David Lloyd George David Lloyd George Student Activities David Lloyd George, the son of William George and Elizabeth Lloyd, was born in Manchester on 17th January, 1863. David's father, a schoolmaster, died a year after he was born and his mother took her two children to live with her brother, Richard Lloyd, a shoemaker in Llanystumdwy , Caernarvonshire . The Lloyd family were staunch Nonconformists and worshipped at the Disciples of Christ Chapel in Criccieth . Richard Lloyd was Welsh-speaking and deeply resented English dominance over Wales. Lloyd George was an intelligent boy and did very well at his local school. It was decided that he should become a solicitor and after passing the Law Society examination was articled in January 1879, to a firm of solicitors in Portmadog . After completing his training, David Lloyd George established his own law practice in Criccieth . He soon developed a reputation as a solicitor who was willing to defend people against those in authority. In 1888 Lloyd George married Margaret Owen , the daughter of a prosperous farmer.

He remained an active member of the Disciples of Christ Chapel and it was during his church work that he gained his early training as an orator. Lloyd George developed a reputation as a fiery preacher and was often asked to speak at Temperance Society meetings in Wales . Political Influences Lloyd George joined the local Liberal Party and became an alderman on the Caernarvon County Council. He also took part in several political campaigns including one that attempted to bring an end to church tithes. Lloyd George was also a strong supporter of land reform. As a young man he had read books by Thomas Spence , John Stuart Mill and Henry George on the need to tackle this issue. He had also been impressed by pamphlets written by George Bernard Shaw and Sidney Webb of the Fabian Society on the need to tackle the issue of land ownership. In 1890 Lloyd George was selected as the Liberal candidate for the Caernarvon Borough constituency. A by-election took place later that year when the sitting Conservative MP died. Lloyd George fought the election on a programme which called for religious equality in Wales, land reform, the local veto in granting licenses for the sale of alcohol, graduated taxation and free trade.

Lloyd George won the seat by 18 votes and at twenty-seven became the youngest member of the House of Commons . Opposition to Boer War Lloyd George's dramatic oratory soon brought him to the attention of the leaders of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons . However, it was felt he was too radical and they suspected that he would lose his seat in the 1900 General Election because of his opposition to the Boer War . However, in Caernarvon he was seen as the most important figure in Parliament defending Welsh rights and was re-elected. The leadership of the Liberal Party also disapproved of Lloyd George's role in the campaign against the 1902 Education Act . In his speeches on this issue he appeared to be encouraging people to break the law by supporting John Clifford and his National Passive Resistance Committee. As a result of Clifford's campaign, over 170 Nonconformists went to prison for refusing to pay their school taxes. Chancellor of the Exchequer After the 1906 General Election , the leader of the Liberal Party , Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman , became the new Prime-Minister. Lloyd George was given the post of President of the Board of Trade .

In 1908 the new prime minister, Henry Asquith , promoted him to the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lloyd George now had the opportunity to introduce reforms that he had been campaigning for since he first arrived in the House of Commons . Lloyd George had been a long opponent of the Poor Law in Britain. He was determined to take action that in his words would "lift the shadow of the workhouse from the homes of the poor". He believed the best way of doing this was to guarantee an income to people who were to old to work. Based on the ideas of Tom Paine that first appeared in his book Rights of Man in 1791, Lloyd George's measure, the Old Age Pensions Act , provided between 1s. and 5s. a week to people over seventy. To pay for these pensions Lloyd George had to raise government revenues by an additional £16 million a year. In 1909 Lloyd George announced what became known as the People's Budget . This included increases in taxation. Whereas people on lower incomes were to pay 9d. in the pound, those on annual incomes of over £3,000 had to pay 1s.

2d. in the pound. Lloyd George also introduced a new supertax of 6d. in the pound for those earning £5000 a year. Other measures included an increase in death duties on the estates of the rich and heavy taxes on profits gained from the ownership and sale of property. Other innovations in Lloyd George's budget included labour exchanges and a children's allowance on income tax. Ramsay MacDonald argued that the Labour Party should fully support the budget. "Mr. Lloyd George's Budget, classified property into individual and social, incomes into earned and unearned, and followers more closely the theorical contentions of Socialism and sound economics than any previous Budget has done." The Conservatives , who had a large majority in the House of Lords , objected to this attempt to redistribute wealth, and made it clear that they intended to block these proposals. Lloyd George reacted by touring the country making speeches in working-class areas on behalf of the budget and portraying the nobility as men who were using their privileged position to stop the poor from receiving their old age pensions . After a long struggle with the House of Lords Lloyd George finally got his budget through parliament.

With the House of Lords extremely unpopular with the British people, the Liberal government decided to take action to reduce its powers. The 1911 Parliament Act drastically cut the powers of the Lords. They were no longer allowed to prevent the passage of 'money bills' and it also restricted their ability to delay other legislation to three sessions of parliament. When the House of Lords attempted to stop this bill's passage, the Prime Minister, Henry Asquith , appealed to George V for help. Asquith, who had just obtained a victory in the 1910 General Election , was in a strong position, and the king agreed that if necessary he would create 250 new Liberal peers to remove the Conservative majority in the Lords. Faced with the prospect of a House of Lords with a permanent Liberal majority, the Conservatives agreed to let the 1911 Parliament Act to become law. National Insurance Act Lloyd George's next reform was the 1911 National Insurance Act . This gave the British working classes the first contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment. All wage-earners between sixteen and seventy had to join the health scheme. Each worker paid 4d a week and the employer added 3d.

and the state 2d. In return for these payments, free medical attention, including medicine was given. Those workers who contributed were also guaranteed 7s. a week for fifteen weeks in any one year, when they were unemployed. Lloyd George's reforms were strongly criticised and some Conservatives accused him of being a socialist. There was no doubt that he had been heavily influenced by Fabian Society pamphlets on social reform that had been written by Beatrice Webb , Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw in the early 1900s. However, he had also been influenced by non-socialist writers such Seebohm Rowntree and Charles Booth . Although most Labour Party members of the House of Commons had welcomed Lloyd George's reforms, politicians such as James Keir Hardie , Fred Jowett and George Lansbury argued that the level of benefits were far too low. They also complained that the pensions should be universal and disliked what was later to be called the Means Test aspect of these reforms. Marconi Scandal In 1912 Hilaire Belloc and G. K. Chesterton of the political weekly, The Eye-Witness , accused Loyd George, along with Herbert Samuel and Rufus Isaacs of corruption.

It was suggested that the men had profited by buying shares based on knowledge of a government contract granted to the Marconi Company to build a chain of wireless stations. In January 1913 a parliamentary inquiry was held into the claims made by The Eye-Witness . It was discovered that Rufus Isaacs had purchased 10,000 £2 shares in Marconi and immediately resold 1,000 of these to Lloyd George. Although the parliamentary inquiry revealled that Lloyd George, Herbert Samuel and Sir Rufus Isaacs had profited directly from the policies of the government, it was decided the men had not been guilty of corruption. When in opposition, Lloyd George had always been a supporter of women's rights, however, when in power, he did little to help the cause. This upsets members of both the NUWSS and the WSPU and resulted in many activists leaving the Liberal Party . In July 1912, Christabel Pankhurst began organizing a secret arson campaign. One of their first targets was Lloyd George and they successful burnt down a house that was being built for him.

First World War At the end of July, 1914, it became clear to the British government that the country was on the verge of war with Germany. Four senior members of the government, David Lloyd George, Charles Trevelyan , John Burns , and John Morley , were opposed to the country becoming involved in a European war. They informed the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith , they intended to resign over the issue. When war was declared on 4th August, three of the men, Trevelyan, Burns and Morley, resigned, but Asquith managed to persuade Lloyd George, to change his mind. The progressive wing of the Liberal Party , was disappointed with Lloyd George's unwillingness to oppose Britain's involvement in the First World War. In fact, he soon emerged as one of the main figures in the government willing to escalate the war in an effort to bring a quick victory. When the war appeared to be going badly in 1915, Lloyd George was asked to become Minister of Munitions. The coalition government was impressed with Lloyd George's abilities as a war minister and began to question Asquith's leadership of the country during this crisis.

The consequences of the Battle of the Somme put further pressure on Asquith. Colin Matthew has commented: "The huge casualties of the Somme implied a further drain on manpower and further problems for an economy now struggling to meet the demands made of it... Shipping losses from the U-boats had begun to be significant... Early in November 1916 he called for all departments to write memoranda on how they saw the pattern of 1917, the prologue to a general reconsideration of the allies' position." It has been suggested that Herbert Asquith and the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) was never able to get total control of the war effort. It has been argued by John F.

Naylor : "Neither this flawed body - partly advisory, partly executive - nor its two successors, the Dardanelles committee (June - October 1915), and the war committee (November 1915 - November 1916) enabled the Asquith coalition to prevail over the military authorities in planning what remained an ineffective war effort." Prime Minister At a meeting in Paris on 4th November, 1916, David Lloyd George came to the conclusion that the present structure of command and direction of policy could not win the war and might well lose it. Lloyd George agreed with Maurice Hankey , secretary of the Imperial War Cabinet, that he should talk to Andrew Bonar Law , the leader of the Conservative Party , about the situation. Bonar Law remained loyal to Asquith and so Lloyd George contacted Max Aitken instead and told him about his suggested reforms. On 18th November, Aitken lunched with Bonar Law and put Lloyd George's case for reform. He also put forward the arguments for Lloyd George becoming the leader of the coalition.

Aitken later recalled in his book, Politicians and the War (1928): "Once he had taken up war as his metier he seemed to breathe its true spirit; all other thoughts and schemes were abandoned, and he lived for, thought of and talked of nothing but the war. Ruthless to inefficiency and muddle-headedness in his conduct, sometimes devious, if you like, in the means employed when indirect methods would serve him in his aim, he yet exhibited in his country's death-grapple a kind of splendid sincerity." Together, Lloyd George, Max Aitken , Andrew Bonar Law and Edward Carson , drafted a statement addressed to Asquith, proposing a war council triumvirate and the Prime Minister as overlord. On 25th November, Bonar Law took the proposal to Asquith, who agreed to think it over. The next day he rejected it. Further negotiations took place and on 2nd December Asquith agreed to the setting up of "a small War Committee to handle the day to day conduct of the war, with full powers", independent of the cabinet. This information was leaked to the press by Carson.

On 4th December The Times used these details of the War Committee to make a strong attack on Asquith. The following day he resigned from office. On 7th December George V asked Lloyd George to form a second coalition government. Max Aitken later recalled that it was the most important thing that he had done in politics: "The destruction of the Asquith Government which was brought about by an honest intrigue. If the Asquith government had gone on, the country would have gone down." Virginia Woolf dined with the Asquiths "two nights after their downfall; though Asquith himself was quite unmoved, Margot started to cry into the soup." His biographer, Colin Matthew , believes he was pleased that he was out of power: "He was not a great war leader, and he never attempted to portray himself as such. But he was not a bad one, either. Wartime to him was an aberration, not a fulfilment.

In terms of the political style of Britain's conduct of the war, that was an important virtue, but it led Asquith to underestimate the extent to which twentieth-century warfare was an all-embracing experience, and his sometimes almost perverse personal reluctance to appear constantly busy and unceasingly active told against him in the political and press world generally." Lloyd George decided to establish what he described as "virtually a new system of government in this country". John F. Naylor has explained: "Hankey headed the operation - the secretary himself drew up the procedural rules - with these responsibilities, among others: (1) to record the proceedings of the War Cabinet; (2) to transmit relevant extracts from the minutes to departments concerned with implementing them or otherwise interested; (3) to prepare the agenda paper, and to arrange the attendance of ministers not in the War Cabinet and others required to be present for discussion of particular items on the agenda; (4) to receive papers from departments and circulate them to the War Cabinet or others as necessary. Thus Hankey established the precepts for a co-ordinating and record-keeping organization which the cabinet secretariat and its seamless successor, the Cabinet Office (from 1920), subsequently followed.

The creation of the cabinet secretariat was his greatest achievement." A.J.P. Taylor has argued in English History 1914-1945 (1965): "Where the old cabinet had met once a week or so and had kept no record of its proceedings, the war cabinet met practically every day - 300 times in 1917 - and Hankey, brought over from the Committee of Imperial Defence and its successors, organized an efficient secretariat. He prepared agenda; kept minutes; and ensured afterwards that the decisions were operated by the department concerned. Hankey was also tempted to exceed his functions and to initiate proposals, particularly on strategy, instead of merely recording decisions." Lloyd George, who had upset the radicals in his party by not opposing conscription in 1916, was now in overall charge of the war effort. However, Lloyd George found it difficult to control the tactics used by his generals on the Western Front but he had more success with the navy when he persuaded them to use the convoy system to ensure adequate imports of food and military supplies. At various stages advocated a campaign on the Italian front and sought to divert military resources to the Turkish theatre.

The military situation became worse after Germany concluded a separate peace with Russia. The War Cabinet, in a panic, talked of pulling back to the Channel ports and evacuating all British troops to England. According to the historian, Michael Kettle , a group of military leaders became involved in a plot to overthrow David Lloyd George. Those involved in the conspiracy included General William Robertson , Chief of Staff and the prime ministers main political adviser, Maurice Hankey , the secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), General Frederick Maurice , director of military operations at the War Office and Colonel Charles Repington , the military correspondent of the Morning Post . Kettle argues that: "What Maurice had in mind was a small War Cabinet, dominated by Robertson, assisted by a brilliant British Ludendorff, and with a subservient Prime Minister. It is unclear who Maurice had in mind for this Ludendorff figure; but it is very clear that the intention was to get rid of Lloyd George - and quickly." On 24th January, 1918, Repington wrote an article where he described what he called "the procrastination and cowardice of the Cabinet".

Later that day Repington heard on good authority that Lloyd George had strongly urged the War Cabinet to imprison both him and his editor, Howell Arthur Gwynne . That evening Repington was invited to have dinner with Lord Chief Justice Charles Darling , where he received a polite judicial rebuke. General William Robertson disagreed with Lloyd George's proposal to create an executive war board, chaired by Ferdinand Foch , with broad powers over allied reserves. Robertson expressed his opposition to General Herbert Plumer in a letter on 4th February, 1918: "It is impossible to have Chiefs of the General Staffs dealing with operations in all respects except reserves and to have people with no other responsibilities dealing with reserves and nothing else. In fact the decision is unsound, and neither do I see how it is to be worked either legally or constitutionally." On 11th February, Repington, revealed in the Morning Post details of the coming offensive on the Western Front . Lloyd George later recorded: "The conspirators decided to publish the war plans of the Allies for the coming German offensive.

Repington's betrayal might and ought to have decided the war." Repington and his editor, Howell Arthur Gwynne , were fined £100 each, plus costs, for a breach of Defence of the Realm regulations when he disclosed secret information in the newspaper. General William Robertson wrote to Repington suggesting that he had been the one who had leaked him the information: "Like yourself, I did what I thought was best in the general interests of the country. I feel that your sacrifice has been great and that you have a difficult time in front of you. But the great thing is to keep on a straight course". General Frederick Maurice also sent a letter to Repington: "I have the greatest admiration for your courage and determination and am quite clear that you have been the victim of political persecution such as I did not think was possible in England." Robertson put up a fight in the war cabinet against the proposed executive war board, but when it was clear that Lloyd George was unwilling to back down, he resigned his post. He was now replaced with General Henry Wilson . General Douglas Haig rejected the idea that Robertson should become one of his commanders in France and he was given the eastern command instead.

On 9th April, 1918, Lloyd George, told the House of Commons that despite heavy casualties in 1917, the British Army in France was considerably stronger than it had been on January 1917. He also gave details of the number of British troops in Mesopotamia , Egypt and Palestine . Frederick Maurice , whose job it was to keep accurate statistics of British military strength, knew that Lloyd George had been guilty of misleading Parliament about the number of men in the British Army . Maurice believed that Lloyd George was deliberately holding back men from the Western Front in an attempt to undermine the position of Sir Douglas Haig . On 6th May, 1918, Frederick Maurice wrote a letter to the press stating that ministerial statements were false. The letter appeared on the following morning in the The Morning Post , The Times , The Daily Chronicle and The Daily News . The letter accused David Lloyd George of giving the House of Commons inaccurate information. The letter created a sensation. Maurice was immediately suspended from duty and supporters of Herbert Henry Asquith called for a debate on the issue.

Maurice's biographer, Trevor Wilson : "Despite containing some errors of detail, the charges contained in Maurice's letter were well founded. Haig had certainly been obliged against his wishes to take over from the French the area of front where his army suffered setback on 21 March. The numbers of infantrymen available to Haig were fewer, not greater, than a year before. And there were several more ‘white’ divisions stationed in Egypt and Palestine at the time of the German offensive than the government had claimed." The debate took place on 9th May and the motion put forward amounted to a vote of censure. If the government lost the vote, the prime minister would have been forced to resign. As A.J.P. Taylor has pointed out: "Lloyd George developed an unexpectedly good case. With miraculous sleight of hand, he showed that the figures of manpower which Maurice impuhned, had been supplied from the war office by Maurice's department." Although many MPs suspected that Lloyd George had mislead Parliament, there was no desire to lose his dynamic leadership during this crucial stage of the war. The government won the vote with a clear majority. Frederick Maurice , by writing the letter, had committed a grave breach of discipline.

He was retired from the British Army and was refused a court martial or inquiry where he would have been able to show that David Lloyd George had mislead the House of Commons on both the 9th April and 7th May, 1918. According to Trevor Wilson : "And although Lloyd George subsequently claimed that the government had been supplied with its figures concerning troop strengths on the western front by Maurice's own department (figures which happened to be inaccurate), these had only been provided after the statements by Lloyd George to which Maurice took exception, and had been corrected by the time Lloyd George made his rebuttal to Maurice in the parliamentary debate of 9 May. Whether, even so, a serving officer should have taken issue with his political masters in the public way Maurice did must remain a matter of opinion. Haig, for one, certainly thought not, as he recorded in his diary. Maurice himself took the view that, as a concerned citizen, he was obliged to rebut misleading statements by ministers which served to divert responsibility for setbacks on the battlefield from the political authorities, where it belonged, to the military.

To this end he was prepared to sacrifice his career in the army." Lloyd George endured three years of frustration before he was ousted from power by the Conservative members of his cabinet. Lloyd George's decision to join the Conservatives in removing Herbert Asquith in 1916 split the Liberal Party . In the 1918 General Election , many Liberals supported candidates who remained loyal to Asquith. Despite this, Lloyd George's Coalition group won 459 seats and had a large majority over the Labour Party and members of the Liberal Party who had supported Asquith. Herbert Asquith lost his seat in East Fife in 1918 and William Wedgwood Benn led the groups opposed to Lloyd George's government. John Benn , who was also opposed to Lloyd George, gave the group the name, Wee Frees, after a small group of Free Church of Scotland members who refused to accept the union of their church with the United Presbyterian Church . Versailles Peace Conference At the Versailles Peace Conference Lloyd George clashed with Georges Clemenceau about how the defeated powers should be treated.

Lloyd George told Clemenceau that his proposals were too harsh and would "plunge Germany and the greater part of Europe into Bolshevism." Clemenceau replied that Lloyd George's alternative proposals would lead to Bolshevism in France. At the end of the negotiations Clemenceau managed to restore Alsace-Lorraine to France but some of his other demands were resisted by the other delegates. Clemenceau, like most people in France, thought that Germany had been treated too leniently at Versailles. David Low on the David Lloyd George Coalition During the 1918 General Election campaign, Lloyd George promised comprehensive reforms to deal with education, housing, health and transport. However, he was now a prisoner of the Conservative Party who had no desire to introduce these reforms. To represent the coalition, the cartoonist, David Low invented a two-headed ass. During the 1918 General Election campaign, Lloyd George promised comprehensive reforms to deal with education, housing, health and transport. However, he was now a prisoner of the Conservatives who had no desire to introduce these reforms. David Lloyd George - History Learning Site History Learning Site historylearningsite.co.uk . The History Learning Site , 22 May 2015.

16 Aug 2016. David Lloyd George was born in 1863 and died in 1945. Lloyd George was the major British politician present at the Treaty of Versailles and while at Versailles it was Lloyd George who tried to play the middle role between the total retribution of George Clemenceau and the seemingly mild rebuke of America’s Woodrow Wilson . Lloyd George was born in Manchester but he was brought up in Criccieth in north Wales. He was articled to a solicitor at Porthmadoc. He was elected Member of Parliament for the Caernarvon boroughs in 1890 and he served this constituency as MP for 55 years. Lloyd George was a member of the Liberal Party – north Wales being one of the last strongholds of the Liberals as it declined in the first half of the Twentieth Century. His talents, especially as a speaker, soon brought him the notice of the Liberal hierarchy. Though he had been tainted as being pro-Boer during the Boer War, he was made President of the Board of Trade in 1905 and promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1908.

Lloyd George is very much associated with reforms that benefited the majority of society. Reforms such as the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 and the National Health Insurance Act of 1911 did much to aid the poorest in society and, therefore, the most vulnerable. Lloyd George also helped to set-off the clash between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. His 1908 ‘People’s Budget’ planned to introduced a super tax on the rich to help pay for more reforms that would be used to advance the lifestyles of the poor. The Lords rejected the budget and lead to the clash between both bodies that resulted in the passing of the Parliament Act of 1911 which stated that the Lords only had the power to delay any act passed by the Commons – the Lords could reject a passed act by the Commons three times, but after this it became law anyway. Lloyd George remained chancellor until 1915. After this, he was appointed Minister of Munitions to deal with the crisis that was seriously affecting the British Army fighting on the Western Front – lack of ammunition, shells etc. The leader of the Liberals at this time was Herbert Asquith.

He was deemed by both Lloyd George and the Conservatives to be a leader who lacked energy during the war. In December 1916, Asquith was replaced as Prime Minister by Lloyd George who lead a coalition government that was heavily supported by the Conservative Party. Though Lloyd George was not on good terms with the generals fighting the campaign on the Western Front, they respected the energy he brought into the political side of the campaign. Lloyd George was Britain’s senior representative at the Versailles settlement. He had put himself into a difficult political position. On the one hand, his public image was that Germany should be smashed and that those responsible for waging war should be held to account. This fitted in with the huge anger directed against the Germans that was felt in Britain at this time. However, he was also extremely concerned by the Russian Revolution of 1917 . The last thing Lloyd George wanted was for the revolution to spread west and he saw Germany as the only country that could possibly act as a barrier against the Communists. Therefore a devastated Germany was not his private option as this would play into the hands of the Communists. Therefore, he had to be at his political best at Versailles .

The final treaty had to come across as tough on the Germans but it also, from his point of view, had to leave Germany sufficiently strong to combat any Russian expansion west. Lloyd George was also Prime Minister when the Government of Ireland Act was passed in 1920. The very public humiliation of Britain at Chanak in the Chanak Crisis of 1922 lead to the Conservatives withdrawing their support of his coalition government. Lloyd George resigned as Prime Minister in October 1922 and 1922 is the year of his last major input into politics in the sense that he was in a position to do something. Lloyd George only became leader of the Liberal Party in 1926 after the retirement of Asquith. However, many in the party were highly suspicious of Lloyd George as they saw him as betraying Asquith in 1916. By 1926, the Liberals were no longer a major political force in Britain and Lloyd George became a solitary figure in politics. He was shunned by some in his own party and condemned by many when he spoke out in support of German grievances in the 1930’s.

In September 1936, he visited Hitler but by the time of the Munich Agreement, he was an opponent of appeasement. Lloyd George remained a popular figure in north Wales. He was very keen to bolster Welsh culture and preferred to speak Welsh when staying in Caernarvon. Lloyd George had his critics, but to many in Wales he remains a hero. History of David Lloyd George - GOV.UK GOV.UK David Lloyd George Liberal 1916 to 1922 Born 17 January 1863, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester Died 26 March 1945, Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire Dates in office Major acts Education Act 1918: raised the school leaving age to 14. Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act 1920: prohibited the employment of children below the limit of compulsory school age in railways and transport, building and engineering works, factories and mines. Interesting facts He is the only Prime Minister to have spoken Welsh as his first language.

On the House of Lords: “…a body of five hundred men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed.” David Lloyd George was one of the 20th century’s most famous radicals. He was the first and only Welshman to hold the office of Prime Minister. Lloyd George, although born in Manchester, grew up in Caernarvonshire under the care of his uncle, who was a cobbler. Partly self-taught, he excelled in his studies at the village school, learning Latin and French in order to qualify for legal training. He is remembered as a man of great energy and an unconventional outlook in character and politics. In 1890 he was elected Liberal MP for Caernarvon, aged 27. His scathing wit made him a dreaded - but respected - debating opponent in the House. In 1906 he was made President of the Board of Trade, and became recognised as a very able politician. Herbert Henry Asquith later promoted him to Chancellor and he became one of the great reforming chancellors of the 20th century, introducing state pensions for the first time and declaring a war on poverty.

To pay for wide-ranging social reforms, as well as naval expansion, he intended, controversially, to tax land. He responded to the resulting outcry with passionate condemnation of landowners and aristocrats. His reforming budget only passed after the 1911 Parliament Act greatly weakened the power of the House of Lords to block legislation from the Commons. During the war, he threw himself into the job of Minister for Munitions, organising and inspiring the war effort. Lloyd George accepted an invitation to form a government in December 1916. His dynamism made sure he was regarded as the right man to give Britain’s war a much needed boost, yet despite his success at centralising the government machine, the army remained beyond the reach of his reforming efforts. With the end of the war in 1918 on Armistice Day he declared: “This is no time for words. Our hearts are too full of gratitude to which no tongue can give adequate expression.” He was acclaimed as the man who had won the war, and in 1918 the coalition won a huge majority. It was the first election in which any women were allowed to vote.

In 1919 he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations and the war reparations settlement. He was troubled by domestic problems, though. His agreement to the independence of the South of Ireland was reluctant, and he presided over a period of depression, unemployment and strikes. There were also concerns that he was eager for war in Turkey, and serious allegations that he had sold honours. As a result of the many scandals he had attracted his popularity faded. When the Conservatives broke up the coalition, he handed in his resignation. Lloyd George remained a very controversial figure; his own party could not decide whether to support him or abandon him. He largely disregarded the problems facing the party, preferring to work for himself. As a result, one of the greatest Liberal leaders was also largely responsible for the party’s downfall. The Liberal party never ran the government again. Lloyd George later sped up the fall of Neville Chamberlain by attacking his wartime failure in Norway in 1940. In the meantime, he had spent the 1930s with journalism and travel, and the writing of his memoirs.

In 1944 he was created Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, and died the following year aged 82. He is buried on the banks of the River Dwyfor. More from the GOV.UK history blog Lloyd George, founder of the welfare state By Ben Johnson | Comments Some have called him ‘the most famous Welshman ever born in Manchester’, however it was David Lloyd George’s Welshness that so steered his career and established him as one of the most influential British politicians of the modern era, second only perhaps to Winston Churchill. David Lloyd George was born in Manchester on 17th January, 1863. David's father William, a schoolmaster, died a year after he was born and his mother took her two children to live with her brother in Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire. Brought up in this Welsh-speaking Nonconformist family, Lloyd George identified with the upsurge of Welsh national feeling against the English dominance over Wales. Lloyd George was an intelligent boy and did very well at his local school.

After passing the Law Society examination he became a solicitor in January 1879, eventually establishing his own law practice in Criccieth, North Wales . In 1888 Lloyd George married Margaret Owen, the daughter of a prosperous farmer. Lloyd George joined the local Liberal Party and became an active member. A keen supporter of land reform, Lloyd George was selected as the Liberal candidate for Caernarvon in 1890. Later that year after winning a local by-election by a landslide 18 votes, at the tender age of twenty-seven Lloyd George became the youngest member of the House of Commons. It was Lloyd George's fiery brand of oratory that first brought him to the attention of the leaders of the Liberal Party; in particular his speeches concerning his vehement opposition to the Boer War. Following the 1906 General Election, Lloyd George became President of the Board of Trade, and in 1908 the new Liberal Prime Minister , Henry Asquith,promoted him to the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lloyd George now had the platform from which he could launch his radical social reforms.

Determined to "lift the shadow of the workhouse from the homes of the poor", he sought to achieve this by guaranteeing an income to people who were too old to work. Lloyd George's Old Age Pension Act, provided between 1 and 5-shillings per week to people over seventy years of age. His next major reform was the 1911 National Insurance Act. This provided British workers with insurance against illness and unemployment. All wage-earners had to join his health scheme in which each worker made a weekly contribution, with both the employer and state adding an amount. In return for these payments, free medical attention and medicines were made available, as well as a guaranteed 7-shillings per week unemployment benefit. Lloyd George’s political career however, looked destined for the scrap heap when in 1912 the political weekly The Eye-Witness accused Lloyd George, along with two others, of corruption. It suggested that the men had profited by buying shares with the knowledge that a rather large government contract, to build a chain of wireless communication stations, was about to be awarded to the Marconi Company. An early example of what we now call ‘insider trading’.

Although a later parliamentary inquiry revealed that Lloyd George and his co-accused had profited directly from their dealings, it was decided that the men had not been guilty of corruption. It was also about this time that rumours surrounding his irregular private life began to surface. Lloyd George’s wife Margaret had resisted moving their family to the unhealthy environs of London and had remained in north Wales. An attractive and apparently virile man, Lloyd George had great difficulty keeping his mind and hands off the capital city’s many attractions. Thanks to his friends in the press however, his little indiscretions were in the main kept out of the papers. By the end of July 1914, it became clear that the country was on the verge of war with Germany. Despite his initial reluctance to sanction Britain’s entry into the First World War , Lloyd George a self-confessed pacifist, quickly emerged as an inspirational war time leader, first as a successful Minister of Munitions and later as Prime Minister of the Liberal-led wartime coalition. In order to achieve the status of Prime Minister, Lloyd George upset many in his own party when he agreed to collaborate with the Conservatives to depose the previous Liberal incumbent Herbert Asquith.

Now in overall charge of the war effort, Lloyd George received much of the credit for Britain's eventual victory. During the 1918 General Election campaign, Lloyd George promised comprehensive reforms to deal with poor education, housing, health and transport… ‘a land fit for heroes’. Although re-elected he remained dependent upon the coalition with the Conservatives, who had little intention of delivering such radical reforms. As head of the coalition government Lloyd George began to reap the rewards, which he perhaps felt were due to the man who had won the war for his country. Corruption rumours slowly began to circulate about his selling of peerages to top up his own political ‘fund’. There was nothing new in rewarding a party benefactor with an honour or two for his charity work. Lloyd George however, appears to have taken things to a whole new level, hawking titles from a permanent office in Parliament Square. Apparently a knighthood could be purchased for a knockdown price of £10,000, whilst a much converted hereditary peerage, such as a baronetcy, was worth a considerable amount more at £40,000 - £50,000.

Business boomed; as over the next four years 1,500 knighthoods were awarded and twice as many peerages created than had been in the previous twenty years. By 1922, it is said that Lloyd George’s till had rung up more than £2,000,000. The recipients of these awards obviously got their just rewards for their creditable services to the community, including; a CBE to a Glasgow bookmaker who also happened to have a criminal record, a baronetcy had been recommended to a gentleman who had been convicted of trading with the enemy during the war, another to a wartime tax dodger, and so the list continued. The public outcry that followed contributed to the fall of the discredited administration, and Lloyd George was ousted from power by the Conservative members of his cabinet. He resigned in October 1922. For the next twenty years Lloyd George continued to campaign for progressive causes, but without a political party to support him, he was never to hold power again. He died on 26th March 1945, ironically just a few weeks after being awarded a peerage himself. Tweet If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

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Popular This Month BBC - History - David Lloyd George z David Lloyd George © Lloyd George was one of the great reforming British chancellors of the 20th century and prime minister from 1916 to 1922. David Lloyd George was born in Manchester on 17 January 1863, son of a schoolmaster. His father died when he was young and his mother took him to Wales to be raised. He became a lifelong Welsh nationalist. He qualified as a solicitor and in 1890 was elected Liberal member of parliament for Caernarvon, a seat he held until 1945. He quickly became known for his radicalism and earned notoriety for his opposition to the Boer War. In 1905, the prime minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, appointed Lloyd George as president of the Board of Trade. In 1908, he was named chancellor of the exchequer in the government of HH Asquith. Lloyd George's 1909 budget has been called the 'people's budget' since it provided for social insurance that was to be partly financed by land and income taxes.

The budget was rejected by the House of Lords. This, in turn, led directly to the Parliament Act of 1911 by which the Lords lost their power of veto. Lloyd George remained chancellor of the exchequer through the early years of World War One. In 1915 he was appointed minister of munitions in Asquith's wartime coalition government. In July 1916 he became secretary of state for war, but was increasingly critical of Asquith. In December 1916, with the support of the Conservative and Labour leaders, he replaced Asquith as prime minister. Lloyd George's achievements in the last two years of the war included persuading the Royal Navy to introduce the convoy system and the unification of the Allied military command under the French general Ferdinand Foch. At the successful conclusion of the war, Lloyd George was Britain's chief delegate to the Paris Peace Conference that drafted the Versailles Treaty. He remained prime minister, although now dependent on Conservative support. In 1921 he secured the settlement that established the Irish Free State. In the summer of 1922, Lloyd George was involved in a scandal involving the selling of knighthoods and peerages.

In October, the Conservatives withdrew from the coalition over their opposition to Britain's foreign policy in Turkey. Lloyd George resigned as prime minister. He remained in parliament, but was marginalised politically. In 1944 he was made Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor. He died on 26 March 1945 at Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy, Wales. David Lloyd George - IMDb IMDb Writer David Lloyd George was born on January 17, 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. He was a writer, known for The Lord Mayor of London (1914), The First World War (2003) and Vår egen tid (1959). He was married to Frances Stevenson and Mrs. Lloyd George . He died on March 26, 1945 in Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd, Wales.

See full bio » Born: David Lloyd George Biography -Biography Online David Lloyd George Biography David Lloyd George (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) David Lloyd George was a towering figure in British Politics during the first three decades of the Twentieth Century. He was a key figure in the extension of the British Welfare State and was Prime Minister in the last two years of the First World War. Short Biography of David Lloyd George David Lloyd George was born in Manchester, to a modest Welsh farming family in 1863. He was ethnically Welsh and considered Welsh to be his first language. At an early age, his family returned to Wales and his father took up farming in his native Pembrokeshire. However, his father died from pneumonia when he was still young, and thereafter his uncle played a crucial role in encouraging David to take up law and Politics. Influenced by his childhood poverty and family atmosphere of Liberal politics, David Lloyd George was attracted to joining the Liberal Party, though he briefly flirted with the Welsh independence party. In 13 April 1890, he narrowly won a by-election in Caernarfon Boroughs to become the House of Commons youngest MP.

As MP, he was interested in the disestablishment of the Church of England, temperance reform and Welsh Home rule. He wrote frequently for liberal publications such as the Manchester Guardian and maintained his law practice to provide an income. Opposition to the Second Boer War Lloyd George gained a national reputation for opposing the governments intervention in the Second Boer War. He argued the government claims to be extending suffrage for the Boers was misleading (when the UK itself didn’t have universal suffrage). He claimed the motives for the war were profiteering and financial. He particularly attacked Prime Minister Chamberlain. This issue split the Liberal party between an Imperial wing (e.g. Asquith) and a non-Imperial wing. His growing reputation led to Campbell-Bannerman offering Lloyd George a Cabinet position as President of Board of Trade. He was influential in encouraging the recognition of Trades unions and helped to avert a rail strike through his meditation. David Lloyd George as Chancellor In 1908 he was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer. This gave him an opportunity to extend the welfare state – adding Unemployment benefits and sickness benefits. This was an important extension from Asquith’s old age pensions.

These benefits became colloquially known as a ‘Lloyd George’. In his budget speech of 29 April 1909, Lloyd George passionately spoke of his hope to reduce poverty. This, Mr. Emmot, is a war Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests. In 1909, he also sought to fulfill the Liberal manifesto to reduce government spending on military expenditure – However, conservative forces hotly fought against these cuts and in the end Britain continued with its arms race, which proved to be a contributory factor in the build up to the first World War. Despite Lloyd George’s opposition to the Second Boer War and military spending, he unequivocally supported Britain’s entry into war against Germany. In particular he saw the invasion of neutral Belgium as a great wrong. In 1916, Prime Minister Asquith was becoming increasingly unpopular.

Many felt he lacked the qualities of a real war leader, and so in 1916, Lloyd George was invited to be the Prime Minister of a National Coalition. Lloyd George immediately began reforming the War effort creating a daily War Cabinet meeting. He put in place many new initiatives such as rationing and national planning for munitions. He proved a very able war leader, but was critical of generals such as Douglas Haig . His later war memoirs helped to cement the popular notion of ‘lions led by donkeys’. Despite being war leader, he indicates he was moved by the plight of those having to actually fight. The correspondents don’t write and the censorship wouldn’t pass the truth. What they do send is not the war, but just a pretty picture of the war with everybody doing gallant deeds. The thing is horrible and beyond human nature to bear and I feel I can’t go on with this bloody business. (private conversation, (27 Dec. 1917 In 1919, Lloyd George was also Britain’s representative at the Treaty of Versailles. Lloyd George wanted Germany to pay substantial reparations. But, unlike the French (under Clemanceau) he didn’t want to bankrupt Germany totally.

He saw Germany as an important trading partner and felt it would be dangerous to bankrupt German industry. Nevertheless he pressed for significant amounts of reparations. We must have “the uttermost farthing,” and “shall search their pockets for it.” – Bristol 1918 For this, the economist, John Maynard Keynes criticised Lloyd George for his short sightedness in sowing the seeds of future conflict. He said of Lloyd George, in his Economic Consequences of the Peace. “…half-human visitor to our age from the hag-ridden magic and enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity..” Lloyd George defended himself by memorable saying he felt he performed: “Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ ( Woodrow Wilson ) and Napoleon (Clemanceau)”. The End of the First World War witnessed profound social and political changes. As Prime Minister, Lloyd George oversaw a significant extension of the vote to women and all men. It was also a period where Labour became more organised both economically and politically. In 1922, his national coalition broke down as the Conservatives became increasingly suspicious of Lloyd George. This was based on scandals (such as his involvement in the selling of peerages) and his liberal tendencies.

In 1922, the Conservatives fought the election on their own and won under Andrew Bonar Law. On leaving number 10, Lloyd George remained an important figurehead in British Politics; his opinion carried weight, though he never regained office. In 1936, he met Hitler and commented favourably on Hitler and some of his policies. However, he soon became worried over Hitler’s intentions and began to support Churchill’s view of the need to re-arm and face the threat of Hitler. However, in 1940, after the Battle of Britain, Lloyd George feared Britain’s ability to survive and in a letter, suggested Britain should sue for peace with Hitler. Lloyd George passed away in 1945 from cancer, aged 82. Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan .

(G+) “Biography David Lloyd George“, Oxford, 11th Feb, 2013 David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider David Lloyd George | prime minister of United Kingdom | Britannica.com prime minister of United Kingdom Written By: Alternative Titles: 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor David Lloyd George Prime minister of United Kingdom Also known as 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor John French, 1st earl of Ypres David Lloyd George, also called (1945) 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor (born Jan. 17, 1863, Manchester , Eng.—died March 26, 1945, Ty-newydd, near Llanystumdwy, Caernarvonshire , Wales ), British prime minister (1916–22) who dominated the British political scene in the latter part of World War I . He was raised to the peerage in the year of his death.

David Lloyd George Hulton Archive/Getty Images Early life Lloyd George’s father was a Welshman from Pembrokeshire and had become headmaster of an elementary school in Manchester. His mother was the daughter of David Lloyd, a Baptist minister. His father died in June 1864, leaving Mrs. George in poverty. She moved to Llanystumdwy in Caernarvonshire, where her brother Richard, a shoemaker and Baptist minister, supported her and her children; and it was from him that David Lloyd George imbibed many of his formative beliefs. His uncle enabled him to embark at the age of 14 on the career of a solicitor; he became articled (1879) to a firm at Portmadoc, passing his final examination in 1884. In Wales, as in Ireland , an anglicized and Anglican Tory “ascendancy” class of landed gentry dominated a Celtic people of different race and religion.

The causes of the Liberal Party, the Welsh nation, and Nonconformity were inseparable in the atmosphere in which Lloyd George was raised, and he first made his name by a successful battle in the courts to establish the right of Nonconformists to burial in the churchyard of their parish. Ironically, he who came to be the standard-bearer of the oppressed religious sects had lost his faith even as a boy. As a young man, Lloyd George had the romantic good looks that ensured success with women. After numerous love affairs, he was married in 1888 to Margaret Owen, who bore him two sons and three daughters. The marriage cannot be described as happy. Lloyd George was incapable of fidelity , and his affairs with other women were notorious . His wife stood by him on many occasions, but in the end his behaviour was too much for even her long-suffering tolerance. David Lloyd George and his wife, Margaret, with their daughter Megan. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Lloyd George entered Parliament in 1890, winning a by-election at Caernarvon Boroughs, the seat he retained for 55 years.

He soon made a name for himself in the House of Commons by his audacity , charm, wit, and mastery of the art of debate. During the 10 years of Liberal opposition that followed the election of 1895, he became a leading figure in the radical wing of the party. He bitterly and courageously opposed the South African War and in 1901 was nearly lynched in Birmingham , the stronghold of Joseph Chamberlain and Conservative imperialism. With the arrival of peace, Lloyd George worked up a great agitation in Wales against tax-aided grants to church schools established by Balfour’s Education Act (1902). Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales Arthur J. Balfour resigned in December 1905, and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman formed a Liberal administration, appointing Lloyd George to the Cabinet as president of the Board of Trade .

In that office, he was responsible for important legislation: the Merchant Shipping Act (1906), improving seamen’s living conditions, but also endangering their lives by raising the Plimsoll line on newly constructed ships; the Patents and Designs Act (1907), preventing foreign exploitation of British inventions; and the Port of London Act (1908), setting up the Port of London Authority. He also earned a high reputation by his patient work in settling strikes. He suffered a cruel bereavement in November 1907, when his daughter Mair died of appendicitis at the age of 17. Years afterward, the sight of her portrait could plunge him into tears. British Culture and Politics Chancellor of the Exchequer. Campbell-Bannerman’s health failed in 1908. He was succeeded as prime minister by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Herbert Henry Asquith , who appointed Lloyd George to take his own place. This was a notable promotion and made him at least a strong competitor for the premiership after Asquith. By this time, the Liberal Party’s fortunes were beginning to languish.

The House of Lords had blocked much of its social reform legislation, and the radical wing of the party was concerned that its thunder might be stolen by the nascent Labour Party unless the deadlock could be broken. At the same time, the demand for more battleships to match the German naval program threatened the finances available for social reform. It was to meet these difficulties that Lloyd George framed the famous “ People’s Budget ” of 1909, calling for taxes upon unearned increment on the sale of land and on land values, higher death duties, and a supertax on incomes above £3,000. Moreover, it seemed for a time that the House of Lords’ veto on progressive legislation would be bypassed, since the custom of the constitution forbade the upper house from interfering with the budget. In fact, however, the Conservative majority in the House of Lords, against the advice of some of its wiser members, decided to reject it. The consequences of this rejection were two general elections, a major constitutional crisis, and the ultimate passage of the Parliament Act of 1911 , which severely curtailed the powers of the upper house.

The principal burden of all this fell upon Asquith, but Lloyd George gave him vigorous support in a series of notable philippics against the aristocracy and the rich. The most famous of all was his speech at Limehouse, where he denounced the rapacity of the landlord class, especially the dukes, in unforgettable language. David Lloyd George, 1908. Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In 1913 he faced one of the gravest personal crises in his career. In April 1912, along with Rufus Isaacs , the attorney general, he had purchased shares in the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America at a rate well below that available to the general public. The American Marconi company was legally independent of the British concern, but the two companies were closely connected, and the latter’s shares had recently boomed as a result of the government’s decision to accept its proposal to construct a chain of radio stations throughout the empire. Lloyd George and Isaacs denied, in somewhat ambiguous language, any transactions in the shares of “the Marconi company,” a denial that technically referred only to the British company but was generally assumed to cover the American as well.

A select committee of the House of Commons revealed the facts and, although by a party majority it acquitted the ministers of blame, Lloyd George’s reputation was damaged. Social reform and the outbreak of war Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Lloyd George’s major achievement during the years immediately before the war was in the field of social insurance. Inspired by a visit to Germany (1908), where he studied the Bismarckian scheme of insurance benefits, Lloyd George decided to introduce health and unemployment insurance on a similar basis in Britain . This he did in the National Insurance Act of 1911. The measure inspired bitter opposition and was even unpopular with the working class, who were not convinced by Lloyd George’s slogan “ninepence for fourpence,” the difference in these two figures being the employer’s and the state’s contribution. Lloyd George, undeterred, piloted his measure through Parliament with great skill and determination. He thus laid the foundations of the modern welfare state and, if he had done nothing else, would deserve fame for that achievement.

Though much of the government’s time during these years was occupied by the Irish question, Lloyd George played little part in it and, on the whole, left foreign policy to his colleagues. It was, therefore, something of a surprise when, in July 1911, after careful consultation with Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, he issued a formidable warning to Germany over the Moroccan crisis. When the question of entry into the war convulsed the Cabinet in late July and early August 1914, he seemed at first to incline to the isolationist section. For a brief moment he contemplated retirement. But the tide of events swept him to the other side. As chancellor, he plunged into the financial problems posed by the war. Minister of munitions and secretary of state for war Throughout the remainder of 1914 and the early months of 1915, Lloyd George was a vigorous advocate of increased munitions production. Here he came into sharp conflict with Lord Kitchener in the War Office. The resignation of Admiral Fisher in 1915 forced Asquith to reconstruct the government on a coalition basis and admit the Conservatives . In the new administration, Lloyd George became minister of munitions.

In this capacity, he made one of the most notable contributions to the victory of the Allies. His methods were unorthodox and shocked the civil service, but his energy was immense. He imported able assistants from big business and used his eloquence to induce the cooperation of organized labour. When, in the summer of 1916, the great Battle of the Somme began, supplies were forthcoming. Trending Topics Opium Wars Lloyd George acquired definite views on war strategy at an early stage. He doubted the possibility of breaking through on the Western Front and advocated instead a flank attack from the Near East . He was thus at loggerheads with the view of the official military hierarchy , cogently pressed by Sir Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson , that the war could only be won in the West. On June 5, 1916, Kitchener was drowned on his way to Russia, when his ship struck a German mine. A last-minute accident—acute developments in the Irish situation—alone had prevented Lloyd George from travelling with him. After some hesitation, Asquith appointed him to the vacant position at the War Office.

Lloyd George held the post for five months, but Robertson as chief of the imperial general staff possessed nearly all the important powers of the war minister. Lloyd George chafed under these restrictions, the more so because he disagreed with Robertson on issues of strategy. Thus frustrated, he began to survey the whole direction of the war with increasing skepticism; and he did not conceal his doubts from his friends who, by the end of November, had become convinced that Asquith should delegate the day-to-day running of the war to a small committee whose chairman should be Lloyd George. There was undoubtedly widespread uneasiness at Asquith’s conduct of affairs, particularly in the Conservative Party . Asquith was manoeuvred into resigning on December 5 and was replaced two days later by Lloyd George. He was supported by the leading Conservatives, but the most prominent Liberal ministers resigned with Asquith. Prime minister Lloyd George was now 54 and at the height of his powers. His energy, eloquence, and ability had already made him the leading statesman of the day, and his accession to the premiership was highly popular in the country generally.

He immediately substituted a small War Cabinet of five, which was to be in constant session, for the body of 23 that had hitherto conducted affairs. The result was a general speeding up of decisions. David Lloyd George, caricature by Max Beerbohm, 1920. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. One of Lloyd George’s most notable efforts was in combating the submarine menace, which, in early 1917, threatened to starve Britain into submission. He achieved this by forcing the adoption of the convoy system upon a reluctant Admiralty . The food shortage resulting from the submarine war was acute . Drastic action had to be taken to step up agricultural production, and eventually a system of food rationing had to be introduced (1918). In these matters Lloyd George was at his best, contemptuous of red tape, determined to take action and to make his will prevail. It was in the field of grand strategy that he was least successful. Lloyd George remained profoundly skeptical of the ability of the British high command to conduct even a “Western” strategy successfully.

Without warning Haig or Robertson in advance, he confronted them at the Calais Conference of February 1917 with a plan to place the British army under French command for General Robert-Georges Nivelle’s forthcoming offensive. Haig and Robertson deeply distrusted Lloyd George from that moment onward. The Nivelle offensive was a total failure, and Lloyd George was, as a result, on shaky ground when he endeavoured to resist Haig’s proposals for a major British campaign in Flanders in the summer. After much hesitation, he gave way, and on July 31, 1917, the ill-fated Passchendaele offensive began. Although it may have forestalled a possible German attack on the French, Passchendaele, with enormous loss of life, achieved none of its main objectives. Lloyd George was now convinced of the incompetence of the British high command. He still dared not take action against them openly. Instead, he began what Sir Winston Churchill called “a series of extremely laborious and mystifying maneuvers,” with the object of creating a unified command under someone other than Haig.

In February 1918 Robertson offered his resignation, which Lloyd George accepted, but Haig remained as commander in chief. Such was Lloyd George’s distrust of Haig that, during the winter of 1917–18, he had deliberately kept him short of troops for fear that he might renew the attack. The result was that the German commander, General Erich Ludendorff , came near to launching a successful offensive against the British sector in March 1918. The emergency caused a unified command under Marshal Ferdinand Foch to be established (April), and by May the situation had stabilized. The tide now turned, and the Western Allies launched a series of successful attacks upon the exhausted Germans. The Armistice of November 1918 presented Lloyd George with a dilemma. Should he allow a return to peacetime party politics or continue the coalition? There was little doubt of the answer. The leader of the Conservatives, Bonar Law , was willing to cooperate. A somewhat perfunctory offer to include Asquith was declined. The ensuing election in December gave the coalitionists an overwhelming victory.

The rift between Lloyd George and Asquith’s supporters was now wider than ever, however, and Lloyd George was now largely dependent on Conservative support. As one of the three great statesmen at Versailles , Lloyd George must bear a major responsibility for the peace settlement . He pursued a middle course between Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson . But, throughout, Lloyd George was under pressure to pursue the more draconian policy of Clemenceau. It is to his credit that the final settlement was not far worse than it was. The treaty was well received in Britain, and in August 1919 the king conferred on Lloyd George the Order of Merit . (From left to right) Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, British Prime Minister David … Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. A major domestic problem was Ireland, where the Sinn Fein refused to recognize the British Parliament. From 1919 to 1921 a civil war raged. In the summer of 1921, Lloyd George, with full agreement of his Conservative colleagues, reversed the policy of repression in Ireland and began the negotiations that culminated in Irish independence in December 1921.

The more rigid Tories never forgave this “surrender,” as they deemed it. In 1922 Lloyd George ran into trouble over the so-called honours scandal, when accusations were made that peerages and other honours were being sold for large campaign contributions. Tory discontent was rife, when, from a wholly unexpected quarter, a crisis occurred that drove Lloyd George from power forever. This was the Çanak incident , in which it seemed to critics that the reckless foreign policy of the government had led Britain to the verge of an unnecessary war with Turkey. When the Conservative leaders decided to appeal to the country on a coalition basis once again, a party revolt ensued. Bonar Law, who had retired because of ill health in 1921, returned to the political scene. On Oct. 19, 1922, a two-to-one majority of Conservative members of Parliament endorsed his and Stanley Baldwin’s plea to fight as an independent party. Lloyd George at once resigned. Later years and assessment The long twilight of Lloyd George’s career was a melancholy anticlimax.

The feud with the Asquithians was never healed, and from 1926 to 1931 he headed an ailing Liberal Party . He devoted himself thereafter to writing his War Memoirs (1933–36) and The Truth About the Peace Treaties (1938). In 1940 Winston Churchill invited him to join his War Cabinet, but Lloyd George declined, ostensibly on grounds of age and health. Just two months before his death, he was elevated to the peerage as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor. David Lloyd George, 1943. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Lloyd George possessed eloquence; extraordinary charm and persuasiveness; a capacity to see the heart of problems whose complexity baffled lesser men; a profound sympathy with oppressed classes and races; and a genuine hatred of those who abused power, whether based on wealth or caste or military might. But there was an obverse side to these virtues: his love of devious methods; his carelessness over appointments and honours; and a streak of ruthlessness that left little room for the cultivation of personal friendship.

Lloyd George, for all his greatness, aroused in many persons a profound sense of mistrust, and it was in the upper-middle class, represented in politics by Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain , that he inspired the most acute misgivings. They were both determined to exclude him from office, and it would be wrong to ascribe his long years in the political wilderness solely to the declining fortunes of the Liberal Party. Lloyd George was thus never able to recover the position he had lost in 1922. It was one of the tragedies of the interwar years that, in an era not notable for political talent, the one man of genius in politics should have had to remain an impotent spectator. But his earlier achievements make his place in history secure: he laid the foundations of the welfare state and led Britain to victory in World War I.

David Lloyd George - Biography - IMDb David Lloyd George Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trivia (7) | Personal Quotes (2) Overview (4) 5' 6" (1.68 m) Mini Bio (1) David Lloyd George was born on January 17, 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England. He was a writer, known for The Lord Mayor of London (1914), The First World War (2003) and Vår egen tid (1959). He was married to Frances Stevenson and Mrs. Lloyd George . He died on March 26, 1945 in Ty Newydd, Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd, Wales. Spouse (2) ( 24 January 1888 - 20 January 1941) (her death) (5 children) Trivia (7) British prime minister (1916-1922).

In March 1917, following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II , Lloyd George offered immediate asylum in England to the Romanov family. However, he was forced to withdraw this offer following a personal intervention from King George V , who was alarmed by the unpopularity in England of the former emperor and felt the presence of the family could lead to an uprising. Albert Sylvester served as George's Principal Private Secretary from 1923 until George's death. Great-grandfather of Robert Lloyd George . Raised to Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, in the County of Caernarvonshire, on January 1, 1945. The title is now held by his great-grandson, David Richard Owen Lloyd George (b. 1951). His second wife was originally hired by Lloyd George as a governess for his youngest daughter. She became his personal secretary and mistress from 1913 on, and may have fathered her daughter, Jennifer (1929-2012). Partitioned Ireland in 1920 during the Anglo-Irish War.

Personal Quotes (2) [referring to the Versailles conference and his two Allied colleagues, Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau ] I think I did as well as might be expected, seated as I was between Jesus Christ and Napoléon Bonaparte . Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps. See also

Question: In which city was David Lloyd George born?
Answer: MANCHESTER