Background
Gwilym Lloyd-George was born in Criccieth, North Wales, on 4 December 1894, the younger son and the fourth of the five children of David and Margaret Lloyd George.
Gwilym Lloyd-George was born in Criccieth, North Wales, on 4 December 1894, the younger son and the fourth of the five children of David and Margaret Lloyd George.
He was educated at Eastbourne College and at Jesus College, Cambridge, and during World War I served in the 38th (Welsh) division on the western front in France. He fought on the Somme and at Passchendaele and rose to the rank of major.
After the war, his life became closely linked with the political fortunes of his father. He attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, became involved in Liberal politics, and became National Liberal M.P. for Pembrokeshire in the 1922 general election. He retained this seat in 1923 but lost it to the Conservative candidate in 1924. His father made him managing director of United Newspapers in 1925, but he resigned this position in 1926 and became a junior trustee of the National Liberal Political Fund, the “Lloyd George Fund,” from which David Lloyd Georges political campaigns were financed. (In 1945, Gwilym received the remains of this fund for his own personal use.) He was elected to the House of Commons as M.P. once again in 1929, and he served briefly in Ramsay MacDonalds National government (from September to October 1931), as parliamentary secretary to the Board of Trade.
In February 1941 he became parliamentary secretary to the Ministry of Food, in June 1942, minister of fuel and power.
In 1945 he was returned again as M.P. for Pembrokeshire, but now as a “National Liberal and Conservative.” He felt that socialism was a major political menace and that Liberalism was a spent force, and he therefore declined the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Liberal Party following the electoral defeat of Sir Archibald Sinclair. In 1950 he was defeated at Pembrokeshire, but in October 1951 he was returned for the seat of Newcastle upon Tyne (North). His move toward the Conservative Party was confirmed when Winston Churchill, in recognition of his administrative skills, made him minister of food in the new Conservative government. He held this post for three years, from October 1951 to October 1954, during which he presided over the end of food rationing. As a result of his successes, he became home secretary in October 1954, combining the role with that of minister of Welsh affairs. He retained both posts when Sir Anthony Eden became prime minister in 1955.
Gwilym Lloyd-George lost his government post when Harold Macmillan became prime minister in 1957. He subsequently was elevated to the House of Lords as Viscount Tenby (1957), and became more broadly involved in public life. He died on 14 February 1967.
Throughout the 1930s he was a loyal supporter of his fathers policies, and he went with him to visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden in the summer of 1936. However, he was veering toward the Conservative Party, and when war broke out he once again became parliamentary secretary to the Board of Trade, serving under both Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill.
He is remembered as a politician of solid political and administrative abilities who managed to escape some of the political shadow cast by his father.