions, he carried through what was almost another Industrial Revolution – and a social one as well.
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War Leader 1916-1918
Lloyd George's innovations in government and their impact on traditional Britain. One of the most resourceful leaders of modern times in brilliant action, transforming his country in pursuit of victory.
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David Lloyd George: The movie mystery, edited by Dave Berry and Simon Horrocks (University of Wales Press, 1998)
In 1918, a silent film of the life of the prime minister was made but not screened, and then was abruptly withdrawn from circulation. This book focuses on the reasons why the film was suppressed and how it has been restored.
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Place to visit
Lloyd George Museum and Highgate Cottage
Llanystumdwy
Criccieth
Gwynedd LL52 0SH
Tel/fax: 01766 522071
E-mail: AmgueddfaLloydGeorge@gwynedd.gov.uk
Website: http://www.gwynedd.gov.uk/gwy_doc.asp?
cat=3664&doc=13265&Language=11
In the museum, you can see a display of Lloyd George-related objects and a film about his life. His boyhood home Highgate Cottage has been recreated as it was between 1864 and 1880.
