(1863 - 1945)
David Lloyd George was born in Manchester. At the age of two when his father died, his family moved to Llanystumdwy near Criccieth in Wales, the home of his uncle Richard Lloyd, and it was he who, seeing great potential in the young Lloyd George, took his education in hand. It was from his uncle that he acquired his religion, industriousness, speech-making abilities, some radical views and his Welsh nationalism.
Lloyd George became a solicitor and in 1890 his career as a politician began when he was elected Liberal Party Member of Parliament for the Caernarfon Boroughs. From 1905 to 1908 he was President of the Board of Trade and was responsible for the passing of three important Acts: the Merchant Shipping Act and Census Production Act in 1906, and the Patents Act of 1907. As Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1915, Lloyd George reached the height of his achievements as a social reformer with his Old Age Pensions Act in 1908, the National Insurance Act in 1911 and the momentous budget of 1909–10, the rejection of which by the House of Lords led to a constitutional crisis and the Parliament Act of 1911, which reduced the powers of the House of Lords.
Up to the outbreak of World War One, in 1914, Lloyd George had been regarded as a pacifist. As a strong upholder of the national rights of a smaller country, he saw a parallel between the Welsh and the Boers and he had vigorously condemned the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902. However, the threat of a German invasion of Belgium dispelled his pacifist tendencies. In 1915, he was appointed Minister of Munitions and. The following year he became War Secretary and superseded Herbert Asquith (1852–1928) as Prime Minister of a Coalition Government that was heavily supported by the Conservative Party, holding office from 1916 to 1922.
His forceful policy contributed to the end of the War and he was later described by Hitler as ‘the man who won the War’. He was certainly one of the ‘big three’, involved in peace negotiations along with Woodrow Wilson of America and Georges Clemenceau of France. However, at home the Liberal Party was becoming increasingly divided.
In 1921 he made a treaty with the Sinn Féin and conceded the Irish Free State. This move was unpopular, particularly with the Conservatives, and led to the downfall of Lloyd George’s Coalition Government in the election of 1922. However, he retained his seat in parliament until 1945, the year of his death and the same year that he was made an earl. From 1933 to 1936 he wrote his War Memoirs and, in 1938, The Truth about the Peace Treaties.
