The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-01-17
LLOYD-GEORGE


was delivered by the stork in a hum
BILE home in the English city of Man
chester. The proud father of the
newly arrived boy was William
George, who came of sturdy Welsh
yeoman stock, but who was engaged
as a school teacher in the manufac-
turing city. The pedagogue's wife
had been prior to her marriage, Eliza
beth Lloyd, and also came of Welsh
stock; her father having been the
Rev. David Lloyd, a Baptist minister
The infant was named David, after
his grandfather. The little family
soon afterwards returned to Wales,
SON was in his third year. The widow
was left almost penniless, and David
earliest recollection
was Of the breaking up of their home
and the sale of their furniture ito sat-
isfy debts. There were several chill
dren in the family, and the widow,
despairing Of being able to care for
all, gave little David to her brother,
Richard Lloyd. who was by way Of
being cobbler in the village, of
for six days of the
week, and pastor of a congregation Of
day.
The shoemaker, although poor, was
a man Of standing in the community.
Most of the villagers spoke only
Welsh, but the cobbler, could read and
speak English, and his tiny shop was
a forum where he read and translat-
ed the news contained in the English
papers, and where the villagers dis
many of them-tales of the oppres.
sion of landlords and of the disabili-
ties inflicted on Nonconformists con-
stitution the staple Of their woes. AS
he listened to these tales the heart of
young David was fired with the ambi-
ton to become their spokesman at
the councils of the mighty, and to
win for them redress Of their griev-
ances.
To his uncle, Richard Lloyd, the
Prime Minister of Great Britain owes
much, for without his self denying
aid the boys educational advantages
would have been meagre. The saw
lngs of lifetime at the cobbler's
bench were ungrudgingly spent to fit
him for the career of a lawyer. At
20 he was a full-fedged solicitor, and
idol of British Non-Conformists. A
poor Welsh quarryman, on his death
bed, asked that he be buried beside
his daughter in the churchyard Of the
Established Church, but that his own
minister should con-
duct the funeral. Under the law this
was permissible, but the rector as
serted the right to decide the spot
where the body should be Inferred,
and chose a desolate corner set aside
for the graves of those who had died
by their own hands. Lloyd-George
was appealed to, and the boy lawyer
advised the relatives of the dead man
to defy the rector and bury the body
at the site they had chosen Then fol-
lowed memorable legal battle, in
which Lloyd George was completely
and, when the case was
appealed, his stand was upheld by the
Lord Chief Justice. \
From that time Lloyd George was
a man Of mark. At 27 he entered
Parliament, where he became the
leader Of the faction opposed to the
Boer war. AS Chancellor of the Ex-
chequor he fathered radical measures
which caused his name to be execrat-
ed by the wealthy and the titled; yet
now, in the time of England's great
est stress, 1t is Lloyd-George who has
come to the front as the man to
whom the classes as we'll as the
masses look to lead the way to vic
tory