This small sculpture is a study for William Goscombe John's eight-foot bronze statue of David Lloyd George, commissioned in 1921 for Castle Square in Caernarvon by the town's mayor. Other versions of this bust are at Llanystumdwy in Wales and at the Imperial War Museum in London. Lloyd George entered Parliament in 1890 as Liberal MP for Caernarvon. He was President of the Board of Trade and Chancellor of the Exchequer before becoming Prime Minister in 1916. He led a coalition government during the final years of the First World War and was instrumental in the peace negotiations at Versailles in 1919. His later years in office were marked by economic slumps and the question of Irish independence. This bronze portrait was made in 1921, not long before his resignation as Prime Minister a year later.
