One of Britain’s great wartime leaders, David Lloyd George appeared the most powerful of prime ministers at the end of World War I, yet he fell from office, never to return, in October 1922. He had come to the fore as a great Non-conformist and Radical leader; yet his premiership in Conservative-dominated coalition governments (1916—1922) played an important part in shattering the Liberal Party, on which he depended for power.
Background
Lloyd George was born in Chorlton-upon- Medlock, Manchester, on 17 January 1863. His parents—William George, a schoolteacher, and Elizabeth Lloyd, a domestic servant—were Welsh, and the family moved back to Wales when David was four months old. His father died young of pneumonia in June 1864, and his mother returned to her birthplace in North Wales, Llanystumdwy, where she lived with her mother and her brother Richard. Richard Lloyd, who worked as an unpaid lay pastor for the Disciples of Christ (a Baptist sect) and who had radical political leanings, was a major early influence on David.
Education
David was educated at the village elementary school by his uncle, and later successfully trained to be a solicitor. In 1885 he set up his own practice and this, through his brother Williams hard work, financed his early political career (M.P.s were unpaid before 1911). Lloyd George made a name for himself as a local solicitor, lay preacher, temperance lecturer, and activist for various radical pressure groups, and thereby secured the nomination for Caernarvon Boroughs.
Career
He became M.P. for Caernarvon Boroughs in a by-election in April 1890, winning by only 18 votes. He held the constituency in every general election until he was elevated to the House of Lords in the New Year Honours List of 1945 as Earl Lloyd George and Viscount Gwynedd.
He served as a Liberal backbencher until he entered Sir Henry Campbell-Bannermans government on 10 December 1905. In the 1890s he made his name as a Welsh radical. He came to even greater prominence due to his opposition to the Boer War (1899-1902) and to the Conservative government’s Education Bill (1902). He entered the cabinet as the most prominent Nonconformist and Radical politician. As president of the Board of Trade (1905—1908), he made a favorable impression through the business-friendly legislation he brought forward and through his skill in conciliation during industrial disputes.
When Herbert Henry Asquith became prime minister, Lloyd George succeeded him as chancellor of the exchequer (1908-1915).
Lloyd George was prime minister from 6 December 1916 until 19 October 1922, relying on a multiparty support base. During the war he was supported by most Conservative M.P.s, the Parliamentary Labour Party, and roughly half the Liberal M.P.s.
His wartime premiership depended on his ability to energize the war effort by uniting his disparate supporters. The greatest political threat to his leadership was not Asquith and his Liberal supporters but a potential loss of Conservative support. He risked precisely such a loss in attempting to replace Generals Haig and Robertson, whom he felt were too committed to cosdy, lengthy offensives on the Western front. He did replace Robertson, but backed off from removing Haig.
Lloyd George emerged from World War I as “the man who won the war” in the eyes of the popular press and probably much of the electorate. He ran in the December 1918 general election backed by coalition Liberals and coalition Conservatives, the Labour Party having withdrawn. His supporters received endorsements (“coupons”) from him and the Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar Law. The coalition victory was overwhelming, and Asquith and other leading Liberals who lacked coupons lost their seats. The bitterness that had arisen from the December 1916 split in the Liberal Party worsened; and these hard feelings later undercut Lloyd George’s leadership of the reunited party. However, the Conservatives won by a landslide in 1918, winding up with a House of Commons majority in their own right; so it is less surprising that Lloyd George was ousted from the premiership in October 1922 than that he held the coalition together so long.
Lloyd George fell from office when the Conservative Party backbenchers revolted against the coalition government. Nearly all of the Conservative coalitionists followed Lloyd George into the political wilderness, as the Peelites had after Sir Robert Peel fell in 1846. Unlike the Peelites, however, most of these coalition Conservatives made their way back to office in a purely Conservative government. In contrast, Lloyd George did not return to office, though he remained a substantial political presence until 1931.
Lloyd George rejoined Asquith and the Liberals in 1923. This Liberal reunion came about when Baldwin made tariffs the prime issue in the 1923 general election. In 1926 Asquith, who was still a Liberal Party leader, and Lloyd George, his deputy leader, fell out over the general strike. Lloyd George was highly critical of the Baldwin government’s handling of the strike, whereas Asquith was very critical of the trade unions. When it became clear that the Liberal Party’s members were predominantly on Lloyd George’s side, Asquith resigned. Lloyd George served as Liberal leader (formally in the House of Commons only) from 1926 to 1931.
During the political crisis of July 1931, Lloyd George was incapacitated by a prostate operation. In 1931-1935 he operated as an independent Liberal M.P., backed by a small family group of M.P.s that were all relatives of his. In 1933 he again tried to rally Nonconformist opinion behind his own “New Deal.” After 1935 he focused much of his attention on foreign affairs as the post—World War I peace treaties unraveled. While briefly impressed by Hitler when visiting Germany in 1936, he became increasingly alarmed by the actions of the fascist dictators. In 1940 he declined Churchill’s offer to be Food Controller or British ambassador to Washington. Terminally ill with cancer, but believing he could have an impact on the postwar peacemaking, he accepted an earldom in the New Year Honours List, 1945. So he died as Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor and Viscount Gwynedd on 26 March 1945.
Lloyd George took a major political risk in leaving the exchequer in May 1915 to set up a Ministry of Munitions. In this role he built on organizational changes begun by the War Office to ensure a massive supply of armaments. He also displayed again skills that he had used to good effect before the war, in helping resolve industrial disputes. As the war proceeded he became convinced, earlier than most Liberals, of the need for conscription. After the Easter Rising in 1916, Lloyd George nearly secured an Irish settlement. In July 1916, following the death of Kitchener, Lloyd George became secretary of state for war. That autumn his efforts to create a committee for more effective supervision of the war effort led to a political crisis and the resignation of Asquith. Although Lloyd George had aspired to the premiership and had taken pains to ensure he was widely viewed as Asquith’s crown prince, it is unlikely that he intended to oust and replace Asquith at this specific time (early December 1916).
Lloyd George’s postwar government also began better in its domestic policy than it ended. Though there was some serious unrest among troops impatient to be demobilized, on the whole his administration achieved a reasonably smooth transition from a wartime to a peace economy. In this it was assisted by a boom in the economy from 1919 until late 1920. In this period the government went some way to¬ward meeting Lloyd Georges campaign promise of building “a fit land for heroes to live in.” Substantial numbers of houses were built under the 1919 Housing and Town Planning Act, albeit at high cost; a further eight million people were covered by the 1920 Unemployment Insurance Act; and there were further extensions of old age pensions and national health insurance. Even before the war ended, Parliament had passed the important Education Act of 1918.
However, the Conservative majority of the coalition governments supporters were increasingly uneasy about the cost of welfare, especially after the postwar boom ended. They were also keen to decontrol the economy, though in the cases of the railways and coal mines they sought a reorganization of the industries and not simply a return to the prewar pattern of private ownership. Lloyd George backed away from social welfare measures as the government came under pressure from middle-class taxpayers, who voted for “antiwaste” candidates in by-elections. He also sacked the Liberal coalition ministers Christopher Addison and Edwin Montagu. The severe economic recession of 1921—1922 undercut public expenditure further, and deep cuts in public spending, which undid part of the post- 1918 reform, were made under the “Geddes axe” in 1922, when the recommendations of the Committee on National Expenditure began to be implemented.
He was at the peak of his career in 1919, alongside U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and France’s Georges Clemenceau as one of the most powerful figures in Paris, determining the peace setdement with Germany (leading to the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on 28 June 1919). Lloyd George responded to the presence of anti-German feeling in the Conservative press, the Conservative Party, and the electorate, in particular with regard to the “war guilt” clause, the scale of reparations, and boundaries. Yet, nevertheless, Lloyd George did tilt the settlement with Germany in a more liberal direction than Clemenceau and much of the Conservative Party wished.
After 1919, he appeared as a participant at various international conferences in Europe, but these appearances did not enhance his reputation. He was unsuccessful in overcoming French hostility to Germany, bringing Soviet Russia back into European trade, or securing agreements on disarmament. His confrontation with Turkey and support of Greece in Asia Minor (the Chanak Crisis of autumn 1922) damaged his standing in Parliament and contributed to his downfall.
Unlike Asquith, Lloyd George was notably receptive to new political ideas in the 1920s. He used the political funds that he had accumulated from the sale of honors (and had placed in trust) to finance a series of major policy studies, beginning with The Land and the Nation and Towns and the Land (both 1925). The Liberal Industrial Inquiry (1926-1928) involved many of the liveliest Liberal minds, with substantial contributions being made by economist John Maynard Keynes and by Lloyd George himself, and resulted in Britain’s Industrial Future (1928). A major theme was highlighted in the pamphlet We Can Conquer Unemployment and in the 1929 general election campaign. In that election the Liberal vote exceeded the 1924 level of 2.9 million, totaling 5.3 million, and the number of Liberal M.P.s rose from 40 to 59.
Politics
Lloyd George supported Ramsay MacDonald’s minority Labour government (1929— 1931). He was more critical of its cautious conservatism, especially in regard to unemployment and agriculture, than fearful that it would be unduly socialist. However, the Liberal Parliamentary Party began fragmenting during this period, with several right-wing Liberals drifting very close to the Conservative opposition. This presaged the very substantial Liberal Party divisions of the 1930s.
Lloyd George’s leadership of a Conservative-dominated coalition government in itself alienated many of his longtime supporters. In addition, that government had instituted many policies that seemed illiberal, including a wartime military conscription policy that made no allowances for conscientious objectors. Illiberal tendencies also were signaled by Lloyd George’s inclusion in his war cabinet of the Ulster Unionist Lord Carson, and of the imperial proconsuls Lord Milner and Lord Curzon. After 1918, many radicals were outraged by the British military intervention against the Bolsheviks in Russia; by the Black and Tan, and the government-sponsored atrocities committed in Ireland; by the support shown by some coalitionists for General Dyer after the April 1919 massacre at Amritsar, India; and by various coercive actions against miners and other trade unionists. Although Lloyd George did secure a settlement in Ireland in 1921 that lasted nearly fifty years, there was increasing distrust of his negotiating skills. His integrity also was damaged by the sale of honors, which his government carried out more brazenly, and with more dubious people being rewarded, than in previous ministries. In the later 1920s both Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) and Arthur Henderson (Labour) made much of being blunt and honest, unlike Lloyd George.
Lloyd George took over from Asquith the passage of the Old Age Pensions Bill through the House of Commons. Subsequently, he and Winston Churchill were the major forces behind the National Insurance Act of 1911. Lloyd George’s famous “people’s budget” of 1909 provided the financial basis for social welfare reforms and for Britain’s naval arms race with Germany. The radical nature of this budget sparked a clash with the House of Lords that did much to revive the Liberal Party’s electoral fortunes (which had been waning after its 1906 electoral triumph) in the two general elections of 1910. Lloyd George also tried to revive radical enthusiasm in 1913 with his campaign of local rural areas, which proved to have some electoral appeal to rural workers.
Views
Lloyd George’s career was transformed by World War I. He had never been a pacifist, though he had opposed the Boer War and “bloated armaments.” As chancellor of the exchequer he had resisted high levels of naval spending, clashing vigorously in December 1913 with his close associate Churchill over the Admiralty’s estimates. However, he had shown his determination to resist what he saw as German aggression over a German gunboat being sent to Agadir in Morocco in 1911. In August 1914, when Britain declared war on Germany, he justified this decision with reference to the German invasion of Belgium. By early 1913 he was very much associated with Britain’s active organization to secure victory.
Connections
Lloyd George was married twice. His first wife, whom he married in 1888, was Margaret Owen (1866-1941), who became a major figure in her North Wales community. They had four children, two of whom became prominent politicians, Gwilym and Megan (1902—1966). In October 1943, Lloyd George married his second wife, Frances Stevenson (1888-1972), with whom he had enjoyed a long and steady relationship since 1913.