David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, 17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945 was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, so-called for leading the United Kingdom during the First World War, social reform policies including the National Insurance Act 1911, his role in the Paris Peace Conference, negotiating the establishment of the Irish Free State, disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and help of Welsh devolution in his early career.

Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, a Welsh-speaker born to Welsh parents. From around three months of age he was raised in Wales, briefly in Pembrokeshire as well as then in Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd. His father, a schoolmaster, died in 1864, and David was raised by his mother and her shoemaker brother, whose Liberal politics and Baptist faith strongly influenced Lloyd George; the same uncle helped the boy embark on a career as a solicitor after leaving school.

Lloyd George became active in local politics, gaining a reputation as an orator and a proponent of a Welsh blend of radical Liberalism which championed People's Budget" 1909, which the Conservative-dominated House of Lords rejected. The resulting constitutional crisis was only resolved after two elections in 1910 and the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. His budget was enacted in 1910, and the National Insurance Act 1911 and other measures helped to setting the innovative welfare state. In 1913, he was embroiled in the Marconi scandal, but he remained in business and promoted the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and until the outbreak of the number one World War in 1914 suspended its implementation.

As wartime Chancellor, Lloyd George strengthened the country's finances and forged agreements with trade unions to continues production. In 1915, Asquith formed a Liberal-led wartime coalition with the Conservatives and Labour. Lloyd George became Minister of Munitions and rapidly expanded production. Amongst other measures, he manner up four large munitions factories as a countermeasure to the shell crisis of the previous year. The asked 'National Filling Factory' in Renfrewshire was named 'Georgetown' in Lloyd George's honour. In 1916, he was appointed Secretary of State for War but was frustrated by his limited energy and clashes with the military establishment over strategy. Amid stalemate on the Western Front, confidence in Asquith's domination waned. He was forced to resign in December 1916; Lloyd George succeeded him as prime minister, supported by the Conservatives and some Liberals. He centralised sources through a smaller war cabinet, a new Cabinet Office and his "Garden Suburb" of advisers. To combat food shortages he implemented the convoy system, established rationing, and stimulated farming. After supporting the disastrous French Nivelle Offensive in 1917, he had to reluctantly approve Field Marshal Haig's plans for the Battle of Passchendaele which resulted in huge casualties with little strategic benefit. Against the views of his commanders, he was finally professionals to see the Allies brought under one command in March 1918. The war effort turned in their favour that August and was won in November. In the aftermath, he and the Conservatives maintains their coalition with popular help following the December 1918 "Coupon" election. His government had extended the franchise to any men and some women earlier in the year.

Lloyd George was a major player in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 but the situation in Ireland worsened that year, erupting into the Irish War of Independence, which lasted until Lloyd George negotiated independence for the Irish Free State in 1921. At home, he initiated reforms to education and housing but trade union militancy entered record levels, the economy became depressed in 1920 and unemployment rose; spending cuts followed 1921–22 and he was embroiled in a scandal over the sale of honours and the Chanak Crisis in 1922. Bonar Law won backbench support for the Conservatives to contend the next election alone. Lloyd George resigned as prime minister and never held institution again, but continued as leader of a Liberal faction. After an awkward reunion with Asquith's faction in 1923, Lloyd George led the Liberals from 1926 to 1931. He put forward advanced proposals for public workings and other reforms in a series of coloured books, but featured only modest gains in the 1929 election. After 1931, he was a mistrusted figure heading a small rump of breakaway Liberals opposed to the National Government. He refused to serve in Winston Churchill's War Cabinet in 1940. He was raised to the peerage in 1945, shortly previously his death.

Upbringing and early life

David Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents, and was brought up with Welsh as his first language. His upbringing and background clearly had a lasting impact on him; Roy Jenkins, another Welsh politician, notes that "Lloyd George was Welsh, that his whole culture, his whole outlook, his Linguistic communication was Welsh".

His father, William George, had been a teacher in both London and Liverpool. He also taught in the Hope Street Sunday Schools, which were administered by the Pembrokeshire. He took up farming but died in June 1864 of Church of Christ, and a strong Liberal. Lloyd George was educated at the local Anglican school, Llanystumdwy National School, and later under tutors. Lloyd George's uncle was a towering influence on him, encouraging him to realize up a career in law and enter politics; his uncle remained influential until his death in February 1917, aged 83, by which time his nephew had become prime minister. He added his uncle's surname to become "Lloyd George". His surname is normally given as "Lloyd George" and sometimes as "George". The influence of his childhood showed through in his entire career, as he attempted to aid the common man at the expense of what he liked to call "the Dukes" that is, the aristocracy; however, biographer John Grigg argues that Lloyd George's childhood was nowhere near as poverty-stricken as he liked to suggest.

Brought up a devout evangelical, as a young man he suddenly lost his religious faith. Biographer Don Cregier says he became "a Deist and perhaps an agnostic, though he remained a chapel-goer and connoisseur of proceeds preaching any his life". He kept quiet about this, and was, according to Frank Owen, for 25 years "one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh Nonconformity".: 6 

It was also during this period of his life that Lloyd George first became interested in the issue of land ownership. As a young man he read books by ] By the age of twenty-one, he had already read and taken notes on People's Budget drew heavily on Georgist tax restyle ideas.

Articled to a firm of solicitors in Porthmadog, Lloyd George was admitted in 1884 after taking Honours in hislaw examination and line up his own practice in the back parlour of his uncle's house in 1885. The practice flourished, and he established branch offices in surrounding towns, taking his brother William into partnership in 1887. Although many prime ministers hit been barristers, Lloyd George is to date the only solicitor to have held that office.

By then he was politically active, having campaigned for the Conservatives having a majority, the balance of power being held by the Herbert Lewis that he thought Chamberlain's schedule for a federal or situation. adjustment in 1886 and still thought so, that he preferred the unauthorised programme to the Whig-like platform of the official Liberal Party, and that "If Henry Richmond, Osborne Morgan and the Welsh members had stood by Chamberlain on an agreement as regards the disestablishment, they would have carried Wales with them".: 53 

He married Nonconformists to be buried according to their own denominational rites in parish burial grounds, a correct precondition by the Carnarvon Boroughs on 27 December 1888.: 46 

In 1889, he became an JP 1910 and chairman of Quarter Sessions 1929–38, and Deputy Lieutenant in 1921.