David Lloyd George

Early life

David Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents William George and Elizabeth Lloyd George. William died in June 1864 of pneumonia, aged 44. David was just over one year old. Elizabeth George moved with her children to her native Llanystumdwy in Caernarfonshire, where she lived in a cottage known as Highgate with her brother Richard, a shoemaker, lay minister and a strong Liberal. Richard Lloyd was a towering influence on his nephew. Lloyd George was educated at the local Anglican school, Llanystumdwy National School, and later under tutors.

He was raised with Welsh as his first language; Roy Jenkins, another Welsh politician, notes that, "Lloyd George was Welsh, that his whole culture, his whole outlook, his language was Welsh."

Though raised a devout evangelical Protestant, Lloyd George privately lost his religious faith as a young man. Biographer Don Cregier says he became "a Deist and perhaps an agnostic, though he remained a chapel-goer and connoisseur of good preaching all his life." He was nevertheless, according to Frank Owen, "one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh Nonconformity" for a quarter of a century.

Legal practice and early politics

Lloyd George qualified as a solicitor in 1884 after being articled to a firm in Porthmadog and taking Honours in his final law examination. He set up his own practice in the back parlour of his uncle's house in 1885. Although many prime ministers have been barristers, Lloyd George is, as of 2025, the only solicitor to have held that office.

As a solicitor, Lloyd George was politically active from the start, campaigning for his uncle's Liberal Party in the 1885 election. He was attracted by Joseph Chamberlain's "unauthorised programme" of Radical reform. After the election, Chamberlain split with William Ewart Gladstone in opposition to Irish Home Rule, and Lloyd George moved to join the Liberal Unionists. Uncertain of which wing to follow, he moved a resolution in support of Chamberlain at a local Liberal club and travelled to Birmingham to attend the first meeting of Chamberlain's new National Radical Union, but arrived a week too early. In 1907 Lloyd George would tell Herbert Lewis that he had thought Chamberlain's plan for a federal solution to the Home Rule Question correct in 1886 and still thought so, and that "If Henry Richmond, Osborne Morgan and the Welsh members had stood by Chamberlain on an agreement as regards the [Welsh] disestablishment, they would have carried Wales with them"

His legal practice quickly flourished; he established branch offices in surrounding towns and took his brother William into partnership in 1887. Lloyd George's legal and political triumph came in the Llanfrothen burial case, which established the right of Nonconformists to be buried according to denominational rites in parish burial grounds, as given by the Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880 but theretofore ignored by the Anglican clergy. On Lloyd George's advice, a Baptist burial party broke open a gate to a cemetery that had been locked against them by the vicar. The vicar sued them for trespass and although the jury returned a verdict for the party, the local judge misrecorded the jury's verdict and found in the vicar's favour. Suspecting bias, Lloyd George's clients won on appeal to the Divisional Court of Queen's Bench in London, where Lord Chief Justice Coleridge found in their favour. The case was hailed as a great victory throughout Wales and led to Lloyd George's adoption as the Liberal candidate for Carnarvon Boroughs on 27 December 1888. The same year, he and other young Welsh Liberals founded a monthly paper, Udgorn Rhyddid (Bugle of Freedom).

In 1889, Lloyd George became an alderman on Carnarvonshire County Council (a new body which had been created by the Local Government Act 1888) and would remain so for the rest of his life. Lloyd George would also serve the county as a Justice of the Peace (1910), chairman of Quarter Sessions (1929–1938), and Deputy Lieutenant in 1921.

Marriage

Lloyd George married Margaret Owen, the daughter of a well-to-do local farming family, on 24 January 1888. They had five children, see later.

Early years as a member of Parliament (1890–1905)

Lloyd George's career as a member of parliament began when he was returned as a Liberal MP for Caernarfon Boroughs (now Caernarfon), narrowly winning the by-election on 10 April 1890, following the death of the Conservative member Edmund Swetenham. He would remain an MP for the same constituency until 1945, 55 years later. Lloyd George's early beginnings in Westminster may have proven difficult for him as a radical liberal and "a great outsider". Backbench members of the House of Commons were not paid at that time, so Lloyd George supported himself and his growing family by continuing to practise as a solicitor. He opened an office in London under the name of "Lloyd George and Co." and continued in partnership with William George in Criccieth. In 1897, he merged his growing London practice with that of Arthur Rhys Roberts (who was to become Official Solicitor) under the name of "Lloyd George, Roberts and Co."

Welsh affairs

Kenneth O. Morgan describes Lloyd George as a "lifelong Welsh nationalist" and suggests that between 1880 and 1914 he was "the symbol and tribune of the national reawakening of Wales", although he is also clear that from the early 1900s his main focus gradually shifted to UK-wide issues. He also became an associate of Tom Ellis, MP for Merioneth, having previously told a Caernarfon friend in 1888 that he was a "Welsh Nationalist of the Ellis type".

One of Lloyd George's first acts as an MP was to organise an informal grouping of Welsh Liberal members with a programme that included; disestablishing and disendowing the Church of England in Wales, temperance reform, and establishing Welsh home rule. He was keen on decentralisation and thus Welsh devolution, starting with the devolution of the Church in Wales. He said in 1890: "I am deeply impressed with the fact that Wales has wants and inspirations of her own which have too long been ignored, but which must no longer be neglected. First and foremost amongst these stands the cause of Religious Liberty and Equality in Wales. If returned to Parliament by you, it shall be my earnest endeavour to labour for the triumph of this great cause. I believe in a liberal extension of the principle of Decentralization."

During the next decade, Lloyd George campaigned in Parliament largely on Welsh issues, in particular for disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England. When Gladstone retired in 1894 after the defeat of the second Home Rule Bill, the Welsh Liberal members chose him to serve on a deputation to William Harcourt to press for specific assurances on Welsh issues. When those assurances were not provided, they resolved to take independent action if the government did not bring a bill for disestablishment. When a bill was not forthcoming, he and three other Welsh Liberals (D. A. Thomas, Herbert Lewis and Frank Edwards) refused the whip on 14 April 1894, but accepted Lord Rosebery's assurance and rejoined the official Liberals on 29 May.

Historian Emyr Price referred to Lloyd George as "the first architect of Welsh devolution and its most famous advocate" as well as "the pioneering advocate of a powerful parliament for the Welsh people". Lloyd George himself stated in 1890, "the Imperial Parliament is so overweighted with the concerns of a large empire that it cannot possibly devote the time and trouble necessary to legislate for the peculiar and domestic requirements of each and every separate province". These statements would later be used to advocate for a Welsh assembly in the 1979 Welsh devolution referendum. Lloyd George felt that disestablishment, land reform and other forms of Welsh devolution could only be achieved if Wales formed its own government within a federal imperial system. In 1895, in a failed Church in Wales Bill, Lloyd George added an amendment in a discreet attempt at forming a sort of Welsh home rule, a national council for appointment of the Welsh Church commissioners. Although not condemned by Tom Ellis MP, this was to the annoyance of J. Bryn Roberts MP and the Home Secretary H. H. Asquith MP.

Opposition to the Boer War

Lloyd George had been impressed by his journey to Canada in 1899. Although sometimes wrongly supposed—both at the time and subsequently—to be a Little Englander, he was not an opponent of the British Empire per se, but in a speech at Birkenhead (21 November 1901) he stressed that it needed to be based on freedom, including for India, not "racial arrogance". Consequently, he gained national fame by displaying vehement opposition to the Second Boer War.

Following Rosebery's lead, he based his attack firstly on what were supposed to be Britain's war aims—remedying the grievances of the Uitlanders and in particular the claim that they were wrongly denied the right to vote, saying "I do not believe the war has any connection with the franchise. It is a question of 45% dividends" and that England (which did not then have universal male suffrage) was more in need of franchise reform than the Boer republics. A second attack came on the cost of the war, which, he argued, prevented overdue social reform in England, such as old-age pensions and workmen's cottages. As the fighting continued his attacks moved to its conduct by the generals, who, he said (basing his words on reports by William Burdett-Coutts in The Times), were not providing for the sick or wounded soldiers and were starving Boer women and children in concentration camps. But his major thrusts were reserved for the Chamberlains, accusing them of war profiteering through the family company Kynoch Ltd, of which Joseph Chamberlain's brother was chairman. The firm had won tenders to the War Office, though its prices were higher than some of its competitors. After speaking at a meeting in Birmingham Lloyd George had to be smuggled out disguised as a policeman, as his life was in danger from the mob. At this time the Liberal Party was badly split as H. H. Asquith, R. B. Haldane and others were supporters of the war and formed the Liberal Imperial League.

Opposition to the Education Act 1902

On 24 March Arthur Balfour, just about to take office as prime minister, introduced a bill which was to become the Education Act 1902. Lloyd George supported the bill's proposals to bring voluntary schools (i.e. religious schools—mainly Church of England, and some Roman Catholic schools in certain inner city areas) in England and Wales under the control of local school boards, who would conduct inspections and appoint two out of each school's six managers. However, other measures were more contentious: the majority-religious school managers would retain the power to employ or sack teachers on religious grounds and would receive money from the rates (local property taxes). This offended nonconformist opinion, then in a period of revival, as it seemed like a return to the hated church rates (which had been compulsory until 1868), and inspired a large grassroots campaign against the bill.

Within days of the bill's unveiling (27 March), Lloyd George denounced "priestcraft" in a speech to his constituents, and he began an active campaign of speaking against the bill, both in public in Wales (with a few speeches in England) and in the House of Commons. On 12 November, Balfour accepted an amendment (willingly, but a rare case of him doing so), ostensibly from Alfred Thomas, chairman of the Welsh Parliamentary Liberal Party, but in reality instigated by Lloyd George, transferring control of Welsh schools from appointed boards to the elected county councils. The Education Act became law on 20 December 1902.

Lloyd George now announced the real purpose of the amendment, described as a "booby trap" by his biographer John Grigg. The Welsh National Liberal Council soon adopted his proposal that county councils should refuse funding unless repairs were carried out to schools (many were in a poor state), and should also demand control of school governing bodies and a ban on religious tests for teachers; "no control, no cash" was Lloyd George's slogan. Lloyd George negotiated with A. G. Edwards, Anglican Bishop of St Asaph, and was prepared to settle on an "agreed religious syllabus" or even to allow Anglican teaching in schools, provided the county councils retained control of teacher appointments, but this compromise failed after opposition from other Anglican Welsh bishops. A well-attended meeting at Park Hall Cardiff (3 June 1903) passed a number of resolutions by acclamation: county council control of schools, withholding money from schools or even withholding rates from unsupportive county councils. The Liberals soon gained control of all thirteen Welsh County Councils. Lloyd George continued to speak in England against the bill, but the campaign there was less aggressively led, taking the form of passive resistance to rate paying.

Other stances

Lloyd George also supported the romantic nationalist idea of Pan-Celtic unity and gave a speech at the 1904 Pan-Celtic Congress in Caernarfon.

During his second-ever speech in the House of Commons, Lloyd George criticised the grandeur of the monarchy.

Lloyd George wrote extensively for Liberal-supporting papers such as the Manchester Guardian and spoke on Liberal issues (particularly temperance—the "local option"—and national as opposed to denominational education) throughout England and Wales.

He served as the legal adviser of Theodor Herzl in his negotiations with the British government regarding the Uganda Scheme, proposed as an alternative homeland for the Jews due to Turkish refusal to grant a charter for Jewish settlement in Palestine.

President of the Board of Trade (1905–1908)

In 1905, Lloyd George entered the new Liberal Cabinet of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as President of the Board of Trade.

The first priority on taking office was the repeal of the Education Act 1902. Lloyd George took the lead along with Augustine Birrell, President of the Board of Education. Lloyd George appears to have been the dominant figure on the committee drawing up the bill in its later stages and insisted that the bill create a separate education committee for Wales. Birrell complained privately that the bill, introduced in the Commons on 9 April 1906, owed more to Lloyd George and that he himself had had little say in its contents. The bill passed the House of Commons greatly amended but was completely mangled by the House of Lords. For the rest of the year Lloyd George made numerous public speeches attacking the House of Lords for mutilating the bill with wrecking amendments, in defiance of the Liberals' electoral mandate to reform the 1902 Act. Lloyd George was rebuked by King Edward VII for these speeches: the Prime Minister defended him to the King's secretary Francis Knollys, stating that his behaviour in Parliament was more constructive but that in speeches to the public "the combative spirit seems to get the better of him". No compromise was possible and the bill was abandoned, allowing the 1902 Act to continue in effect. As a result of Lloyd George's lobbying, a separate department for Wales was created within the Board of Education.

Nonconformists were bitterly upset by the failure of the Liberal Party to reform the 1902 Education Act, its most important promise to them, and over time their support for the Liberal Party slowly fell away.

At the Board of Trade Lloyd George introduced legislation on many topics, from merchant shipping and the Port of London to companies and railway regulation. His main achievement was in stopping a proposed national strike of the railway unions by brokering an agreement between the unions and the railway companies. While almost all the companies refused to recognise the unions, Lloyd George persuaded the companies to recognise elected representatives of the workers who sat with the company representatives on conciliation boards—one for each company. If those boards failed to agree then an arbitrator would be called upon.

Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–1915)

On Campbell-Bannerman's death, he succeeded Asquith, who had become prime minister, as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1915. While he continued some work from the Board of Trade—for example, legislation to establish the Port of London Authority and to pursue traditional Liberal programmes such as licensing law reforms—his first major trial in this role was over the 1909–1910 Naval Estimates. The Liberal manifesto at the 1906 general election included a commitment to reduce military expenditure. Lloyd George strongly supported this, writing to Reginald McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, of "the emphatic pledges given by all of us at the last general election to reduce the gigantic expenditure on armaments built up by the recklessness of our predecessors." He then proposed the programme be reduced from six to four dreadnoughts. This was adopted by the government, but there was a public storm when the Conservatives, with covert support from the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jackie Fisher, campaigned for more with the slogan "We want eight and we won't wait". This resulted in Lloyd George's defeat in Cabinet and the adoption of estimates including provision for eight dreadnoughts. During this period he was also a target of protest by the women's suffrage movement, for he professed personal support for extension of the suffrage but did not move for changes within the Parliament process.

People's Budget, 1909

In 1909, Lloyd George introduced his People's Budget, imposing a 20% tax on the unearned increase in the value of land, payable at the death of the owner or sale of the land, and 1⁄2 d. on undeveloped land and minerals, increased death duties, a rise in income tax, and the introduction of Supertax on income over £3,000. There were taxes also on luxuries, alcohol and tobacco, so that money could be made available for the new welfare programmes as well as new battleships. The nation's landowners (well represented in the House of Lords) were intensely angry at the new taxes, mostly at the proposed very high tax on land values, but also because the instrumental redistribution of wealth could be used to detract from an argument for protective tariffs.

The immediate consequences included the end of the Liberal League, and Rosebery breaking friendship with the Liberal Party, which in itself was for Lloyd George a triumph. He had won the case of social reform without losing the debate on Free Trade. Arthur Balfour denounced the budget as "vindictive, inequitable, based on no principles, and injurious to the productive capacity of the country." Roy Jenkins described it as the most reverberating since Gladstone's in 1860.

In the House of Commons, Lloyd George gave a brilliant account of the budget, which was attacked by the Conservatives. On the stump, notably at his Limehouse speech in 1909, he denounced the Conservatives and the wealthy classes with all his very considerable oratorical power. Excoriating the House of Lords in another speech, Lloyd George said, "should 500 men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed, override the judgement—the deliberate judgement—of millions of people who are engaged in the industry which makes the wealth of the country?". In a break with convention, the budget was defeated by the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. The January and December elections of 1910 narrowly upheld the Liberal government. The 1909 budget was passed on 28 April 1910 by the Lords and received the Royal Assent on the 29th. Subsequently, the Parliament Act 1911 removed the House of Lords' power to block money bills, and with a few exceptions replaced their veto power over most bills with a power to delay them for up to two years.

Although old-age pensions had already been introduced by Asquith as Chancellor, Lloyd George was largely responsible for the introduction of state financial support for the sick and infirm (known colloquially as "going on the Lloyd George" for decades afterwards)—legislation referred to as the Liberal Reforms. Lloyd George also succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act 1911, making provision for sickness and invalidism, and a system of unemployment insurance. He was helped in his endeavours by forty or so backbenchers who regularly pushed for new social measures, often voted with Labour MPs. These social reforms in Britain were the beginnings of a welfare state and fulfilled the aim of dampening down the demands of the growing working class for rather more radical solutions to their impoverishment.

Mansion House Speech, 1911

Lloyd George was an opponent of warfare but he paid little attention to foreign affairs until the Agadir Crisis of 1911. After consulting Edward Grey (the foreign minister) and H. H. Asquith (the prime minister) he gave a stirring and patriotic speech at Mansion House on 21 July 1911, during that year's annual white tie dinner at the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivers a speech known as the "Mansion House Speech". He stated: But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure. National honour is no party question. The security of our great international trade is no party question.

He was warning both France and Germany, but the public response cheered solidarity with France and hostility toward Germany. Berlin was outraged, blaming Lloyd George for doing "untold harm both with regard to German public opinion and the negotiations." Count Metternich, Germany's ambassador in London, said, "Mr Lloyd George's speech came upon us like a thunderbolt".

Marconi scandal 1913

In 1913, Lloyd George, along with Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General, was involved in the Marconi scandal. Accused of speculating in Marconi shares on the inside information that they were about to be awarded a key government contract (which would have caused them to increase in value), he told the House of Commons that he had not speculated in the shares of "that company". He had in fact bought shares in the American Marconi Company.

Welsh disestablishment

Lloyd George was instrumental in fulfilling a long-standing aspiration to disestablish the Anglican Church of Wales. As with Irish Home Rule, previous attempts to enact this had failed in the 1892–1895 Governments, and were now made possible by the removal of the Lords' veto in 1911, and as with Home Rule the initial bill (1912) was delayed for two years by the Lords, becoming law in 1914, only to be suspended for the duration of the war. After the Welsh Church (Temporalities) Act 1919 was passed, Welsh Disestablishment finally came into force in 1920. This Act also removed the right of the six Welsh Bishops in the new Church in Wales to sit in the House of Lords and removed (disendowed) certain pre-1662 property rights.

First World War

Lloyd George was as surprised as almost everyone else by the outbreak of the First World War. On 23 July 1914, almost a month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and on the eve of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia, he made a speech advocating "economy" in the House of Commons, saying that Britain's relations with Germany were better than for many years. On 27 July he told C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian that Britain would keep out of the impending war. With the Cabinet divided, and most ministers reluctant for Britain to get involved, he struck Asquith as "statesmanlike" at the Cabinet meeting on 1 August, favouring keeping Britain's options open. The next day he seemed likely to resign if Britain intervened, but he held back at Cabinet on Monday 3 August, moved by the news that Belgium would resist Germany's demand of passage for her army across her soil. He was seen as a key figure whose stance helped to persuade almost the entire Cabinet to support British intervention. He was able to give the more pacifist members of the cabinet and the Liberal Party a principle—the rights of small nations—which meant they could support the war and maintain united political and popular support.

Lloyd George remained in office as Chancellor of the Exchequer for the first year of the Great War. The budget of 17 November 1914 had to allow for lower taxation receipts because of the reduction in world trade. The Crimean and Boer Wars had largely been paid for out of taxation, but Lloyd George raised debt financing of £321 million. Large (but deferred) increases in Supertax and income tax rates were accompanied by increases in excise duties, and the budget produced a tax increase of £63 million in a full year. His last budget, on 4 May 1915, showed a growing concern for the effects of alcohol on the war effort, with large increases in duties, and a scheme of state control of alcohol sales in specified areas. The excise proposals were opposed by the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Conservatives, and were abandoned.

Minister of Munitions

Lloyd George gained a heroic reputation with his energetic work as Minister of Munitions in 1915 and 1916, setting the stage for his move up to the height of power. After a long struggle with the War Office, he wrested responsibility for arms production away from the generals, making it a purely industrial department, with considerable expert assistance from Walter Runciman. The two men gained the respect of Liberal cabinet colleagues for improving administrative capabilities, and increasing outputs.

When the Shell Crisis of 1915 dismayed public opinion with the news that the Army was running short of artillery shells, demands rose for a strong leader to take charge of munitions. In the first coalition ministry, formed in May 1915, Lloyd George was made Minister of Munitions, heading a new department. In this position, he won great acclaim, which formed the basis for his political ascent. All historians agree that he boosted national morale and focussed attention on the urgent need for greater output, but many also say the increase in munitions output in 1915–16 was due largely to reforms already underway, though not yet effective before he had even arrived. The Ministry broke through the cumbersome bureaucracy of the War Office, resolved labour problems, rationalised the supply system and dramatically increased production. Within a year it became the largest buyer, seller and employer in Britain.

Lloyd George was not at all satisfied with the progress of the war. He wanted to "knock away the props", by attacking Germany's allies—from early in 1915 he argued for the sending of British troops to the Balkans to assist Serbia and bring Greece and other Balkan countries onto the side of the Allies (this was eventually done—the Salonika expedition—although not on the scale that Lloyd George had wanted, and mountain ranges made his suggestions of grand Balkan offensives impractical); in 1916, he wanted to send machine guns to Romania (insufficient amounts were available for this to be feasible). These suggestions began a period of poor relations with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General William Robertson, who was "brusque to the point of rudeness" and "barely concealed his contempt for Lloyd George's military opinions", to which he was in the habit of retorting "I've 'eard different".

Lloyd George persuaded Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, to raise a Welsh Division, and, despite Kitchener's threat of resignation, to recognise nonconformist chaplains in the Army.

Secretary of State for War

In June 1916 Lloyd George succeeded Lord Kitchener (who died when the ship HMS Hampshire was sunk taking him on a mission to Russia) as Secretary of State for War, although he had little control over strategy, as General Robertson had been given direct right of access to the Cabinet so as to bypass Kitchener. He did succeed in securing the appointment of Sir Eric Geddes to take charge of military railways behind British lines in France, with the honorary rank of major-general. Lloyd George told a journalist, Roy W. Howard, in late September that "the fight must be to a finish—to a knockout", a rejection of President Woodrow Wilson's offer to mediate.

Lloyd George was increasingly frustrated at the limited gains of the Somme offensive, criticising General Douglas Haig to Ferdinand Foch on a visit to the Western Front in September (British casualty ratios were worse than those of the French, who were more experienced and had more artillery), proposing sending Robertson on a mission to Russia (he refused to go), and demanding that more troops be sent to Salonika to help Romania. Robertson eventually threatened to resign.

Much of the press still argued that the professional leadership of Haig and Robertson was preferable to civilian interference that had led to disasters like Gallipoli and Kut. Lord Northcliffe, owner of The Times, stormed into Lloyd George's office and, finding him unavailable, told his secretary "You can tell him that I hear he has been interfering with Strategy and that if he goes on I will break him", and the same day (11 October) Lloyd George also received a warning letter from H. A. Gwynne, editor of the Morning Post. He was obliged to give his "word of honour" to Asquith that he had complete confidence in Haig and Robertson and thought them irreplaceable, but he wrote to Robertson wanting to know how their differences had been leaked to the press (affecting to believe that Robertson had not personally "authorised such a breach of confidence & discipline"). He asserted his right to express his opinions about strategy in November, by which time ministers had taken to holding meetings to which Robertson was not invited.

The weakness of Asquith as a planner and organiser was increasingly apparent to senior officials. After Asquith had refused, then agreed to, and then refused again Lloyd George's demand to be allowed to chair a small committee to manage the war, he resigned in December 1916. Grey was among leading Asquithians who had identified Lloyd George's intentions the previous month. Lloyd George became prime minister, with the nation demanding he take vigorous charge of the war.

Premiership (1916–1922)

Lloyd George's tenure as wartime prime minister from 1916 to 1918, remains a subject of intense historical scrutiny, primarily due to its military success and his restructuring of the office along presidential lines. His ascent to the premiership marked a significant departure from traditional norms, as he was the first Welshman to hold the office. Once in office his leadership style diverged markedly from his predecessors, characterized by a more dynamic and interventionist approach to governance. Lloyd George relied on his political background: rooted in Liberalism, advocating for social reforms and challenging the established aristocratic order, he had made his mark through his persuasive oratory and political acumen.

War leader (1916–1918)

The fall of Asquith as prime minister split the Liberal Party into two factions: those who supported him and those who supported the coalition government. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George compared himself with Asquith:

There are certain indispensable qualities essential to the Chief Minister of the Crown in a great war. ... Such a minister must have courage, composure, and judgment. All this Mr. Asquith possessed in a superlative degree. ... But a war minister must also have vision, imagination and initiative—he must show untiring assiduity, must exercise constant oversight and supervision of every sphere of war activity, must possess driving force to energize this activity, must be in continuous consultation with experts, official and unofficial, as to the best means of using the resources of the country in conjunction with the Allies for the achievement of victory. If to this can be added a flair for conducting a great fight, then you have an ideal War Minister.

After December 1916 Lloyd George relied on the support of Conservatives and of the press baron Lord Northcliffe (who owned both The Times and the Daily Mail). Besides the Prime Minister, the five-member War Cabinet contained three Conservatives (Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons Bonar Law, and Minister without Portfolio Lord Milner) and Arthur Henderson, unofficially representing Labour. Edward Carson was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, as had been widely touted during the intrigues of the previous month, but excluded from the War Cabinet. Amongst the few Liberal frontbenchers to support Lloyd George were Christopher Addison (who had played an important role in drumming up some backbench Liberal support for Lloyd George), H. A. L. Fisher, Lord Rhondda and Sir Albert Stanley. Edwin Montagu and Churchill joined the government in the summer of 1917.

Lloyd George's Secretariat, popularly known as Downing Street's "Garden Suburb", assisted him in discharging his responsibilities within the constraints of the war cabinet system. Its function was to maintain contact with the numerous departments of government, to collect information, and to report on matters of special concern. Its leading members were George Adams and Philip Kerr, and the other secretaries included David Davies, Joseph Davies, Waldorf Astor and, later, Cecil Harmsworth.

Postwar prime minister (1918–1922)

At the end of the war Lloyd George's reputation stood at its zenith. Law, who was also from a provincial background, said "He can be Prime Minister for life if he likes." Headlines at this time declared a "huge majority win" and that "pacifists, even 'shining lights' such as Arnold Lupton, had been completely overthrown by Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden".

In the "Coupon election" of December 1918 he led a coalition of Conservatives and his own faction of Liberals to a landslide victory. Coalition candidates received a "coalition coupon" (an endorsement letter signed by Lloyd George and Law). He did not say "We shall squeeze the German lemon until the pips squeak" (that was Sir Eric Geddes), but he did express that sentiment about reparations from Germany to pay the entire cost of the war, including pensions. He said that German industrial capacity "will go a pretty long way". We must have "the uttermost farthing", and "shall search their pockets for it". As the campaign closed, he summarised his programme:

Trial of the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II;

Punishment of those guilty of atrocities;

Fullest indemnity from Germany;

Britain for the British, socially and industrially;

Rehabilitation of those broken in the war; and

A happier country for all.

The election was fought not so much on the peace issue and what to do with Germany, although those themes played a role. More important was the voters' evaluation of Lloyd George in terms of what he had accomplished so far and what he promised for the future. His supporters emphasised that he had won the Great War. Against his strong record in social legislation, he himself called for making "a country fit for heroes to live in".

The Coalition gained an overwhelming victory, winning 525 of the 707 seats contested; however, the Conservatives had more than two-thirds of the Coalition's seats.

Later political career (1922–1945)

Liberal reunion

Throughout the 1920s Lloyd George remained highly visible in politics; predictions that he would return to power were common, but it never happened. He still controlled a large fund, thought to have been between £1m and £3m (equivalent to £38,600,000-£115,900,000 in 2023), from his investments in newspaper ownership and from his sale of titles.

Before the 1923 election, he resolved his dispute with Asquith, allowing the Liberals to run a united ticket against Stanley Baldwin's policy of protective tariffs. Baldwin both feared and despised Lloyd George, and one of his aims was to keep him out of power. He later claimed that he had adopted tariffs, which cost the Conservatives their majority, out of concern that Lloyd George was about to do so on his return from a tour of North America. Although there was press speculation at the time that Lloyd George would do so (or adopt US-style Prohibition to appeal to newly enfranchised women voters), there is no evidence that this was his intent. Asquith and Lloyd George reached agreement on 13 November 1923 and issued a joint Free Trade manifesto, followed by a more general one. Lloyd George agreed to contribute £100,000 (in the event he claimed to have contributed £160,000 including help given to individual candidates; Liberal HQ put the figure at £90,000).

In 1924, Lloyd George, realising that Liberal defeat was inevitable and keen to take control of the party himself, spent only £60,000.

At the 1924 general election, Baldwin won a clear victory. Despite having a large majority, he appointed the leading coalitionists such as Austen Chamberlain and F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (and former Liberal Winston Churchill) to senior cabinet places, to discourage any restoration of the 1916–1922 coalition.

Liberal leader

The disastrous election result in 1924 left the Liberals as a weak third party in British politics behind the ascendant Labour Party, with just over 40 MPs. Although Asquith, who had again lost his seat and was created an Earl, remained Liberal leader, Lloyd George was elected chairman of the Liberal MPs by 26 votes to 7. Sir John Simon and his followers were still loyal to Asquith (after 1931 Simon would lead a breakaway National Liberal Party, which eventually merged with the Conservatives) whilst Walter Runciman led a separate radical group within the Parliamentary Party.

Lloyd George was now mainly interested in the reform of land ownership, but had only been permitted to put a brief paragraph about it in the hastily drafted 1924 Liberal manifesto. In the autumn of 1925, despite the hostility of Charles Hobhouse, Runciman and Alfred Mond, he began an independent campaign, soon to become "The Land and the Nation" (the Green Book, first of a series of policy papers produced by Lloyd George in the late 1920s). Asquith rebuked him, but was ignored; they reached an agreement in principle on 2 December, then together they presented Lloyd George's plans to the National Liberal Federation on 26 February 1926.

The Liberal Shadow Cabinet, including Lloyd George, unequivocally backed Baldwin's handling of the General Strike on 3 May 1926, but Lloyd George then wrote an article for the American press more sympathetic to the strikers, and did not attend the Shadow Cabinet on 10 May, sending his apologies on "policy grounds". Asquith sent him a public letter (20 May) rebuking him for not attending the meeting to discuss his opinions with colleagues in private. Lloyd George's letter of 10 May had not been published, making it appear that Asquith had fired the first shot, and Lloyd George sent a public reply, moderate in tone (the journalist C. P. Scott helped him draft it), on 25 May. In late May, the executive of the National Liberal Federation convened to plan the agenda for the following month's conference. 16 were pro-Asquith and 8 pro-Lloyd George; they planned a motion expressing confidence in Asquith, but another option was also proposed to seek Asquith's opinion first, and also general feeling of regret at having been forced to choose between Asquith and Lloyd George. Asquith then wrote another public letter (1 June) stating that he regarded Lloyd George's behaviour as tantamount to resignation, the same as if a Cabinet Minister had refused to abide by the principle of collective responsibility. Twelve leading Liberals wrote in Asquith's support to The Times (1 June); however, Lloyd George had more support in the wider party than among the grandees: the London Liberal Candidates' Association (3 June) defied its officers and expressed its dismay at the split, effectively supporting Lloyd George, and on 8 June the Liberal MPs voted 20:10 urging a reconciliation. Asquith had planned to launch a fightback at the National Liberal Federation in Weston-super-Mare, but on 12 June, five days before the conference was due to start, he suffered a stroke which put him out of action for three months. Lloyd George was given a rapturous welcome. Asquith resigned as party leader in October 1926, dying in 1928.

Marginalised

In 1931, an illness prevented Lloyd George's joining the National Government when it was formed. When the National Government later called a general election he tried to pull the Liberal Party out of it, but succeeded in taking only a few followers, most of whom were related to him; the main Liberal Party remained in the coalition for a year longer, under the leadership of Sir Herbert Samuel. By the 1930s Lloyd George was on the margins of British politics, although still intermittently in the public eye and publishing his War Memoirs.

Lloyd George's "New Deal"

In January 1935 Lloyd George announced a programme of economic reform, called "Lloyd George's New Deal" after the American New Deal. This Keynesian economic programme was essentially the same as that of 1929. Ramsay MacDonald requested that he put his case before the Cabinet. In March, Lloyd George submitted a 100-page memorandum (published as Organizing Prosperity: A Scheme of National Reconstruction) that was cross-examined between April and June in ten meetings of the Cabinet's sub-committee; however, the programme did not find favour; two-thirds of Conservative MPs were against Lloyd George joining the National government, and some Cabinet members would have resigned if he had joined.

Support for Nazi Germany

Lloyd George was consistently pro-German after 1923, in part due to his growing conviction that Germany had been treated unfairly at Versailles. He supported German demands for territorial concessions and recognition of its "great power" status; he paid much less attention to the security concerns of France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Belgium.

In a speech in 1933, he warned that if Adolf Hitler were overthrown, communism would replace him in Germany. In August 1934, he insisted Germany could not wage war and assured European nations that there would be no risk of war during the next ten years. In September 1936, he visited Germany to talk with Hitler. Hitler said he was pleased to have met "the man who won the war"; Lloyd George was moved, and called Hitler "the greatest living German".

Lloyd George also visited Germany's public works programmes and was impressed. On his return to Britain, he wrote an article for the Daily Express praising Hitler and stating: "The Germans have definitely made up their minds never to quarrel with us again." He believed Hitler was "the George Washington of Germany"; that he was rearming Germany for defence and not for offensive war; that a war between Germany and the Soviet Union would not happen for at least ten years; that Hitler admired the British and wanted their friendship but that there was no British leadership to exploit this. However, by 1937, Lloyd George's distaste for Neville Chamberlain led him to disavow Chamberlain's appeasement policies.

Final years

In the last important parliamentary intervention of his career, which occurred during the crucial Norway Debate of May 1940, Lloyd George made a powerful speech that helped to undermine Chamberlain as prime minister and to pave the way for the ascendancy of Churchill. Churchill offered Lloyd George the agriculture portfolio in his Cabinet, initially subject to Chamberlain's approval, but this condition and, once Chamberlain had withdrawn his opposition, Lloyd George's unwillingness to sit alongside Chamberlain, led him to refuse.

As we approached No 10 LG said 'I won't go in with Neville'

Lloyd George also thought that Britain's chances in the war were dim, and he remarked to his secretary: "I shall wait until Winston is bust."

A pessimistic speech by Lloyd George on 7 May 1941 led Churchill to compare him with Philippe Pétain who had become a Nazi puppet. He cast his last vote in the Commons on 18 February 1943 as one of the 121 MPs (97 Labour) condemning the Government for its failure to back the Beveridge Report.

He continued to attend Castle Street Baptist Chapel in London, but by 1944 he was weakening rapidly and his voice failing. He was still an MP but, concerned about his health (he felt physically unable to campaign) and the wartime social changes in the constituency, he feared Carnarvon Boroughs might go Conservative at the next election.

It was announced in the 1945 New Year Honours that Lloyd George would be made an earl, which he was as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, and Viscount Gwynedd, of Dwyfor in the County of Caernarvonshire on 12 February 1945; however, he did not live long enough to take his seat in the House of Lords.

Death

Lloyd George died of cancer at the age of 82 on 26 March 1945, with his wife Frances and his daughter Megan at his bedside. Four days later, on Good Friday, he was buried beside the river Dwyfor in Llanystumdwy. A boulder marks the grave; there is no inscription; however, a monument designed by the architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis was subsequently erected around the grave, bearing an englyn (strict-metre stanza) engraved on slate in his memory composed by his nephew W. R. P. George. Nearby stands the Lloyd George Museum, also designed by Williams-Ellis and opened in 1963.

Assessment

Lloyd George has often been ranked highly among modern British prime ministers, but his legacy remains complicated and controversial. Scholars have praised his welfare reforms and his efforts to mobilise and lead Britain to victory during the First World War, but he has also been criticised for adopting a "presidential" style of leadership, for distrusting his own commanders during the war, and for his strategic failures and involvement in various scandals. His legacies over Ireland and the Treaty of Versailles are also controversial; he was an ardent Zionist, who expressed antisemitic views. In the post-war period he arguably alienated many of the workers he had earlier championed, helping to swell Labour's popular support at the Liberals' expense (not helped by his conflicts with Asquithian Liberals after 1916).

Historian Martin Pugh in The Oxford Companion to British History argues that:[Lloyd George] made a greater impact on British public life than any other 20th-cent. statesman. He laid the foundations of what later became the welfare state, and put a progressive income tax system at the centre of government finance. He also left his mark on the system of government by enlarging the scope of the prime minister's role. He was acclaimed, not without reason, as the 'Man Who Won the War'. ... he was blamed by many Liberals for destroying their party in 1918, hated in the Labour movement for his handling of industrial issues after 1918, and disparaged by Conservatives for his radicalism.

George Riddell, 1st Baron Riddell, a wealthy newspaper publisher, was a close confidant and financial supporter of Lloyd George from 1908 to 1922. During Lloyd George's first year as prime minister, in summer 1917, Riddell assessed his personality in his diary:His energy, capacity for work, and power of recuperation are remarkable. He has an extraordinary memory, imagination, and the art of getting at the root of a matter. ... He is not afraid of responsibility, and has no respect for tradition or convention. He is always ready to examine, scrap or revise established theories and practices. These qualities give him unlimited confidence in himself. ... He is one of the craftiest of men, and his extraordinary charm of manner not only wins him friends, but does much to soften the asperities of his opponents and enemies. He is full of humour and a born actor. ... He has an instinctive power of divining the thoughts and intentions of people with whom he is conversing ... His chief defects are: (1) Lack of appreciation of existing institutions, organisations, and stolid, dull people ... their ways are not his ways and their methods are not his methods. (2) Fondness for a grandiose scheme in preference to an attempt to improve existing machinery. (3) Disregard of difficulties in carrying out big projects ... he is not a man of detail.

Family

Margaret and children

He had five children by his first wife, Dame Margaret Lloyd George:

Richard Lloyd George, 2nd Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (1889–1968), army officer

Mair Eluned Lloyd George (1890–1907, who died during an appendectomy)

Olwen Elizabeth Lloyd George (1892–1990), humanitarian and writer, later Dame Olwen Carey Evans

Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby (1894–1967), National Liberal politician

Megan Arvon Lloyd George (1902–1966), Labour politician

In 1897 a close friend of Lloyd George Dr David Edwards alleged that his wife Mrs Catherine Edwards had given birth to a child to which he was not the father. During the divorce proceedings Mrs Edwards confessed that the father of this child was Lloyd George, who communicated his innocence by letter under the alias "A.B". Whilst the court believed that "A.B" was actually a stationmaster at Cemmaes Road railway station Mrs Edwards denied this and the co-respondent in question was prepared to fight this charge. The court would rule that Mrs Edwards was an adulterer though her sexual partner was never named. Lloyd-George had stayed at Edwards' house on 4 February 1896. Edwards was called upon professionally during the night and did not return until the following morning. Lloyd George claimed to be in parliament voting; but parliament was not in sitting until 11 February 1896.

Despite his long-term affair with Frances Stevenson, he remained married to Margaret, and remained fond of her until her death on 20 January 1941; Lloyd George was deeply upset by the fact that bad weather prevented him from being with her when she died.

Gwilym and Megan both followed their father into politics and were elected Members of Parliament. They were politically faithful to their father throughout his life, but after 1945 each drifted away from the Liberal Party, Gwilym finishing his career as Home Secretary under the Conservatives in the 1950s and Megan becoming a Labour MP in 1957.

Frances

Lloyd George met Frances Stevenson in 1910; she worked for him first as a teacher for Megan in 1911; she became his secretary and, from early 1913, his long-term mistress. Lloyd George may have been the father of Stevenson's daughter Jennifer (1929–2012), born long before they wed, but it is more likely that she was the daughter of Thomas Tweed, with whom Stevenson had had an affair. To the disapproval of his children he finally married Frances in October 1943; he was aged 80 at the time.

Frances was the first Countess Lloyd-George, and is now largely remembered for her diaries, which dealt with the great issues, and statesmen, of Lloyd George's heyday. A volume of their letters, My Darling Pussy, has also been published; Lloyd George's nickname for Frances referred to her gentle personality.

Womanising

Lloyd George had a considerable reputation as a womaniser, including an alleged long affair with the wife of a Parliamentary colleague in the 1890s. In a letter to his wife, Lloyd George wrote of his philandering, "You say I have my weakness. So has anyone that ever lived & the greater the man the greater the weakness. It is only insipid, wishy washy fellows that have no weaknesses". His biographer Travis Crosbie comments that although he clearly enjoyed the company of women, much of the information is based on hearsay rather than actual evidence and that his reputation may well be considerably exaggerated.

Descendants

The present peer, David Lloyd George, 4th Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor (born 1951), is the oldest great-grandson of Lloyd George. The Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, who has written about Lloyd George's role at the 1919 Peace Conference in her book Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War, is one of his great-granddaughters. The British television historian and presenter Dan Snow is a great-great-grandson, through his mother, Canadian-born Ann MacMillan, who married Peter Snow; she was a long-time CBC reporter based in London and a sister of Margaret MacMillan.

Honours

Peerage

Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor and Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor in the county of Caernarvonshire (created 12 February 1945).

Decorations

Order of Merit (Civil) 1919

Knight of Grace, Order of Saint John; Chancellor of the Welsh Priory from 1918 and Prior of Wales from 1943.

Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honour (France) 1920

Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)

Grand Cross of the Order of St Maurice and St Lazarus (Italy)

Cross of Liberty (Estonia) (3rd class 1st rank) for civilian service, 29 April 1925

Academic

Oxford University – DCL 1908

Fellow of Jesus College 1910

University of Wales – LLD 1908

Glasgow University – LLD 1917

University of Edinburgh – LLD 1918

Rector – 1920

Durham University – DCL 1919

Sheffield University – DLitt 1919

Cambridge University – LLD 1920

Birmingham University – LLD 1921

Leeds University – LLD 1922

Freedoms

Lloyd George was made Honorary Freeman of the following cities and towns:

Cardiff – 24 June 1908

City of London – 1908

Master of the Worshipful Company of Curriers (London)

Birmingham, Manchester – 1908

Blackpool – 1918

Neath – 1920

Criccieth – July 1919.

Bristol, York, Glasgow, Barnsley – 1921

Leeds, Aberystwyth – 1922

Salford – October 1922

Montreal, Brecon, Llandovery, Carmarthen, Llanelli, Swansea – 1923

Portsmouth – 1924

Namesakes

Lloyd George Avenue is an extension of the A470 road, connecting Central Cardiff to Cardiff Bay.

Mount Lloyd George in the Northern Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada was named after Lloyd George during the First World War, and still retains the name.

Kibbutz Ramat David in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel and the adjacent Ramat David Airbase are named after him.

David Lloyd George Elementary School in Vancouver was named after Lloyd George in 1921.

David Lloyd George, a Fairlie locomotive built in 1992 on the Ffestiniog Railway, is named after him. Lloyd George was once a frequent passenger on the railway.

Selected works

The People's Budget, Hodder & Stoughton, 1909

The Lords, The Land and the People, Hodder & Stoughton, 1909

The People's Will, Hodder & Stoughton, 1910

Better Times, Hodder & Stoughton, 1910

The People's Insurance, Hodder & Stoughton, 1912

Through Terror to Triumph (edited by Frances Stevenson), Hodder and Stoughton, 1915

The Great Crusade (edited by Frances Stevenson), Hodder and Stoughton, 1918

Is It Peace?, Hodder and Stoughton, 1923

Where Are We Going?, George H. Doran Company, 1923 (American version of Is It Peace?, same contents but re-arranged)

Slings and Arrows (selected and with an introduction by Philip Guedalla), Cassell and Company, Ltd, 1929

How to Tackle Unemployment (with the Marquess of Lothian and B. Seebohm Rowntree), The Press Printers Ltd, 1930

The Truth About Reparations and War-Debts, William Heinemann Ltd, 1932

War Memoirs, 6 volumes, Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1933 – 1936: re-published in 2 volumes by Odhams Press, 1938

Organizing Prosperity, Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1935

The Truth About the Peace Treaties Volume I, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1938