The Pain And The Privilege

The Women who Loved Lloyd George

Ffion Hague

To four remarkable families: Lloyd George, George, Longford—and my own

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1: Hewn from the Rock

Chapter 2: The Cottage-Bred Man

Chapter 3: Love’s Infatuated Devotee

Chapter 4: Maggie Owen

Chapter 5: Mrs Lloyd George

Chapter 6: From Wales to Westminster

Chapter 7: Kitty Edwards

Chapter 8: Mrs Tim

Chapter 9: Mair

Chapter 10: Frances

Chapter 11: Overloaded with Flattery

Chapter 12: Love and Libel

Chapter 13: A Family in Downing Street

Chapter 14: Secrets and Smokescreens

Chapter 15: Two Wives at No. 10

Chapter 16: The Family at War

Chapter 17: Diverging Paths

Chapter 18: Disillusionment

Chapter 19: ‘Dame Margaret is the Star’

Chapter 20: Alone into the Wilderness

Chapter 21: Megan

Chapter 22: New Loves

Chapter 23: Crises Public and Private

Chapter 24: Private Sorrows

Chapter 25: Till Death us do Part

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

No one who grows up in Wales can escape the long shadow cast by David Lloyd George. In a country that loves heroes, the ‘Welsh Wizard’ and his mythology are still a potent force. ‘Lloyd George knew my father,’ runs the old song, ‘…and my mother,’ goes the unspoken second line, with a wink. To Conservative politician Lord Boothby, Lloyd George was ‘an artist expressing himself through the medium of politics…the greatest creative force I have ever come across’.¹ Women found him compelling in a different way: ‘He could make anyone a friend of his. He had all the gifts and he could get his charm over to anybody and they would, as you know, worship him,’ according to his mistress.²

Intrigued though I am by Lloyd George, I have always found his first wife, Margaret, equally compelling. Maggie Owen was raised a God-fearing, Calvinistic Methodist, a Welsh-speaker and patriot. My original intention was to write a biography of this Welshwoman, to explore and understand how she made the journey from rural North Wales to Downing Street. I wanted to know if she felt overawed by her aristocratic and royal acquaintances, if she enjoyed her role in public life, if she regretted leaving Wales, and, above all, what price she paid for spending her life with an extraordinary man.

I was prepared to admire Margaret: it is difficult not to. She was a woman who took every opportunity to serve her beloved Criccieth and the wider community she came to represent during the country’s darkest hour. She was in some ways a conservative woman. Raised during the reign of Queen Victoria, she claimed home and hearth as her natural territory. In the early years of marriage she considered raising her children to be her career, and she was a late convert to the cause of female suffrage. Yet because of the man she married Margaret was presented with opportunities that took her far beyond the life she had anticipated for herself. She became immersed in her husband’s political career, and proved herself to be a formidable campaigner and speech-maker. When she found herself propelled into 10 Downing Street, this daughter of a North Wales farm had the wisdom and confidence to interpret her role anew, making it her own and, in the words of her brother-in-law, ‘showing the world what a home-loving wife of a Prime Minister could do’.

In undertaking the initial research for the book, I discovered that Margaret’s story would be incomplete without considering the other major player in her marriage: her husband’s mistress, Frances. Frances was as English (or, at least, non-Welsh) as Margaret was Welsh. She was a young Edwardian girl with nothing, it seemed, in common with Lloyd George. How could he share his life with two such fundamentally different women? As I learned more about Frances, I realised that she too had lived an extraordinary life. I began to appreciate that it had taken considerable courage for her to put her love of Lloyd George above conventional respectability, and to live her life according to her own interpretation of freedom and emancipation. Frances was a groundbreaking woman too. She gained a degree in Classics, became the first female Private Secretary to a British Prime Minister, was an eyewitness to some of the most momentous events of the twentieth century and the confidante of a great statesman.

To my initial surprise, I found that I had empathy with Frances too. When I joined the Civil Service in 1991 as a fast-stream graduate entrant I took it entirely for granted that I could, potentially, rise to the top of my profession. I wondered what it had been like for Frances when she started working at the Treasury. She became the most senior woman in Downing Street—not entirely through her professional efforts, it must be said—but she proved to be more than capable, and was offered a permanent position as a civil servant when her ‘Chief’ left office. Frances was absolutely right when she wrote of her role as Private Secretary, ‘There is perhaps no other profession in which there are so many occasions when a woman might let her employer down…If she makes a mistake, it is probably her employer who will suffer.’³ Her job involved keeping a lot of secrets, which Frances was supremely well-equipped to do. She was a brave woman too. It took courage for her not to opt for the safe option of marriage and children in her twenties, and yet more courage for her to have a child at the age of forty, when she was still unmarried. I wanted to know how she had coped with her earlier abortions—what medical help was available to a woman in her situation—and whether late motherhood had fulfilled her expectations.

Frances paid a heavy price for her place in Lloyd George’s life. She endured loneliness, bitterness and trauma before becoming the second Mrs Lloyd George for the last seventeen months of his life, and like Margaret she never looked back. But their love of the same man meant that they could never be friends. Their rivalry injected poison into the lives of many others, and inspired a feud that outlived them both.

Lloyd George’s two wives were opposites in almost every sense, and he was faithful to neither; but as I discovered more about them, it became easier to understand why he needed them both. He loved Margaret, and she, to him, embodied Wales. She kept him in check, outwardly at least conforming to the principles of nonconformism and temperance. Margaret was intelligent in an instinctive way, but her mind was untrained and undisciplined. Her letters and articles betray her incomplete education: they are written in English but often adopt complex Welsh syntax which, when transposed directly from her first language make her style seem wordy. She moves seamlessly from English to Welsh and back again, on paper as in life, and refreshingly brings all political issues back to the same homespun common sense. Frances, by contrast, was both clever and trained—Lloyd George described her as having a ‘woman’s susceptibility with a man’s brain’,⁴ which he intended as a compliment, and in his work he could rely on her educated and discreet mind. Her instincts were not as in tune with his as Margaret’s. She was of a different generation, and did not share his empathy with small nations and international underdogs. But Frances was able to share his work in a way that Margaret could not. She was utterly loyal where her ‘Chief’ was concerned, and had a sixth sense about the people around him—Lloyd George once told Lord Riddell that Frances would be in his ideal Cabinet to ‘suss out the rogues’. He relied on Frances’ judgement when it came to politicians and statesmen, but if he wanted to speak to the general public, to convince them he had not lost touch, it was to Margaret that he turned.

This story could not have been written if the women in Lloyd George’s life had not preserved and bequeathed or sold their letters, diaries and memoirs to public libraries. I make no apology for shining a spotlight on some private matters, for it was their intention that the story should be told. Nowhere does Lloyd George’s masterly understanding of the women in his life show better than in these papers. His letters to Margaret are different in tone and language to his letters to Frances. He speaks plainly to Margaret, combining Welsh and English as freely as she does, and his expressions of affection are natural without seeming sentimental: it is the language of a long-married couple who have found a way of accepting and accommodating each other’s weaknesses. Lloyd George and Frances, on the other hand, write to each other using extreme romantic language, even after more than twenty years as lovers. Frances’ daughter, Jennifer, who was privy to many of their daily conversations, finds their letters cloying and sentimental: it is not the language of everyday life, and Frances adopts a much more realistic tone in her diary.

Was the tone of these letters genuine? Commentators have taken them as proof that the passion that inspired Lloyd George to take a permanent mistress lasted for the rest of his life. It is true that the connection between him and Frances was strong and durable to the end, but it is equally possible that Lloyd George was playing the romantic hero in his letters, in full knowledge that Frances needed to feel that she was necessary to him if she was to endure her precarious and unequal position. Frances sought romance, passion and a cause to believe in, which is precisely what Lloyd George gave her in his letters. They may not have been written in the language of their day-to-day relationship—which may be why they sound false to Jennifer—but that was necessary if he was to keep Frances at his side. With an eye to posterity, Lloyd George may also have intended the letters to excuse and justify his adultery. Let the reader be the judge.

From being intrigued by Margaret and Frances it was a short step to extending my research to the other women in Lloyd George’s life. Mair, Olwen and Megan, his daughters, were important players in the life of their brilliant father, from whose spell they never fully broke free. Megan is the subject of an excellent biography by Mervyn Jones, and her groundbreaking career as female MP and political broadcaster deserves greater attention than it has been possible to give in this book. Other women, of whom there were many in Lloyd George’s life, make their appearance in the narrative but exert less influence on the man and are not permanent features in his life. Rebecca Llwyd, Betsy George and Polly—his grandmother, mother and sister—are the exceptions: profound in their influence even though they fade out of the story at an early stage.

I have become convinced that Margaret was one of the most successful Prime Minister’s wives of all time. She became famous for her dignity and her dedication. She achieved an immense amount for charity, and took to public life with ease. It was fascinating to me to reflect, not for the first time, on the ambiguous position of women married to men in public life. Margaret Lloyd George never put a foot wrong. During wartime she worked harder than anyone around her, eschewing social glitter for austerity and public service. She played a supporting role to Lloyd George in public, but never lost her own sense of identity. She was politically active, yet she never embarrassed or publicly contradicted her husband. She was a steadfast friend and a formidable foe. By the time she died she was famous throughout the world, but she remained a Criccieth girl at heart. I cannot think of a better role model for those who find themselves in this most difficult of situations. Yet she has been overlooked for reasons that are unfathomable to me, unless it is because of the fact that her voice was not preserved in a memoir or diary.

Our story begins in rural North Wales, among working men and women who suffered hardship, persecution and injustice. From this voiceless class and this unforgiving environment, one man had the talent and the opportunity to find his voice and to help shape the course of the twentieth century. His community and his family devoted their scarce resources to nurturing his talent. They were the first people to experience the pain and the privilege of smoothing the path of David Lloyd George. While his life provides the structure of this book, it is not primarily about him or about the politics he lived and breathed: I would encourage readers who wish to know more about both to read the work of John Grigg and Kenneth Morgan, whose expertise in political history far exceeds mine.

The writing of this book has been a pain and a privilege in itself. I have learned a vast amount about my country and my heritage. The nineteenth-century Wales I describe in the early chapters shaped the late-twentieth-century Wales in which I grew up. I have always been conscious that there is a different social structure in Wales to that in England: a meritocracy based on education and culture which can be baffling to those who are used to social structures largely determined by wealth and birth. Calvinistic Methodism, nationalism, education and poetry are all vitally important factors in my Wales. Margaret, I am sure, would have shared my outrage at the nineteenth-century Encyclopaedia Britannica which baldly states, ‘For Wales—see England.’

Finally, it has been my privilege to get to know members of three families: the Lloyd George, George and Longford families. I could not have undertaken this book without their help, and their friendship is the principal reward of writing it.

Ffion Hague

April 2008

1 Hewn from the Rock

THE SMALL VILLAGE OF Llanystumdwy lies on the south side of the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales. From the hills behind, the bay of Criccieth comes into view, with a far-distant prospect of the hills of Eifionydd. On a clear day, the outline of Harlech Castle can be seen in the distance guarding the coastline. The village is a mile and a half inland and about the same distance to the west of the coastal town of Criccieth. The fast-moving river Dwyfor emerges from the woods to meander between its houses and lanes, and is crossed by an arched stone bridge that provides the village with its focal point to the present day. On those arches, nearly 150 years ago, a schoolboy carved his rough initials: D LL. They are there still, a reminder that the village gave Wales her most famous and successful statesman.

The main village street runs parallel to the coast. Opening directly onto its narrow pavement, stands a stone cottage half-covered in ivy. It is a simple two-up, two-down structure with a scullery at the back and a single-storey extension on the left-hand side to accommodate a small, two-roomed workshop. The cottage is called Highgate, and it now bears a plaque that marks it as the boyhood home of David Lloyd George.

The cottage is entered from the road through a small, narrow passageway. To the right is the parlour, a formal room furnished with care and kept for serious activity: study and Sunday best. To the left lies the largest room, running from the front of the house to the back and containing a large hearth with table and chairs for family meals and for making the most of the dying embers on winter evenings. Behind the living room, a small scullery houses the pots and pans and leads to the back door and the garden beyond, where the earth closet sits at the furthest possible point from the house.

A wooden staircase rises from the front hall to the upper level, where the space is similarly divided into two rooms. The stairs spill out directly into the largest of the two, to the left and directly above the living room below, while the smaller bedroom, reserved for the head of the household, is enclosed and to the right above the parlour. Space is cramped, the ceilings and doorways are low and the solid stone walls form an impenetrable barrier to both wind and sun. It is a long road from Highgate to No. 10 Downing Street, yet the journey was staged in only two generations.

Llanystumdwy lies between the sea and the slate-grey rocks of Snowdonia. In the early nineteenth century its inhabitants bore a strong resemblance to the surrounding landscape: hard, weathered and stoic. The villagers belonged to the lowest of the social classes of rural Wales. They were the unlanded working class, as distinct from the landed gentry and the professional classes, entry to which could be achieved only through wealth or education; and opportunities for either were hard to come by in North Wales. The few born into wealth left, bound for expensive schools and colleges. They returned as landlords on the large estates or, in the case of younger sons, as Anglican clergy. These men formed the judiciary, owned the slate quarries and shipping companies, and elected members of their own class to Parliament. They were seen by the villagers as oppressors, people from a different ethnicity and culture.

Those who could not pay for education and who did not have any land to inherit worked on the land, dug slate or coal out of the ground, became domestic servants, or worked as fishermen, tradesmen, craftsmen and labourers in the docks of Porthmadoc and Caernarvon. The adventurous sailed away on the majestic ships that appeared from over the horizon to empty their holds and restock. There was nothing much to tempt those who remained to travel overland, since the roads were no more than rough turnpike tracks, and the railways that would bring industry and tourism to the area did not reach the north-west coast of Wales until 1867. The lucky few with aptitude and access to education rose to the top of the unlanded society, escaping manual work by becoming lawyers, doctors and teachers. Still, the social divide between them and the gentry was unbridgeable, underlined by the fact that the latter did not commonly speak the Welsh of the people, preferring English. Within the same square mile they spoke different languages and lived in different worlds.

Elizabeth Llwyd, known as Betsy, was born in Highgate in 1828. Her parents, Dafydd Llwyd and his wife Rebecca, were pillars of village society. Dafydd Llwyd, the highly skilled village shoemaker, was a tall, fair-haired man, profoundly religious and with an air of natural nobility. He had broad shoulders and a straight back, and spoke in a quiet but dignified manner.¹ Dafydd was born in the parish of Llanystumdwy, and belonged to a generation of craftsmen who served a seven-year indentured apprenticeship with an established cobbler, made their own tools, and perfected their craft with years of patient toil. His son Richard was to carry on the trade, but he would be the last shoemaker in the family as the use of machine tools replaced their handiwork and produced cheaper products for a mass market.

Dafydd earned his living from making shoes, but regarded himself primarily as a man of religion. Religion was of paramount importance in Wales during the nineteenth century, with tensions between the established Anglican Church and the dissenting followers of Calvin, Wesley and the Baptists reaching a climax in 1811. In that year, Thomas Charles and his followers parted company with the Church of England to establish the nonconformist Church of the Methodistiaid Calfinaidd (Calvinistic Methodists), the only new Church ever to be established in Wales. A frenzy of chapel-building followed: between 1801 and 1851 it is thought that on average a chapel was completed in Wales every eight days. By the middle of the century there were over 2,800 nonconformist chapels in Wales, serving a total population of only 1,163,139, giving rise to a multitude of itinerant preachers. Men like John Elias, Christmas Evans and William Williams conducted preaching tours within Wales, speaking to mass congregations of hundreds if not thousands of the faithful.

Dafydd and Rebecca Llwyd were unusual in their community in being Baptists. More unusually still, they were Scotch Baptists. Baptists were most commonly found in South Wales, but even there were outnumbered by the Calvinistic Methodists and the Congregationalists, or Independents (Annibynwyr), who were numerous throughout Wales, particularly in the north and the west. The Established (Anglican) Church formed part of the archdiocese of Canterbury, and was to be the only official form of worship in Wales until the Disestablishment Act was finally implemented in 1920. This caused great tension in communities where devout nonconformists could not legally be married and buried in their own places of worship according to their own rites.

Naturally enough, since freedom of conscience was one of the reasons why the nonconformists broke away from the Church, Baptists placed a considerable emphasis on individual interpretation of gospels. This led to the breaking away of smaller groups. One of these was the Scotch Baptists, followers of the Scottish theologian Archibald McLean. Scotch Baptist chapels, scattered across a broad area, had tiny congregations: Rhuthun had only six members, Llanufydd twenty-five, Llanfairalthaiarn thirty-six and Llaneilian twelve. Members believed in living life as simply as possible according to the teachings of the primitive Church, and like the Quakers they did not have full-time ministers or priests. They differed from mainstream Baptists in two respects: they met to break bread in Holy Communion every Sunday rather than every month, and they placed a greater emphasis on baptism by total immersion, which generally happened at fourteen or fifteen years of age. The faithful were expected to attend services at least twice on a Sunday, sometimes three times. Dafydd Llwyd led the small Scotch Baptist community who worshipped in the simple stone chapel called Capel Ucha (High Chapel) in Pen-y-Maes, Criccieth. He was ordained in 1830, and for the rest of his life he served the small congregation there while working daily in his shoemaking workshop.

Dafydd married Rebecca Samuel in 1824, when he was twenty-four and she was twenty-one. Rebecca was a practical, hard-working and capable woman, the perfect foil to her husband, who was an intellectual and a bit of a dreamer. They shared the same religious outlook; indeed, it is highly likely that their religion brought them together since it was uncommon to marry interdenominationally, the consequences of which could be as harsh as total exclusion from chapel and community life. Their daughter Elin was born in 1826, Betsy two years later. Each birth was proudly inscribed in the family Bible, as was that of Rebecca and Dafydd’s only son, Richard, in 1834.

Rebecca Llwyd had exceptional strength of character and was known for her independence of mind, her fierce protection of her family and her strict, almost puritanical views on religion. She was the matriarch, and took care of the practical, day-to-day care of the family. She believed in hard work, discipline and self-improvement, as did her husband. Dafydd set his family a stern example, putting in long hours at his shoemaking by day and sitting up until the early hours working on his sermons by candlelight. In 1820, Dafydd and his fellow local intellectuals set up a debating society in Criccieth. The ‘Cymreigyddion’ (the Welsh Scholars) gathered regularly to discuss religious and political issues.

Dafydd and Rebecca were devout, patriotic Welsh citizens, part of the largely self-educated, chapel-going, economically depressed but intellectually ambitious elite of mid-nineteenth-century Wales. Dafydd Llwyd may have been a working-class man who made shoes for a living, but at the same time he was a leader within his community by virtue of the fact that he was a minister and a man of learning.

Rebecca and Dafydd could not afford to indulge their children. They lived their lives in hope of reward in the next world. Rebecca’s faith was put to the test when in 1839, with Betsy only eleven years old, Dafydd fell seriously ill. He had been suffering from a stomach complaint periodically, but this time it was to prove fatal. With no money to pay for medical help, Dafydd tried to treat himself with ‘Morrison’s Universal Medicine’ pills, as advertised in one of his periodicals, but to no avail. He died on 25 October at the age of thirty-nine, and was buried in the tiny cemetery bordering Capel Ucha.

Dafydd’s death was both an emotional and a practical tragedy for Rebecca. Left alone with three small children, she could not afford to grieve for long. This determined and resourceful woman refused to accept the fate of many widows, who sold their possessions to settle mounting bills before going into service or accepting charity. She chose instead to take on her husband’s shoemaking business herself. Richard was only five years old, and Rebecca knew that she would have to carry the burden alone for many years, but she had courage and stamina. Until her son was old enough to take over she employed two cobblers, Robert and Richard Morris, who lived with the family in Highgate. The overcrowding was slightly eased by the fact that Elin had left home to work as a maid at a nearby farm, but life was still hard. Rebecca rose early to set the journeymen to work and supervised their labour during the day, walking a twelve-mile round trip to the neighbouring coastal town of Pwllheli if necessary to buy materials. Late at night when the family were asleep, she would work by candlelight preparing accounts which she would deliver on foot to neighbouring houses and farms the following day, walking for miles over open countryside. Her efforts alone could not sustain the whole family, so Betsy had to leave school. After a period at home helping her mother, she followed her sister into service.

As a young woman, Betsy was a mild character, a devout Baptist like her parents, bright like her father, and attractive. She was described by her youngest son William as ‘a good looking woman of medium height, fair complexion, very dark hair and bright brown eyes giving a most winning expression to her thoughtful face’.² She had a kind and gentle nature, in contrast with Rebecca’s rather stern manner. Betsy suffered from episodes of asthma throughout her life, and she was never physically strong. Hard work from an early age, coupled with poor sanitation and rudimentary medical care, frequently led to some kind of chronic complaint, and her condition was not unusual.

At around sixteen Betsy found a place as a maid and lady’s companion in Pwllheli. The ports of North Wales were becoming significant centres of commerce as large sailing ships carried passengers and goods between Britain and the rest of the world. Pwllheli was a bustling, lively town. Betsy became a regular attender at the Pwllheli Baptist Chapel, and there, when she was approaching thirty years of age, she met a teacher who led an adult class in Sunday School. He was an eloquent, welleducated widower by the name of William George.

Eight years Betsy’s senior, William was handsome, with dark hair and striking blue eyes. He was a sensitive, driven man who was a good teacher and a would-be intellectual. Of average height and broadshouldered, he was described by his youngest son as ‘well knit together with a somewhat thin pale face surmounted by a thick crop of dark hair, a high broad forehead, large lively eyes indicating a quick perceptive mind, a heart full of sympathy and tenderness, and all his movements quick but firm and determined’.³ His pupils would remember him as a passionate Baptist who was never beaten in debate.

William George was born in North Pembrokeshire in 1820, the son of staunch Baptists David and Mary George, who had a large farm called Trecoed. David died when William was very young, and the children were raised by Mary and her second husband, Benjamin Williams. From an early age William showed more interest in books than in animals. Life in an urban environment appealed to his hunger for experience and advancement, so he left home at seventeen to seek his fortune in the town of Haverfordwest.

William may have been intelligent and ambitious, but he lacked firm purpose and direction in life. First apprenticed to a pharmacist and then to a draper, he drifted from position to position, recording in his diary his dreams of becoming a great intellectual. He could not settle in any trade because he was determined to continue his studies, often reading late into the night, which made him tired and inefficient by day. His determination to study stemmed from the fact that any opportunity to improve his lot could be obtained only through education. Indeed, he had been lucky to attend school to the age of sixteen, since education would not be provided by the state until 1833.

The level of education in Wales was poor even by the standards of the nineteenth century. Children who spoke nothing but Welsh were taught in English, often by teachers who barely spoke the language themselves, and in appalling conditions. The overwhelming majority of the general population were nonconformists, but only members of the Anglican Church could become pupil-teachers. The Baptist William George nevertheless decided that teaching would be his profession, which meant that he would have to study full-time to gain a qualification.

At around the age of twenty-one William plucked up the courage to move to London and enrol in the Battersea Teachers’ Training Institute. For the first time he experienced intellectual fulfilment as he finally found the guidance he had been searching for. He described the experience as the most useful year of his life, ‘the means by which he was brought from a miserable, useless life to…a happy one and not altogether destitute of usefulness to others’.⁴ After qualifying as a teacher he went on to hold several short-term teaching positions in London, recording in his diary his agonising internal debate over what he would do with his life: ‘I am still very unsettled in my mind as to my future plans and prospects. I cannot somehow make up my mind to be a schoolmaster for life…I want to occupy higher ground sometime or other. I want to increase the stock of my attainments but hardly know how to set about it.’⁵

This ‘higher ground’ was William’s secret desire to try his hand at writing. Spurred on by his ambition, he arrived in Liverpool around 1846. By then he had spent so much time away from his native land that he had all but forgotten its language. ‘I wished to say a few words to you in Welsh,’ he wrote to his mother, ‘—but I am sorry that I cannot do so, although Welsh is my mother tongue—and I knew very little English until I was nine years of age—but I have used English ever since. The English language has done with me what the English people have done with our country—taken possession of the richest and largest part of it.’⁶

The latter half of the nineteenth century was an age of emigration from rural North Wales, with the decline in agriculture driving young men and families away from their homes to seek employment in the coalfields of South Wales, the metropolis of London and, increasingly, the cities and towns of North-West England, which came to form the largest concentration of Welsh people outside Wales. Those who left often found better educational prospects and more lucrative employment. With prosperity came a new breed of Welshman—middle-class, confident and socially ambitious. In Liverpool, Welsh industrialists and philanthropists like David Hughes and Owen Elias were responsible for building large parts of the city, and the entrepreneurial industrialist Sir Alfred Lewis Jones also made his fortune there. When William George arrived, around 20,000 of Liverpool’s citizens were Welsh-born, and he found a welcoming home among the Welsh diaspora. He felt at home among his professional compatriots and made the acquaintance of fellow intellectuals, some of whom, like the lawyer Thomas Goffey, were to remain his friends for life. He also met the famous Unitarian preacher James Martineau, one of the governors of the school in which he taught, who encouraged him to further extend his intellectual horizons.

But a nineteenth-century city was no utopia, and there were outbreaks of contagious diseases in the new suburbs that threatened all but the most robust. Eventually, fears for his health forced William to move back to Haverfordwest, where he opened his own school in Upper Market Street in April 1854. On 11 April 1855 he married the thirty-five-year-old Selina Huntley, whose family owned a Bond Street engraving and printing business. It is not known how they met, but she was suffering from tuberculosis, and it is likely that she, like William, was in Pembrokeshire for her health. The marriage took place in Hanover Square, London, and on the marriage certificate the bride and groom’s residence is, puzzlingly, given as Bond Street. They must have returned to Pembrokeshire after the wedding, for on 4 December Selina died there of consumption.

At the same time, William had to accept that his school had failed. Prompted by his lack of professional success, by his bereavement, or both, he decided to leave Pembrokeshire. In 1857 he responded to an advertisement for a schoolmaster to teach at the British School at Troed-yr-Allt in Pwllheli. He took up his position in 1858, and joined the Baptist chapel, where he met the attractive, dark-haired Betsy Llwyd. They were married in St Peter’s, the parish church in Pwllheli, on 16 November 1859, Betsy’s brother Richard acting as a witness.

After the wedding, Betsy left her domestic position to keep house for her husband. William was badly paid even by the standards of the day, and it is likely that they could not afford to run their own household. They moved back to Highgate, from where William walked or rode on horseback daily to school. William and Richard shared the same intellectual disposition, and quickly became firm friends; the fact that William was a Baptist no doubt pleased the fervently religious Rebecca.

Highgate was also home to the son of Betsy’s elder sister Elin, who had married William Jones, a Criccieth farmer. Finally free of the upkeep of her two daughters, Rebecca had decided to ease her elder daughter’s burden by taking in one of her children. This was a fairly commonplace arrangement at a time when resources were strained and large families were the norm. The boy was named David Lloyd Jones, his Christian names the anglicised version of Dafydd Llwyd in memory of his grandfather. For Rebecca, the young David was more than another mouth to feed. He was an intelligent, bookish child who from an early age was marked out as the gifted member of the family. Rebecca devoted all her spare time to his development, much as she would to Betsy’s talented son in future years. In both name and upbringing, David Lloyd Jones was to be the precursor of his later, famous cousin. The young David was undoubtedly bright, but he was a sickly, delicate child, and William George doubted whether he had enough drive to find his way in the world. Nevertheless, he took him under his wing and acted as his mentor and teacher, encouraging him to read and take notes from his own small library of precious books. Space in the confined household was found for him to study, and candles allocated to his late-night study. As he read, others did his share of the household chores, and pennies were found to pay for paper, ink and other essentials.

When Betsy returned to Highgate after an absence of fifteen years, she took some of the burden of caring for the household from her mother’s shoulders. It was hard work: water needed to be carried daily from the village pump for cooking and washing, and the earth closet had to be tended with noisome regularity. Life did not progress smoothly for Betsy and William. William was experiencing difficulty in relearning the Welsh language, which disadvantaged him in a wholly Welsh-speaking area. Language issues apart, Llanystumdwy did not provide him with enough intellectual stimulation, and it seems that he was not entirely happy in his school in Pwllheli either. Betsy quickly fell pregnant, but the daughter born to them did not live long enough to be named. It was a crushing disappointment, and when Betsy discovered that she was pregnant again, fears of another tragedy in the cramped accommodation of Highgate were enough to drive the couple to seek better fortune elsewhere. William secured a teaching position in Newchurch, a small town near Blackburn in Lancashire, twenty miles or so from Manchester, and in 1861, only two years into their marriage, they took the stage-coach from Pwllheli to Caernarvon, from where they could travel by steamer to Liverpool. The fourteen-year-old David went with them, in the hope and expectation that he would qualify as a teacher under William’s watchful eye.

As soon as they reached their destination, Betsy and William summoned a doctor to examine David. He warned them that the boy was in danger of becoming consumptive, confirming their worst fears and reminding them of the threats to their own health. As the months passed, the restless William became increasingly disenchanted with life in Newchurch. The one piece of good news was the birth of a daughter, Mary Ellen (called Mary or Polly), in November 1861. By the following year, William had managed to get himself a temporary position in a mill-school in Manchester. The move would mean a return to unhealthy urban life, but William was desperate to leave Newchurch. He wrote to Richard Lloyd:

The place itself we could do with very well—though cold and rather damp, it is healthy—the air is much purer there than at Manchester, and neither of us could hold out long without pure air. It was the Newchurch school and the people connected with it that did not suit me; and I need not say that I did not suit them. Nearly all the ‘Directors’ are rough working men who had not the means to act liberally even if disposed to do so,—and besides my temper is such that I would rather be the master of work people than their servant.⁷

The little family moved to take up lodgings at 5 New York Place, Chorlton-upon-Medlock, but this time David did not go with them. Aged fifteen, he was on the brink of independence, and William remembered the wrench of leaving home himself at a similar age. He sympathised, but he knew that David would have to make his own way. William hardened his heart and left the boy behind.

The Manchester school better suited William’s temperament, but his health deteriorated and he reluctantly concluded that he would have to give up his position and go back to the country. He could not act on this decision immediately, because Betsy was in the late stages of pregnancy, which meant that on 17 January 1863, Wales’ most famous politician was born in England. The new baby was named David Lloyd after his grandfather and his cousin.

Betsy was not strong, and her recovery from her third labour was slow, not helped by the difficulty of getting clean water to drink. William had decided to give up teaching altogether in favour of farming. He consoled himself with the thought that at last he might have time to fulfil his ambition of writing a book that would make his name. He still dreamed of becoming one of the foremost scholars of his generation. Sadly, like all his other dreams, it was not to be.

The family settled in South Pembrokeshire, a more naturally English-speaking area of the county, and from Bullford, a smallholding near Haverfordwest, William continued to watch over the career of the elder David. He involved his Liverpool friend Thomas Goffey in his attempts to get the boy a place as a schoolmaster, but by then David’s threatened consumption had taken hold, and his family’s hopes of a glittering career were dashed only a few years later, when he died at the age of twenty.

In the meantime, a different tragedy had engulfed the family. The move had failed to strengthen William George’s health. At the end of May 1864 he spent a day out in the fields attending to the hay harvest, and caught a chill. His condition quickly deteriorated, and Betsy took the unusual and expensive step of calling the doctor. There was nothing to be done. Pneumonia had set in, and on 7 June William died, at the age of forty-four.

Betsy was heartbroken. She was left alone with the financial burden of a smallholding as well as two small children to support. She might also have suspected, even at that early stage, that she had another baby on the way. The family’s small capital, amounting to only £640 (about £56,000 at today’s values), was invested in a Liverpool building society, but the interest was not enough to provide for their day-to-day needs. Betsy was effectively destitute. She gathered enough strength to send a telegram to her brother: ‘Tyrd Richard’ (Richard, come!). The two-word message summed up her helplessness and despair.

Richard set off at once. A journey that would take a few hours today took two and a half days, and when he reached Pembrokeshire he found his sister in a state of shock. Numbed by grief, Betsy had been unable to demonstrate any emotion since her husband had succumbed to his illness. When she saw the familiar face of her brother again, though, she dissolved into tears and threw herself into his arms. Richard immediately took the little family under his wing: he was to be their protector and guardian for the rest of his life.

Betsy was not altogether friendless in Pembrokeshire, and between them, Richard and Benjamin Williams of Trecoed made the funeral arrangements and disposed of the smallholding’s lease. The natural, and possibly only, option for Betsy was to take her children back to Llanystumdwy, and she wrote a pitiful letter to her husband’s Liverpool friend Thomas Goffey, mingling expressions of grief with requests for advice on winding up William’s affairs.

Dear Mr Goffey,

I am greatly obliged by your kind letter received the 18th inst. Indeed I cannot tell you what a source of consolation it has been to me in my deep affliction—Well I may believe that my dear husband was your ‘dearest friend’ and that he was highly esteemed by all his friends there, for such he always considered you and his respect for all his friends in Liverpool was very much. It is a comfort to me to think how much he was beloved by all his numerous friends. Oh! What a dear husband I have lost…

I cannot tell you now when I leave the South—We are trying to find a person to take the place that will pay me something for the lease—and to take the crop under valuation…Some months ago my dear husband thought he was going to lose me—When I recovered he said—I was walking about without knowing what to do. If that would be the case I was determined to leave the place at once—I couldn’t stop on a day here but it was me that was to stay and how hard it is upon me to be here after him.⁸

William George was laid to rest in Trewrdan Cemetery. A few days later Betsy packed up the family’s home, and a sale of surplus furniture was held to raise funds for the journey north. Betsy’s feelings on seeing her belongings dispersed and her home broken up ran so deep that she would never be able to discuss that period in her life. As they grew up, her children learned not to ask about Pembrokeshire or their father, in order to spare their mother’s feelings. One thing she did reveal was that the two toddlers, Polly and David, aged only three years and eighteen months respectively, were nevertheless old enough to share her grief. As neighbours and friends carried pieces of furniture out of the front door and down the path to the gate, the two children took the heaviest stones they could lift and rolled them across the path in a futile attempt to block the way. It was the best they could do to keep their home and possessions from disappearing.

The journey back to Criccieth was nightmarish. The family—Richard, Polly, David and a now obviously pregnant Betsy—carrying their entire worldly goods, travelled by rail as far as Caernarvon, and then journeyed on to Llanystumdwy by carriage. Betsy had to decide which possessions to leave behind, but one thing was certain: she was not going to give up her husband’s treasured book collection. The little library was carefully packed up, carried all the way to Highgate and put back in the parlour they had left only three years previously. Physically weakened and emotionally distraught, Betsy sank back onto the family hearth, lucky to have avoided the workhouse misery of many other widows.

It soon became apparent that young David had all the talent of the first David Lloyd, and added to it his father’s dreams of greatness. He also had a robust constitution, and this time Rebecca, Richard and Betsy were determined that the story would not end in tragedy. The tale of David Lloyd George’s upbringing, and his family’s nurturing of his prodigious talent, was to be one of the most remarkable of any politician of his time.

2 The Cottage-Bred Man

HOME AGAIN IN LLANYSTUMDWY, Betsy finally gave way to grief and ill-health. She had been deeply in love with her husband, and although she had been concerned about his health, there had been no major alarms to prepare her for his sudden death. The change in her circumstances overwhelmed her sensitive nature and rendered her physically and emotionally incapacitated. After a few months her second son was born, and was named William after his father. Betsy was too weakened to share the burden of housework or even to look after her baby: William recalled being bathed by his grandmother in a large earthenware basin on the kitchen floor because his mother was too ill to look after him.¹

Into the breach stepped the redoubtable Rebecca. She was already running the household and the shoemaking business, which she had kept going during her son’s four-month mercy dash to Pembrokeshire. Now she took on the care of her invalid daughter, two young children and a newborn. Fortunately, Rebecca had enough practicality and stamina for all of them. She also understood what her daughter was going through, since she too had been widowed at an early age and had struggled to make ends meet. Rebecca was over sixty by this time, but she kept the reins firmly in her capable hands, and remained the head of the household until the day she died.

In order to provide for her family Rebecca had to make a success of the shoemaking business, and at times she surprised her family with her diplomatic skills. She would often take her young grandson David Lloyd George with her on long walks in the hills surrounding Llanystumdwy, and he inherited her love of walking, together with her belief in fresh air as the cure for all ills. They would often call at remote farms where, not entirely coincidentally, a shoemaking account was overdue. Rebecca would never mention it herself, but the embarrassed farmer’s wife inevitably did. A copy of the bill would then be produced from Rebecca’s pocket, where it had lain, by chance of course, and the account would be settled with friendly relations maintained.

Living quarters were cramped in the small cottage. Rebecca took Betsy and little Mary Ellen to sleep with her in the larger of the upstairs rooms, while Richard shared his quarters with David and William, who slept together in a narrow wainscot bed. The small inheritance that Betsy had invested in the Liverpool building society gave her a modest, fluctuating income of up to £46 (£4,039 today) a year. She could at least pay her way—for now. This was important to bolster her pride, for dependence on family was only one step away from charity, and both her upbringing and her religion, with their emphasis on selfreliance, led her to shrink from accepting handouts.

Eventually Betsy grew stronger, and she was able to take over more of the running of the house, with its never-ending demands of fires to tend, rooms to clean and bread to bake. She had not been well for very long, though, when a second unexpected blow took away her main support. In 1868, Rebecca died at the age of sixty-five. The head of the family, whose unwavering faith and unrelenting selfdiscipline had been its bedrock, followed her husband to the grave after twenty-nine years of widowhood. The family rallied round once more—indeed, they had very little choice. Richard took charge of the business, and Betsy ran the house. All three children were deemed old enough to take on their share of the chores, and life took on a new rhythm.

Although she suffered throughout her life from ill-health, Betsy always seemed able to summon up a reserve of strength when her children were in need. Following Rebecca’s death she held the family together, and was by all accounts a skilful and resourceful housewife. Highgate was rented from David Jones, the village shopkeeper, who lived by a simple creed, ‘The rent is mine, the house is yours,’ and refrained from carrying out even the most basic repairs to his properties. For a rent of £7 per annum (£547 today) Betsy and Richard were left to their own devices in maintaining the fabric of the crumbling cottage. Betsy had to turn her hand to household repairs as well as the washing and baking. The latter was a particular challenge, since the ancient oven at Highgate was on its last legs. Every week Betsy would patch up the holes in its sides with brown paper, and pray that her handiwork would last until the bread was baked.

Betsy established an unvarying routine: Monday was washing day, Thursday was baking day. Chores and social obligations filled the other four working days of the week. Sunday was reserved for three chapel services, with a three-mile round trip to each one. This might have seemed like an additional chore to a less devout person, but it was Betsy’s main comfort in a life of unrelenting hard work. She gave no sign that she ever considered remarrying. Perhaps the strength of her feelings for her late husband prohibited it. In any case, there were not many eligible men in the village at a time when ambitious young men headed for towns or ports to earn a living.

Betsy spent her forties raising three children, keeping house for her brother, and thanking God that she was not completely alone in the world. She had matured into a kind, sympathetic and attractive woman, rather small, according to her elder son, but with a good figure and a soft, sweet voice.² ‘She was a fine character,’ he wrote in a memoir, ‘—gentle, unselfish and courageous. She never complained and never spoke of her struggles. It was not till long after that her children fully appreciated how much they owed to her, and how fine her spirit had been in the hard task of bringing up her fatherless family.’³ Her widowhood had left its mark, and although Betsy could sometimes enjoy a joke, she was a serious woman. She was also proud, refusing to let her sons join their friends in weed-picking for sixpence a time. Rebecca had taught her to be a disciplined housekeeper, a ‘mistress of method’ in the home, a good cook and generous in giving hospitality.⁴ She allowed herself few pleasures, but one exception was her fondness for flowers. She grew a rose vine to cover the front of the house. Its flowers bloomed in a splendid display through the summer months, and it was not unusual for the family to overhear strangers on the road outside exclaiming at their beauty.

Betsy inherited Rebecca’s independence of spirit, if not her strength of character, and her gentle demeanour masked a strong adherence to her parents’ beliefs and values. She was proud to be part of the same Welsh-speaking, chapel-going class. The ladies of Trefan, the nearby estate, were often driven past Betsy’s door by their uniformed coachman, but Betsy did not envy them, nor did she feel inferior, and she made sure that her children took pride in their position in life too. When they were older, David and William were both offered positions as pupil-teachers in their school, one of the few ways a bright village lad could get on in the world and escape a life of manual labour. But the offer carried a sting in its tail. Because the school was sponsored by the Anglican Church, pupil-teachers were required to join the Church and renounce their nonconformism, a condition that most, willingly or under duress, fulfilled. When the idea was discussed in Highgate, Betsy exclaimed that she would rather see her boys growing up to break stones on the roadside than turn their backs on the little chapel at Pen-y-Maes. The issue was never broached again.

In common with other nonconformists of the period Betsy was a firm follower of the temperance movement, and regarded alcoholic drink as an evil influence on society. Richard Lloyd was of the same view, although, with characteristic modesty, he rarely spoke his mind on the matter or criticised others. His influence locally was such, however, that many years later, when he was helping out at his nephews’ law practice in Criccieth, the firm’s landlady was obliged to evict them. She reluctantly revealed that the public house opposite had complained that thirsty customers were afraid to enter by the front door in case Richard Lloyd spied them through the window of his office. Betsy and Richard’s influence was so strong on Lloyd George that he never set foot in a public house until adulthood, and although he drank wine and whisky in moderation in later life, he hated drunkenness, and regarded with contempt anyone who drank to excess. With Betsy though, principle would not stand in the way of kindness, and she would invite the village drunk, William Griffith, into the house to sober up by the fire before sending him home.

The shoemaking business and Betsy’s savings provided enough of an income for the family to live on. They were certainly not well off, but the children did not want for anything either. ‘Comfortable, but thrifty and pinched’ was Lloyd George’s description of Highgate.⁵ The children never had both butter and jam on their bread—it was one or the other—and the great treat on Sundays was half an egg each at breakfast. The family only felt the sting of real hardship after moving to Criccieth in 1880, when Richard had to give up the shoemaking business and the financial demands of giving the boys a good start in the world increased. At Highgate, Betsy’s careful husbandry made sure that there was enough to go around. She would spend hours mending the children’s clothes or altering her elder son’s cast-offs for William. Her pride demanded that her children were well dressed, and she was rewarded when Mrs Evans, the well-born wife of the local schoolmaster, remarked that ‘William George and his brother are the best-dressed children in school.’⁶

Even in these years, however, the family encountered hard times when Betsy’s investment income fluctuated or the shoemaking business dipped. These difficulties were enough to drive the already highlystrung Betsy to despair. Her asthmatic attacks were often severe, terrifying her young children, who watched helplessly as their mother struggled for breath. Richard knelt by her side rubbing her hand and muttering soothing words, but comfort came only in the form of religion. Once, Betsy was in tears after failing to make ends meet, when she caught sight of an article in a periodical. The transformation that came over her face was so striking that more than half a century later, William set out to see what it contained. The article, by one D. Morris, was headed ‘The Bible, the Destitute and the Widow’, and listed thirty passages from the Bible offering hope and comfort to those in Betsy’s situation. Her faith had come to her rescue yet again.

Betsy’s strength and vitality were slowly sapped by years of raising children under the constant shadow of financial hardship. She was never a strong woman, and her health held out just long enough for her to see her family grow to maturity. The children were in their teens before she became too ill to carry on. From then on the main responsibility for guiding her children was passed to Richard Lloyd, who, fortunately, was temperamentally and intellectually ideally suited to the task. Richard Lloyd was a stern taskmaster who earned his nephews’ obedience and respect, but like many men of the time, he left the task of disciplining the children to Betsy. She could never bring herself to punish David Lloyd. She spoiled him: he was never made to dress himself or even find his own socks, something that had ‘a marked effect’ on him in later life, according to his mistress.⁷ He grew to rely on his mother’s approval and unconditional love, and took an interest in every detail of her daily life even when he was married and living largely in London. Lloyd George’s last letter to her, two days before she died in 1896, reveals his anxious concern:

My dearest Mother,

…What you ought to do as long as the heat lasts is to take absolute rest…You must not try to be housekeeper, housemaid, cook and maid of all work in one. Just you sit down in the coolest room of the house and boss the lot of them. Give orders. I know they will all be pleased to obey and if they do not just you give them that tongue a bit of which your eldest son has inherited from you…Go out in the cool of the evening but don’t walk in this hot weather. It is more than anyone can do with any comfort. Let them get you a bathchair with Woodhart or someone else to wheel it. The approach to [the house] is so steep that it is most tiring for anyone, even in the best of weathers to walk it. You should not do so on any account as long as this terrible heat lasts. I am sure William will see to that…

It is a good thing that you have such a store of pluck to bear you up…I will back my good old Mother against the whole lot of them…

Your fond boy,

Dei⁸

As an invalid, Betsy would play an increasingly marginal role in her son’s life, but she was still able to take pride in his achievements, and in particular his growing fame. ‘I am glad that ‘rhen wraig [the old woman] got some satisfaction from her parentage of her eldest son,’ Lloyd George wrote to his brother in 1895. ‘She had a good deal of trouble with him in his younger days & I know of no one who made a braver & a more heroic fight to bring up her children respectably & to give them a fair start. She deserves all the feeling of elation which a contemplation of their success affords her.’⁹ Betsy lived to see Lloyd George elected to Parliament three times before her death at the age of sixty-eight.

The circumstances of her life and the age in which she was born led Betsy to live her life for and through her children. She accepted her situation stoically and, like Rebecca, kept her eyes firmly fixed on the rewards of the next life. Betsy inspired great devotion among those who appreciated her gentle, kind nature. She doted on her children, and indulged them as far as she could within the limits of her resources. They loved her deeply in return. In later life, Lloyd George prized liveliness and independence of mind in his female companions, yet he looked for different things in his domestic life: comfort, serenity and steadfastness. Betsy was the first woman who provided him with the domestic nurturing and adoration he needed.

Betsy succeeded on the whole in keeping her cares and worries from her children, and the three young Georges had a happy existence in Highgate. They adapted quickly to their new surroundings, which Lloyd George found ‘picturesque, beautiful and inspiring’.¹⁰ Their games were those of country children: catching songbirds in the hedgerows, playing soldiers in the woods and throwing sticks in the fast-flowing river. Climbing trees was a favourite activity, especially if it was rewarded with cherries or apples from a neighbour’s orchard. Novelty was provided by the sight of four steaming horses pulling heavy cartloads of building materials through the village to the site where the local squire, Sir Hugh Ellis-Nanney, was building his new mansion, Gwynfryn. Treats included walking to Criccieth to fetch two pennyworth of treacle in a tin can and sampling a little on the way home, and, on baking day, soaking chunks of newly baked bread in buttermilk and anticipating the delights of rice pudding.

Household chores were divided up between the children. Polly helped her mother with the housework, learning to bake, clean and attend the washing, while William was sent daily to fetch a large bucket of water from the village well. David, known as Davy or Davy Lloyd, preferred to be outdoors, and his task was to tend the garden. He had inherited his mother’s green fingers, and loved to find rare plants on his long country walks to plant in the plot of land behind the cottage. One such find was a rare ‘royal fern’. It flourished at Highgate, and was so highly prized that it was dug up and transplanted to the garden of Morvin House when the family moved to Criccieth.

Davy was also in charge of gathering firewood for the household, a task in which he took immense pride. Among the many factors that made him one of the most successful orators of his time was his ability to use details from his childhood to illustrate a point, enabling him to form a point of contact with his audience. In a defiant speech defending his controversial 1909 budget, he recalled: ‘I am not afraid of storms. It wasn’t in a period of fine weather that we used to go to the woods to gather firewood when I was a boy. Not at all; we went after a big storm had struck the wood and littered the ground with broken branches. I’m telling you that after this storm has passed, there will be plenty of firewood to warm the hearths of old people and to brighten the lives of the poor.’¹¹

The children had a secure childhood, protected by their uncle and indulged by their mother. Yet they could not entirely escape the manifestations of injustice in the social order. Even in the quiet backwater of Llanystumdwy, landlords wielded their near-absolute power over tenants with harrowing consequences. For the children, this meant that a walk through the woods involved avoiding the estate gamekeepers at all costs. The owners of Trefan were kind individuals who allowed local children to play on the estate’s land as long as they respected the livestock and did not disturb nesting birds. Their keepers, and those of Sir Hugh Ellis-Nanney, were a different breed altogether. The George brothers escaped their clutches by a hair’s breadth on numerous occasions. They knew that a widow in the village had had to send her son away for good to escape dire punishment after being caught with a hare killed on private land.

The benign presence of the Trefan ladies in the village, and the fact that the Ellis-Nanney family sponsored the local school, did not disguise the extent of the landlords’ power. In effect, the village was controlled by the squire and the parson, two all-powerful figures whose intervention could at a stroke destroy a lifetime’s work for tenants or parishioners. In 1868, when Davy Lloyd George was five years old, that power had banished some of his schoolmates from the village in an outrageous and vindictive act of revenge. The cause was the general election of that year, when the electorate dared return a Liberal candidate, the Welsh-speaking nonconformist Love Jones-Parry, instead of the local landowner Baron Penrhyn’s son, George Douglas-Pennant. Since the ballot was public, not secret as it became in 1872, disobedient tenants were easily identified. Flying in the face of democracy, compassion and common sense, the landlords retaliated. Families were turned out of their homes and robbed of their livelihoods as farms, shops and workshops had to be left behind. It was said that eighty men who worked in the Penrhyn slate quarry lost their jobs. For a family thrown out on the streets the only options were to rely on charity—something no proud nonconformist would willingly accept—or to move away to seek employment elsewhere. Thus, at an impressionable age the young George children saw some of their playmates in Llanystumdwy forced to leave the village, their families rendered destitute by the landlords. It was an injustice that burned into their consciousnesses, and one that Lloyd George never forgot.

At the age of three, Polly was the first of the George children to leave the hearth and join the procession of girls and boys marching daily to the village school. In September 1866 she was joined by her brother Davy Lloyd, with William following in 1868. The Llanystumdwy National School was established in 1851, in a two-roomed building next to the church. The majority of the pupils were from nonconformist families and spoke nothing but Welsh, but in school they adhered to Church rituals and learned to speak and write only in English.

Girls and boys of all ages were taught together by David Evans, an excellent teacher, able to bring his subjects to life and to excite young minds, and his staff of two pupil-teachers. There were seven standards, ranging from infants upwards, and school inspectors decided when each child was ready to progress to the next. After a year in the seventh standard, at around the age of fourteen most pupils were considered ready to leave school, but for especially gifted pupils David Evans offered a year’s further teaching, which he called standard 7X. The chosen ones would sit at a table close to Evans’ own desk, and would often be offered the chance to become pupil-teachers at the end of the year.

The curriculum consisted of the three ‘R’s plus geography, history and, for the brightest, a little algebra. Naturally for a school in a coastal area, a number of school leavers went to sea each year, so navigation was taught as an extra subject for recently-departed pupils bound for the ports of Porthmadoc and Pwllheli. David Evans also indulged his own interest in jurisprudence, which opened the eyes of at least a few of his pupils to the possibilities of a career in law. Reading was encouraged, but literature was available only to the lucky few like the George children who had books at home.

Welsh literature or history played no part in children’s formal education. They were given, in effect, the same education as their contemporaries in England, with no attempt to teach them about their own country or to connect with their community. The prevailing attitude among the (English-speaking) school authorities was that the Welsh language should be beaten out of children and replaced with the English of the Empire. It did not occur to them that the English language might not be of much use to children who would grow up to be farmers, shopkeepers, craftsmen and labourers in a wholly Welsh-speaking area, or that bilingualism was in itself a good thing. Instead, the use of Welsh was fiercely discouraged, and the use of severe force to punish children caught speaking their natural language was widespread. Polly and her brothers did not have to leave their home to hear of one: Richard Lloyd had been caught speaking Welsh to a schoolmate one day at school. The teacher struck him on the side of the head with such force that he permanently lost the hearing in one ear.

In addition to the National Schools, Sunday Schools were run by both churches and chapels. The nature and quality of the instruction given was very different. Church Sunday Schools were attended mainly by children, and concentrated on scriptural study. Inspired teaching could make these sessions enjoyable and rewarding, but in most places they descended into mere rote-learning. The Welsh-language, nonconformist Sunday Schools were attended by the whole congregation, either after the main morning service or in a separate afternoon session. They began with Bible readings, hymns and prayers before the congregation divided into classes, each occupying a separate area among the pews in chapel. Classes were sometimes single-sex, and were divided according to age. Each had its own teacher, and although these were occasionally professional teachers, like William George senior, they came mostly from the ranks of the better-educated adult members. Teachers would read passages of the Bible and discuss doctrinal issues like ‘The Fall of Man’ and ‘The Universality of the Flood’, according to the age and understanding of class members. Children were taught more than the Bible in these sessions: they were taught to read, to debate, to sing solfa and to engage in question-and-answer sessions with the adults. Sessions would close with a simultaneous catechising of the whole congregation, prayers and hymn-singing. For those without any other access to education, Sunday Schools provided a level of basic skills that was, literally, a godsend.

The importance of Sunday Schools emerged even in the government’s disastrous review of education in Wales in 1847. The review was prompted by Welshmen like William Williams MP who were concerned about standards, and three commissioners were appointed to investigate and report. The commissioners—none of whom was Welsh or had ever lived in Wales—reported that the conditions in which Welsh children were taught were ‘dreadful’ even by contemporary standards: only just over half of Welsh bridegrooms could sign their names. In some areas Sunday Schools were the only form of education available. The report was coloured throughout by the commissioners’ lack of understanding. It neglected to point out that children who spoke only Welsh received their entire education through the medium of English, which even their teachers barely spoke. Such was the travesty of the report that it came to the conclusion that nonconformism encouraged immorality. As anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Calvinistic Methodism could attest, nothing could have been further from the truth.

The furore over the report increased the sectarian and linguistic differences between English—and Welsh-speakers. Thirty years later, the obvious disconnect between the Welsh nonconformist chapels and the English-language, Church-ritualised school in Llanystumdwy still jarred. Torn between the two, the pupils were close to open rebellion. In the young Davy Lloyd, they found their natural leader.

The occasion was the visit of the school inspectors, regarded as an opportunity for the schoolmaster to demonstrate the good behaviour and academic prowess of his charges. The inspectors, the Misses Evans of Trefan and Sir Hugh Ellis-Nanney, visited the school every year. The children were marched in single file in front of them, and made to recite the catechism in English, but in 1875 the twelve-year-old Davy Lloyd decided that the event would not go smoothly. He had been brought up at the knee of a Baptist preacher in a devout and proud family. Nonconformists had fought hard to be allowed to worship according to their faith: it was not long since persecution had been commonplace, with dissenters forced to attend church services or face dire consequences.

Young Davy Lloyd was already a leader among his schoolmates, one of whom remembered him as a child of three or four standing on the stairs at home, ‘preaching’ to his assembled friends below. For a determined, independent boy, it made no sense to have to memorise and recite the Church text. Furthermore, it was an insult to have to pretend to be an Anglican, and worst of all for a Baptist boy, to have to attest that he was given his name at christening, which was against the most specific teaching of his denomination. Having suffered the indignity every year, he now decided to organise a rebellion, and persuaded every child in the school to turn mute when invited to recite the catechism. When Mr Evans stepped forward and indicated to the children that it was time to begin, his prompt was met with stony expressions and silence. The utterly bewildered schoolmaster tried again. ‘I believe…’ he repeated hopefully, but to no avail. It was a tense moment, for the visitors behind him were not only inspectors but also his employers. Finally, after what seemed like an age, William George could not bear to see the well-liked Mr Evans get into trouble, and shouted ‘I believe!’ One by one his classmates joined in, and the catechism was given in full.

This incident is rightly famous, and much has been made of the evidence it provides of the young Lloyd George’s precociousness and refusal to conform. The protest was entirely successful: the children were never again asked to recite the catechism at school, and while legend has it that Davy gave his brother a good thrashing afterwards—which William George always denied—there is no record of the ringleader himself having been punished at all. It may be that Mr Evans never came to know who had led the rebellion, but it certainly proved that Davy Lloyd George was a boy who got away with things. He had guts and a great deal of charm, and he used both to the full. This combination, even during his school years, was particularly effective with women, and got him out of all kinds of trouble. One of many incidents occurred when an Irish labourer working on the Ellis-Nanney mansion took offence at the way in which a group of village boys were teasing his daughter. He was a big man, and known to have a violent temper. As he approached the boys, they wisely scattered and he grabbed at the nearest, who happened to be Davy. ‘Not that one!’ cried the little girl anxiously, ‘Not that one!’ Davy was spared a thrashing because of a susceptible female supporter. He also had two adoring female supporters at home in Rebecca and Betsy, both of whom indulged and spoiled him. He grew up to expect the admiration of women and to rely on their loyalty.

As their three charges grew from children to teenagers, Betsy and Richard were determined to give them the best start possible in life. It was assumed from early childhood that Davy would be the outstanding one of the three, but the other two were also encouraged to ‘get on’, although with the clear understanding that they would play a supporting role in Davy’s life if he needed them.

This was perhaps most understandable in the case of Polly. She left school at the age of fourteen, and was not invited to stay on for an extra year. Schools were not designed to provide the same education for girls and boys. Boys needed to make their way in the world; girls needed only enough instruction to be useful wives and mothers. An educationalist wrote as late as 1911 that ‘boys needed instruction in courage, self-control, hard work, endurance and protection of the weak. Girls needed to be taught gentleness, care for the young and helpless, interest in domestic affairs and admiration for the strong and manly character in men.’ Without her uncle’s financial support Polly would have had to choose between going into service and staying at home to help her mother, but Richard Lloyd enrolled her in Miss Wheatley’s private girls’ school in Criccieth. The school took boarding pupils from better-off local families for a year or two to teach them deportment and other useful subjects. A private education was a real advantage to a young woman. It enhanced her marriage prospects, and would enable her to get a better position as a governess or lady’s companion if she did not marry.

Polly was expected to stay at the school for two or more years, but she had been away for only two terms when Betsy’s health gave way. The family could not afford to pay for help to look after her younger brothers and to keep house for her mother and uncle: there was no choice but to bring Polly back. Any chance she had of building a different life for herself disappeared as she returned to Llanystumdwy, although it was not immediately apparent that Polly could not continue her studies and pursue a career: in 1884 her brother David Lloyd wrote in his diary that he was determined that Polly should train as a doctor: ‘I contemplate with absolute contempt and disgust the husband-waiting for, the waiting-for-someone-to-pick-me-up policy of the girl of the period…Why shouldn’t [Polly] go in for being a doctor? The idea struck me with great force today. She shall.’¹² Despite his good intentions the family’s income could not stretch that far, and Polly’s ambitions were sacrificed for those of her brothers.

For the boys, it was to be very different. If they could not be teachers, David Lloyd and William needed some other profession, and Mr Evans with his love of jurisprudence, or perhaps the memory of Mr Goffey in Liverpool, brought to mind a career in law. For William it meant a steady career with good money to be made. For Davy, whose brilliant mind and natural leadership qualities had already marked him out, the law was a respectable way to embark on a career in public life.

William’s role in supporting David’s political career is widely (and justly) acknowledged. He did not seem to resent the universal assumption that his brother was destined for greater things, nor did he demand the kind of attention that flowed David’s way. Described by his daughter-in-law as ‘the kindest man I ever met’,¹³ William was different from his brother David in almost every respect. Devout, truthful and patient, he resembled both his father and Richard Lloyd. He accepted without demur that he needed to work to support the entire family while his brother pursued his (unpaid) political career, and he even denied himself the prospect of marriage and children for many years while all his income was needed to support Betsy, Richard, Polly and his brother’s family. A truly remarkable man, he lived his life in his brother’s shadow with exceptionally good grace; only David’s colourful private life ever caused more than an occasional coolness between the two.

As for Davy Lloyd, Richard Lloyd believed that he had a prodigy on his hands. ‘This boy will be famous!’ he exclaimed, and the whole family set about making it happen. The Lloyd/George family turned itself into an organisation to support David, and every resource at its disposal was unhesitatingly put to use. Richard Lloyd discussed his nephew’s progress with Mr Evans the schoolmaster, and watched over his studies at home. The young Davy combined natural aptitude with a love of reading. His favourite subjects were geography and history, and he had a good head for figures. In later life he told his son, only half-jokingly, that he had realised he was a genius while reading Euclid at the top of an oak tree. But, genius or not, he would have to pass his preliminary law examination before he could get on the first rung of the ladder by persuading a firm of solicitors to take him on as an apprentice. The examination required a specific programme of study, and Davy used his extra year in school to prepare himself, aided by the willing Mr Evans.

Davy Lloyd was fortunate in his broad-minded and scholarly teacher, but he was equally fortunate in his uncle and mentor. Richard Lloyd—known fondly within the family as ‘Uncle Lloyd’—was no ordinary cobbler: he was a craftsman who could turn his hand as easily to a pair of high-topped boots trimmed in yellow wash leather for the Trefan coachman as to repairing a working man’s boots. He was as devout as his father before him, and had followed in his footsteps to become the ordained minister of Capel Ucha, as a result of which his workshop was the gathering place for village intellectuals. He was renowned for the care he took of his congregation and the wisdom of his advice, readily given to those who dropped by during the day. He kept a scrap of paper or a piece of discarded leather in a niche in the wall by his side as he worked so that he could jot down a thought or a phrase to use in his sermons.

In 1841 the congregation of Capel Ucha had broken off from the Scotch Baptists to join ‘The Disciples of Christ’, the followers of Baptist preacher Alexander Campbell. They clung to an even more literal interpretation of the Bible, with an emphasis on simple living and an almost puritanical modesty. The denomination was even smaller than the Scotch Baptists, but was then, as now, strongest in the United States, where three Presidents—Garfield, Johnson and Reagan—were baptised into its ranks. There was a narrow but clear doctrinal difference between the Disciples of Christ and the Baptists, and they remain a separate denomination in the USA, although in the UK they joined the Welsh Baptist Union in the 1930s.

The Disciples of Christ were a modest and unassuming denomination. Richard Lloyd would painstakingly explain that they did not claim that they alone were disciples of Christ, rather that they were disciples of Christ alone. As well as adhering to a literal interpretation of the Bible, they believed that it was unlawful for Christians to treasure wealth on earth by putting it aside against future times. They believed that fasting and prayer were essential, and that it was a Christian’s duty to marry within the faith. They dressed modestly at all times, and it was deemed obscene for women to wear gold, jewels or expensive clothes, or even to plait their hair. Likewise, it was considered an affectation for preachers to wear black: the Disciples’ preachers wore their Sunday best in the same way as their congregations.

In February 1875 Davy and his sister Polly were baptised in the small stream that ran past Capel Ucha. Uncle Lloyd conducted the ceremony, but did not record why his nephew was baptised at the unusually early age of twelve, rather than fifteen, as was customary. The boy’s precocity had always prompted special treatment, and perhaps there is no more to it than that. Baptism was a serious matter to the Lloyds and the Georges. It was a solemn ceremony that signified acceptance of the faith of the Church, and rebirth through total immersion in water as an adult member of the congregation.

It would have been cold as Richard Lloyd dammed the stream to form a pool of water for the baptism. Nevertheless, he waded into the water as he did for each baptism ceremony, and stood waist-high to receive the candidates who waited on the bank. When it was Davy’s turn, Uncle Lloyd asked him solemnly if he believed in God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and then if he would promise, with the help of Jesus Christ, to love and serve God for the rest of his life. The boy answered with the customary ‘I do!’ and waded out to join his uncle in the cold flowing water. Richard Lloyd baptised David Lloyd George in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then, supporting his nephew in his strong arms, plunged him momentarily under the surface of the water. Dripping wet, Lloyd George made his way back to the waiting congregation before taking his first communion inside the chapel. It was to be a turning point in his life, not because of its religious significance, but because he decided from that day onward to adopt the ‘Lloyd’ in his name as a second surname, in tribute to the man who raised him. He was no longer Davy Lloyd, but David Lloyd George.¹⁴

The religious intensity of the ceremony, however, was too much for the independent-minded Lloyd George. That night as he lay in bed he experienced a dramatic anti-conversion. It occurred to him suddenly, with perfect clarity, that everything he had been taught about religion, and even the Bible itself, was nothing more than unfounded imaginings. He saw an image of his family’s deepest-held beliefs collapsing around him like a building falling into ruin.¹⁵ He sat bolt upright in bed and shouted out loud that God and all the things he had been taught were but a dream.

Lloyd George fully realised the significance of the revelation. He tried to pray, but when he closed his eyes he heard only his own voice echoing in the emptiness. He had a sleepless night, but kept his feelings to himself for some time before tentatively confessing to Uncle Lloyd. Demonstrating the wisdom for which he was renowned, Richard Lloyd reacted calmly. He told the boy that it was natural to doubt, and that his faith would return in due course. Lloyd George was not so sure. Religion had lost its hold on him. He continued to obey the rules of his upbringing, when his family were around at least, but more to appear respectable than out of conviction. He continued to attend, and even to enjoy, chapel services with his family, but he experienced them as a spectator rather than as a believer. He loved the ‘theatre’ of religion, relished a good sermon, but seemed to pick up more tips on public speaking than on saving his soul. He would listen avidly to the best pulpit performers, and would critique them later in his diary, noting how a good preacher held his audience by using his voice to create dramatic emphasis, or by gesturing with his arms to mark an emotional climax. Special praise was always reserved for Uncle Lloyd, whose sermons he admired, even if he was not convinced by their content. Throughout his life he continued to enjoy nonconformist services with their fervent hymn-singing and dramatic preaching, but he lived according to his own, very different, rules.

Richard Lloyd was a well-read and highly self-educated man. He took a close interest in his nephews’ and niece’s reading, and made good use of William George’s library. These books were treasured by the whole family, and were kept in a glass-fronted cabinet in the parlour. They included Shakespeare’s plays, Green’s History of England, Burnet’s History of the Reformation (six volumes), The Pictorial History of England by Charles Knight (eight volumes), a complete set of the Penny Encyclopaedia, Webster’s Dictionary, The Journals of George Fox, Arnold’s Life and Correspondence (two volumes), Hallam’s Constitutional History, Guizot’s History of the English Revolution and many language texts and books on education as well as classic works of literature.

In order to pass his law exam, Lloyd George needed to study Latin as well as a second language (Welsh, needless to say, did not count). Mr Evans could teach him some rudimentary Latin, but there was no one in the village who knew French. Uncle Lloyd was not to be deterred: a French primer had been among the first David Lloyd’s possessions, together with a copy of Aesop’s fables in French, and every evening, after a hard day’s labour in the workshop, Uncle Lloyd bent his head over a candle to teach himself French before passing on his knowledge to his nephew. In this way, often staying only one lesson ahead of his pupil, he succeeded in getting Lloyd George up to the required standard. He also painstakingly worked alongside the boy as they tackled the first volume of Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico and Sallust’s Catiline. The cost to his health and strength must have been enormous. Not only did he work hard into the evening, but also long into the night when the rest of the family was in bed, reading texts and preparing the sermons he delivered every Sunday to his congregation. But nothing was too much trouble for the boy he regarded as a son.

In October 1877 Uncle Lloyd accompanied his nephew to Liverpool, the longest journey of his life, to sit the preliminary examination, and on 8 December Lloyd George heard that he had passed. He was to look back on the day the postman bore the good news to Highgate as the most memorable day of his life. ‘On that day,’ recorded his mistress many years later, ‘he was treading on air, the future was heaven, everything seemed possible.’¹⁶

Lloyd George was now ready to serve his articles with a law firm, if one could be persuaded to take him on. Through dogged enquiries and a lot of string-pulling by friends of the family, Randall Casson, of the firm Breese, Jones & Casson in Porthmadoc, agreed to give the boy a place as an articled clerk, with an initial six-month trial period. Betsy’s precious capital was raided to find the £100 (£8,000 at today’s values) needed to pay for his indenture, and a further £80 in stamp duty was found from the family’s barely adequate funds. David Lloyd George, aged fifteen, was finally on his way. Ahead lay fame, if not fortune, and the glittering career his family confidently expected. More immediate was the heady freedom of living away from his family for the first time in his life, and the opportunity it afforded to explore the worlds of politics—and girls.

3 Love’s Infatuated Devotee

IN JULY 1878 DAVID LLOYD GEORGE packed his scant belongings and left Highgate for the wider world beyond Llanystumdwy. At fifteen, he was too young to be fully independent, and it was arranged that he should lodge in Porthmadoc during the week, returning home on Sundays. But his ambition was limitless, and his family urged him on, despite the daunting cost of his training and the sacrifices they would have to make to support him. Lloyd George’s success was their dearest ambition, their collective life’s work, and he could count on receiving the lion’s share of the family’s resources.

While he headed for Porthmadoc and all the stimulation that the world of work could offer, his sister Polly had returned home to Highgate and a life without prospects. She accepted her fate calmly, but a recurring illness over the next few years suggests that all was not well with her. In Richard Lloyd’s diary he records her poor health with deep sympathy. On one occasion, after she had been confined to bed for three weeks, he voiced his frustration at not being able to help her as he had helped her brother: ‘Would feel greatly relieved in mind were it in my power to put her in a respectable position in life, in a way of business, or some other occupation to suit her disposition and abilities. But for the present we must both in her and Wil Bach’s [Little William’s] case try and learn to labour and to wait.’¹

There is an intriguing suggestion here that Polly, unlike Betsy, was no home-bird, and would have been better suited to an occupation other than looking after the family in Highgate. She was quite different from her mother—the family thought she had inherited some of her traits from the formidable Rebecca. But she was needed at home, and even the limited career options that were possible for a young Victorian woman were closed to her. Any potential that lay in her for other achievements was unfulfilled, since unlike her younger brother William, who was to follow David into the law, Uncle Lloyd never did succeed in getting a better deal in life for Polly.

Polly did not complain. She seemed to channel any frustration she felt into promoting her brother’s ambitions. Her role was mainly domestic, caring for Betsy and Uncle Lloyd, and later becoming a second mother to her nieces and nephews. Her oldest nephew, Dick, remembers her as ‘a strong character, definitely uncompromising’. She might have been ‘narrow-minded in religious matters’, but she was open-hearted when it came to her nieces and nephews: ‘Everything we wanted her lavish, generous hand gave us.’² Polly looked after the family well. She kept an eye on Richard Lloyd’s diet, and was capable of launching a ‘devastating counter-attack’ if he dared help himself to a second slice of apple tart.

After a few sleepless nights, the young Lloyd George began to settle down. He lodged with Mrs Owen and her husband in a house on Porthmadoc High Street, paying ten shillings a week for his bed and board out of the small cash allowance that Betsy gave him. He would get up early, between six and seven, and make himself useful at the office of Breese, Jones & Casson all day, carrying messages, copying documents and taking dictation. He worked hard, keen to persuade Mr Casson to take him on permanently. If he was lucky he could supplement his allowance with commission earned by collecting insurance premiums from Porthmadoc householders. At the same time, he did not neglect his studies. He had further law exams to take if he was to be successful, and he continued the habit that Uncle Lloyd had instilled in him of setting a daily reading target, taking notes as he went. He was spurred on by ambition, and also by competitiveness: ‘I feel I must stick to reading,’ he wrote in his diary on 17 September 1879, ‘or my time will be wasted and I shall be no better than the clerks and I am determined to surpass (DV).’³ This kept him out of trouble on the whole, although Mrs Owen had occasional cause to show him the rough side of her tongue for staying out late.

Lloyd George was bursting with ambition and youthful ideals. Primed by both temperament and upbringing to believe that he was capable of great things, he could not wait to make his mark on the world. His diary is striking in its similarity to that of his late father at the same age. But the son shows more steel. Perhaps because of the innate selfbelief which was one of his strongest characteristics, or because of the firm guidance he received from Uncle Lloyd, Lloyd George never doubted his ability to ‘get on’. His diary records his advice to himself and sets out his goals as he entered his articles:

Q. Your chief ambition? A. To promote myself by honest endeavour to benefit others.

Q. The noblest aim in life. A. (1) To develop our manhood. (2) To do good. (3) To seek truth. (4) To bring truth to benefit our fellows.

Q. Your idea of Happiness. A. To perceive my own efforts succeed.

To ‘perceive his own efforts succeed’ was to be the driving factor of Lloyd George’s life. He put success in his work above all else, and never allowed love, illness or even bereavement to distract him for long. That said, leaving Highgate meant an end, temporarily at least, to his family’s close scrutiny of his leisure time. At sixteen years old he was experiencing the usual hormonal turmoil, and in essence Lloyd George had a country boy’s attitude to sex, no matter how hard his mother tried to restrain him with chapel decorum.

The practice among farming people and servants at the time was to allow a courting couple to meet at night for ‘caru gwely’ (bed-courtship). This was—in theory and probably in practice—a lot more innocent than it sounds. A young girl in domestic service would have limited opportunities to meet local boys. When she did, say at an evening chapel gathering, if she wanted to extend the encounter beyond a walk home, she could invite her beau to her room as a way of saving candles and fuel on cold nights. The bedroom was unlikely to be hers alone, but that did not seem to deter young lovers, and they would spend a few hours together in bed, fully dressed to avoid temptation.

This may seem extraordinarily permissive given the stern view of premarital sex taken by the nonconformists, but sex was not meant to be part of the deal. It was expected that the young lad would behave himself and not get his sweetheart in trouble. She, for her part, was not the innocent creature that her upper-class contemporary was raised to be, and not only knew the facts of life from an early age (living on or near farms meant that these mysteries were easily unravelled), but knew only too well the consequences of allowing things to go too far. If a girl became pregnant she would be drummed out of society, lose her chance of catching a good husband, and unless her family took her in, would have to fend for herself and her baby. This knowledge, it seemed, was quite an effective contraceptive.

Bed-courtship was normally confined to the labouring classes, and not to devout intellectuals like the George family, but Lloyd George, never one to let class considerations stand in the way of an exciting encounter, extended his experience of the world in this way at least once. In company with a Porthmadoc friend, Moses Roberts, he attended a Pentecostal dance at which they were ‘sorely tempted by two Irish girls’.⁴ Caru gwely followed, and his studies were forgotten for one night at least.

Betsy, Polly and Uncle Lloyd would have been aghast at such behaviour. Lloyd George kept them firmly in the dark, but they were still concerned at the degree of freedom he was enjoying. He had begun to forget the strict ways of home, and one Sunday was enjoying himself digging in the garden when his mother gave him a sound telling-off, shocked at the sight of him breaking the Sabbath. She had good reason to be worried: her son was not growing up to be a faithful Disciple of Christ at all.

Taking pains to avoid Uncle Lloyd’s disapproval was something of a George family habit. Lloyd George and William had to find plausible excuses even to go and hear a good sermon in another chapel, and no grumbling at the three walks to Capel Ucha on a Sunday was tolerated, even after a hard week’s work. Uncle Lloyd’s reprimands were mild, and he never forced his family to conform to his views, but they never forgot how much they owed him, and were loath to disappoint him. But now Lloyd George was free for six days a week to ignore the rules and indulge his fancy. Away from the moral influence of Uncle Lloyd he explored his new environment to the utmost. In Porthmadoc he found a heady combination of work, politics and sex.

Lloyd George’s first priority, even as a sixteen-year-old, was his work. His uncle had hung a portrait of Abraham Lincoln above the fireplace in Highgate to inspire the young boy, who never forgot the story of the self-taught lawyer who had by his own endeavours become President of the United States. It took rare confidence for a village boy in Llanystumdwy to believe that he too was capable of such a feat. Having decided that the law was to be the starting point for his career, he worked diligently, and after persuading Randall Casson to take him on as an articled clerk, the next hurdle was to pass his intermediate law examination. He received little support for his studies from the firm, apart from access to law books and periodicals, but Uncle Lloyd devised a rigorous programme for both him and William, who had passed his preliminary examination in 1880. With typical thoroughness, Lloyd George rejected the easy option of cramming just enough information to scrape through from a primer in favour of reading texts from cover to cover. Every book, every chapter, even note-texts and footnotes were read, and notes taken.

Uncle Lloyd was able to supervise his nephew’s studies more closely after the family left Highgate and took up residence in Criccieth in 1880. Even though the move brought them only a mile closer to Porthmadoc, it was no longer deemed necessary for Lloyd George to lodge near the office, and he began to walk the ten-mile daily round trip from Criccieth. He undoubtedly benefited from the extra discipline that Uncle Lloyd imposed on his studies. By 1881 he felt ready to take his next examination, and travelled to London where it was held. He felt the weight of expectation on his shoulders as he recorded his feelings after the exam: ‘There has been a mixture of hope and fear—hope predominating. I must now abide the result. If the verdict be adverse, I scarcely know what to do—to face friends and others who are so sanguine and seem to have no doubt about the result will be terrible. I can scarcely conceive really the consequences of an adverse verdict. I will be disgraced—lowered in the estimation of my friends and gloated over by mine enemies.’⁵

While he waited anxiously in London for the result he took the opportunity to see the sights, visiting Madame Tussaud’s and the Law Courts. With great excitement he went to Charing Cross station to see for himself the new phenomenon of electric light, noting that it was ‘a sort of pale blue—melancholy—but unquestionably stronger than gas’. Later, he was contemplating the statue of Demosthenes in the British Museum when to his surprise he was hailed by Mr Lloyd, the Tremadoc parson. But the highlight of the trip was to be his first visit to the House of Commons:

Sat 12 Nov. Went to the Houses of Parliament—very much disappointed with them. Grand buildings outside but inside they are crabbed, small and suffocating, especially House of Commons. I will not say but that I eyed the assembly in a spirit similar to that in which William the Conqueror eyed England on his visit to Edward the Confessor as the region of his future domain. Oh, vanity.⁶

Even as he took the next step towards a career in law, the young David Lloyd George was regarding the House of Commons as his ‘region of future domain’.

There was no inherent contradiction between Lloyd George’s pursuit of a law qualification and his desire, ultimately, to make his name in politics. MPs were not paid a salary until 1911, so it was very difficult for someone without money to enter Parliament. An aspiring politician needed either a private income or a profession that was flexible enough to combine with a parliamentary career. Law was ideal, and men like Herbert Asquith, Edward Carson and Rufus Isaacs had all used it as a stepping-stone to a career in public life.

It was necessary to have an ongoing source of income when in fulltime politics, and it seems that Lloyd George had a plan from the very beginning. He needed training within an established law firm, and Breese, Jones & Casson fitted the bill perfectly, but he never seriously considered staying with the firm beyond the initial five years of his articles. After he had passed his final examinations as well, to become a fully-qualified solicitor in 1884, Randall Casson would ask him to supervise the firm’s new Dolgellau office. It was a good offer, but Lloyd George was impatient to be his own master.⁷ He left the firm and set up on his own, working from the back room of the family home in Criccieth. His plan was neat and unashamedly self-serving. Randall Casson had taken William George on as an articled clerk, and Lloyd George only had to wait until William too was qualified before his brother could join his own firm and take over the donkeywork. In the meantime, while he built up the practice, he concentrated on the real love of his life, and the only mistress to whom he was completely faithful: politics.

David Lloyd George came to believe very early in life that he was destined for a career in politics. There was no sudden moment of realisation: politics was in his nature, and he was raised to believe that public life was the highest possible calling for a man of talent—apart from religion, which for him was never a serious option. Richard Lloyd encouraged his ambition, and introduced him at an early age to political debate to encourage his confidence and independence of mind. There was always plenty of debate around the workshop in Llanystumdwy, and there was also scope for extending Lloyd George’s education at the ‘Village Parliament’, a debating society that met in the smithy to discuss religious and philosophical topics, providing an intellectual outlet for the working men of Llanystumdwy. Highgate too was not a typical village cottage, in that practically every periodical published in Wales, some twenty-eight of them, was delivered to its door. In this way the young Lloyd George absorbed the issues of the day, and although he lived in a remote part of North Wales, he was connected to the debates and topics of the wider world by a chain of ideas.

Lloyd George’s upbringing, his uncle’s political views and his nonconformist background all made him a natural Liberal, but in Porthmadoc he came into contact for the first time with radical ideas such as the need for social reform and the disestablishment of the Church in Wales. He found a mentor in John Roberts, a prominent member of the Porthmadoc Baptist community who often held political debates in his candle-making workshop. In his diary Lloyd George described his new friend as ‘a socialist and an out and out one’,⁸ and Roberts held views that went far beyond the accepted orthodoxy of the Liberal Party. He was a fierce opponent of the extravagance of the upper classes, especially the royal family, and spoke passionately about justice for the poorer people in society.⁹

This was socially and politically risky. There had been a time when the Calvinistic Methodists, the largest group of nonconformists, had mostly supported the Conservative Party, which chimed with their belief in self-reliance, independence from the state and individual determination. Although their unease at the widening division in Wales between the landlords and the working classes had eventually aligned them with the Liberal Party, they strongly disapproved of its more radical fringes. When the young Lloyd George found himself at the heart of a group of radicals in Porthmadoc, he risked alienating the Welsh-speaking chapel-goers who would be his natural political support base.

Nevertheless, he put his toe in the water by joining the Liberal campaign in Criccieth during the general election of March 1880. He was put to work checking the register of voters, which in view of his legal apprenticeship he was well qualified to do. Nationally, the election resulted in a victory for the Liberals under William Gladstone.* The Liberal Party won all but four seats in Wales, including Caernarvon Boroughs, the constituency that included Criccieth, where Watkin Williams defeated George Douglas-Pennant, Lord Penrhyn’s son, who had captured it for the Conservatives in 1874.

Later that year, as he gained confidence in his political views, Lloyd George tried his hand at journalism. The general election was followed in December by a by-election in Caernarvonshire, caused by the appointment of Watkin Williams as a High Court judge, which meant he had to resign his seat as an MP. Using the pseudonym ‘Brutus’, Lloyd George sent an article to the North Wales Express. His subject was the Tory Party, soon to undergo a change of leadership from Disraeli to Lord Salisbury, and much to his delight it was published on 5 November. He was sufficiently encouraged to write a second piece, this time a response to an address by the Tory by-election candidate, his old Llanystumdwy adversary Hugh Ellis-Nanney. This too was published, albeit with one particularly aggressive passage omitted. Over the next few weeks ‘Brutus’ appeared several times in the press, and Lloyd George was even able to see his ‘Address to the Electors’ printed in large characters on North Wales Express posters around the town.

Lloyd George wrote on both local and national issues with precocious boldness. His literary style was slightly awkward and over-elaborate, mimicking the convoluted syntax and long words of the worthy but antiquated books in the Highgate library. Nevertheless, English was his second language, a language for reading and writing, but not for everyday speaking, and it was an extraordinary achievement for him to write so fluently in what was to all intents and purposes a foreign language.

On 1 December 1880 Lloyd George savoured his second electoral victory of the year as the Liberal candidate, William Rathbone, defeated Ellis-Nanney, although with a reduced majority. Still, victory was sweet, and Brutus was content.

Between law, chapel and politics, the waking hours of the young Lloyd George were filled to bursting. There was always time for a little recreation, though, and his favourite hobby was flirtation. He had grown to an average height for his place and time, around five feet five inches, but he had a good, upright figure, and he had inherited the striking looks of his father. He emphasised these by growing a dashing moustache and by taking great care of his clothes and general appearance. His reputation as a local genius and ‘young man on the make’ also made it easy for him to attract the attentions of young ladies. The three Sunday services at Capel Ucha and frequent evening meetings during the week were perfect opportunities for him to practise his flirting skills on local girls, and he made the most of his chances.

At first, with the burden of fulfilling his uncle’s expectations weighing heavily on his shoulders, Lloyd George professed himself to be intent on behaving decorously, but before long he had begun his first relationship with a young Baptist girl. Jennie Evans, one of the prettiest girls in the area, was a friend of Polly’s. A flirtatious, teasing relationship developed between her and the teenage Lloyd George, and their encounters were faithfully recorded in his diary: ‘A very lively singing meeting…Sitting in the middle of girls—in the arm of Jennie ha-ha!’¹⁰

Lloyd George was very conscious of the danger of becoming distracted from his work. He was also being watched over by every member of his family, even his younger brother, who reproved him for signs of ‘fast behaviour’, although William’s words mostly fell on deaf ears:

Good singing meeting. Went up with Jennie about 5. I was rather dry with her tonight for many reasons. I was determined to be so, because if I went on to court her as I have done I would soon fall in love with her and really I have gone further than I thought…Jennie has been flirting with other boys. I must stick to my lessons. It was not right for me to carry on flirting with her, as WG my brother says. All the same I mean to carry on with her. I am a fool!¹¹

The relationship continued, but by March 1880, when he had just turned seventeen, his family’s concerns had begun to take effect:

Fri. 26. Dull…To Caerdyni. Annie & Jennie came there. I went to Criccieth with John. Saw the girls afterwards. Was reserved with Jennie. I want to get rid of her—we are being talked about. Uncle knows it this long time!

Mon 29. Fine…Jennie here; avoided her…It costs me some trouble to get rid of that girl, but in flirting with her, I have everything to lose and nothing to win. This shall be regarded as proof of my pluck. If I cannot resist this, how do I expect to gain other things, which require a good deal more determination. She attempted to tease me by flirting with others—bastards.¹²

He was not able to keep from flirting for long. His brother’s counsel had had no effect whatsoever, and soon Uncle Lloyd and Polly pitched in as well. On 15 June he was on the receiving end of a stern talk from Uncle Lloyd, who ‘told me I was becoming the town talk, that I must mend my ways in this matter at least, or else it would ruin my chances of success’.¹³ Two days later he wrote with great seriousness in his diary:

My sister gave it me rather solemnly for flirting with Jennie etc. Indeed I am rather seriously disposed to give up these dealings—this I know—that the realization of my prospects, my dreams, my longings for success are very scant indeed unless I am determined to give up what without mistake are the germs of a ‘fast life’. Be staunch and bold and play the man. What is life good for unless some success, some reputable notoriety be obtained—the idea of living for the sake of living is almost unbearable—it is unworthy of such a superior being as man.¹⁴

Throughout the summer and autumn of 1880 Lloyd George was caught between the attractions of flirting with Jennie and his family’s disapproval. Occasionally the latter won, and he was particularly indignant when his good behaviour was not acknowledged: ‘Out with John Caerdyni—on top of Dinas. Splendid view. Feel quite as happy without being troubled as to whereabouts of any girls, though I have not courted with any of them. On good terms with all. It is when I have occasional fits of total abstention from girls that I am sometimes attacked!!’¹⁵

This does not sound as if he means to make his ‘occasional fits of total abstention’ more permanent, and his Christmas Day diary entry in 1880 reveals that he was back to his old ways: ‘In the afternoon went with a gang of girls towards Llanystumdwy. I had many kisses on the road, especially of Jennie. Such a fool I am! At 6 went to a Literary Meeting here—a wretched affair if I had not had a lot of girls by my side.’¹⁶

Finally, in his diary entry of 31 December, he acknowledges that he has lost the fight: ‘To my lasting shame be it said—Love can fairly record me amongst its infatuated, brain-skinned devotees.’¹⁷

Perhaps Lloyd George thought his genius invincible, but his family were growing ever more concerned that he was being distracted by his flirting. Having failed to get him to stop seeing Jennie by direct appeal, the shrewd Polly resorted to more subtle tactics. She began to widen the circle of his female acquaintance by bringing more friends home. She organised little trips: a walk to a local beauty spot, or after-service singing sessions at which teenage boys and girls could mix. Faced with a greater choice of companions, Lloyd George concluded that he should not get so serious with Jennie. He began to take his evening walks with several different girls, and eventually the references in his diary to Jennie disappear entirely.*

The family’s move from Llanystumdwy to Criccieth in 1880 had been prompted by a number of factors: Uncle Lloyd’s health broke at the age of forty-five, and he was not strong enough to keep up his shoemaking as well as his preaching. His congregation were so anxious not to lose him prematurely that they arranged for him to have Morvin House, a small terraced house in the shadow of Criccieth Castle, at a peppercorn rent, enabling him to retire from his daily grind. At the time, it was not thought likely that he would ever recover his strength, a perfectly reasonable expectation given the premature deaths of his father, Dafydd, aged thirty-nine, and his brother-in-law William, aged forty-four. In the event, after a few years of ill-health he recovered, and lived to the age of eighty-two.

The logic of the move was inescapable. Although modest, Morvin House offered far more space and privacy than the cramped rooms at Highgate. Betsy was struggling to make ends meet, and in addition she had to find £180 (£14,965 in today’s money) to pay for her younger son’s articles. Practical considerations aside, the whole family was aware of the rumours of ‘fast living’ surrounding Lloyd George, and it would suit very well to have him back home, where they could keep an eye on him. In May the family packed up its possessions, including the precious collection of books, Betsy and Lloyd George dug up their favourite plants from the garden, and they moved a mile down the road to Criccieth. They left Llanystumdwy in a positive frame of mind, their financial worries eased for the present. Lloyd George wrote in his diary: ‘Left Llanystumdwy without one feeling of regret, remorse nor longing.’¹⁸

But the move to Criccieth was to herald their bleakest years as a family, and their financial difficulties, far from being over, were about to get much worse. Disaster struck when the building society in which Betsy had invested her capital collapsed, taking her remaining savings with it.* The family was left with virtually no capital, and little income beyond the minimal earnings of the young Lloyd George on which to live.

For proud people like Betsy and Richard, this was a bitter blow. They had survived many hardships without asking for help, but this time there was simply no option. Richard was forced to swallow his pride and ask a neighbour to lend him some money, but these occasional ‘loans’ barely kept the family afloat. Richard Lloyd mended and re-mended Polly and Betsy’s shoes, and Lloyd George records in his diary how Polly was unable to attend a festival in Caernarvon for want of the four-shilling fare until he managed to scrape it together for her. Betsy’s health suffered under the strain, and Lloyd George helped care for her as best he could while keeping up his punishing schedule of studying. In 1883 he recorded in his diary: ‘Mother had a very bad attack of asthma this morning prevented my going to my books until between 10 and 11. Reading few pages of Middleton’s Settled Estates & Statutes had to get candle at 7 tho’ I had my head out through the garret window.’¹⁹

Finally, desperate to bring in a little money, it was decided that they would offer room and board at Morvin House to tourists during the summer months. This seemed like an indignity to Lloyd George, conscious of his status as a budding lawyer and more mindful of his own comfort than his siblings, but in the end he had to agree to the inconvenience, and he was a little mollified when he discovered that one of their early visitors was H. Rider Haggard, the author of King Solomon’s Mines.

While Polly and Betsy struggled to keep house and home together, Lloyd George’s mind was on other things. He had been raised by one of the best pulpit speakers in the district, and under Uncle Lloyd’s tutelage he began to speak at Baptist services in the area, sometimes even preaching. He was keen to practise his speaking skills: he needed to become a good public speaker if he was to fulfil his dreams of a political career. Among the chapels he visited regularly was that in Penmachno, near the famous beauty spot of Betws-y-Coed. Unbeknownst to his family, he had a second motive for his frequent visits there, for among the congregation was a young girl called Kate Jones.

During the summer of 1882 Lloyd George walked the twenty miles to Penmachno a good deal more frequently than was strictly necessary. Kate, then aged eighteen, lived with her parents in a house called Glasgwm Hall. Lloyd George would have had plenty of opportunities to see her, for her father was an active Liberal and would become the first Liberal member of the new Caernarvonshire County Council when it was formed in 1889. Politics and religion combined to bring the two young people together, and soon Lloyd George was smitten. This time it was no mere flirtation. He was only nineteen and yet, without his family to intervene to keep things light, he seemed serious enough about Kate to consider marriage for the first time. The young girl was certainly a ‘catch’: she was from a respectable family and from the same Liberal, Baptist stock as Lloyd George himself. Best of all, she lived at a distance from Criccieth, and for a while was blissfully unaware of his reputation as the town flirt. Her innocence in that respect could not possibly last. However well he played the part of faithful suitor, in a close-knit society, people talked. The seriousness of his love did not extend to fidelity—it never would—and he was simultaneously courting a girl in Porthmadoc. This second affair was not significant enough for him to record it in his diary, but relying on geographic distance alone to keep his two girlfriends in ignorance of each other was bound to end badly, and the news of Lloyd George’s other girlfriend soon reached Kate.

This might not necessarily have been a terminal blow to the relationship, except that at the same time, a rival suitor came on the scene. The most eligible bachelor in Penmachno, the local doctor, Michael Williams—old enough to be established, but not too old to court an eighteen-year-old—took a shine to Kate. She was torn between the two for a while, and continued to see Lloyd George whenever he could arrange to speak in chapel. He in turn became more ardent in his suit, and wrote her long letters to impress her with his brilliance. Unfortunately, these backfired spectacularly, as Kate found his thoughts to be ‘far too independent’ for her liking. In November 1882 she gave in to her parents, who preferred their neighbour and friend to the struggling young lawyer from Criccieth, and accepted Williams’ proposal. She wrote to Lloyd George to tell him of her engagement and in his diary he recorded his stoic acceptance: ‘Well—I am not sorry. I think it is better she should stick to a man who is in a position to give her a comfortable position and not to an unthinking stripling of 19.’²⁰

The reasonableness of her decision was obvious, and Lloyd George could see that she had had a better offer. But he had regarded himself as a serious contender for her hand, much more than a casual sweetheart. Whether this stemmed from genuine love or from the competition posed by his rival, we shall never know. The rather glum tone of his diary would suggest the former, and shortly after Kate’s engagement was announced he wrote her some verses. These prove that the world of politics did not rob the world of poetry of its brightest flame, but they do smack of true feeling:

I’m told there’s so bright a land

Beyond this night of sores

That neither pain nor cruel bond

Shall trample its happy shores.

If this be true—God grant it be—

Where no souls shall part

Fond heart from fond heart—

That is the world for you and me.²¹

Lloyd George was not trying to win Kate back, but he needed to express his feelings. He consoled himself with recording in his diary that Kate had let slip to a mutual friend, ‘Lord knows I prefer [Lloyd George] to anyone I have ever been with.’ But however much she might have liked Lloyd George, she stuck to her decision, and married Dr Williams in February 1883.

Deeply held feelings at the age of nineteen are often short-lived, and by the time of the wedding Lloyd George had recovered his sense of humour: ‘John Roberts only just come home from Penmachno—Brought me a piece of wedding cake Dr and Mrs Williams left with Miss Vaughan by Miss Jones to give me!!!’²²

His affair with Kate had inspired Lloyd George to think of marriage for the first time, and had given him bitter experience of losing to a rival in love. It also taught him that he needed to be well established in his career before he could approach a girl with serious intentions, and also perhaps made him determined never again to lose a girl because of the intervention of her parents. These were all valuable lessons which were not forgotten.

Thus far, Lloyd George’s fledgling relationships had ended before he became fully entangled, but the next one was different. It was to have serious repercussions, nearly derailing his later courtship of Maggie Owen and laying down a lifetime’s habit of sailing close to the wind in matters of the heart. This time the object of his affections was a dark-eyed brunette called Lizzie Jones.

Young people in rural Wales were encouraged to meet and mingle in chapel. In this way they could get to know their future spouses under the protective gaze of the chapel elders, avoiding too much intimacy and the social and ideological complications of an inter-denomina-tional marriage. This was not just a means of keeping affairs respectable and young girls out of trouble: interdenominational rivalry ran high, and a cross-chapel marriage was socially troublesome. For nonconformists like Lloyd George and his family, chapel membership was a serious, lifelong commitment. The congregation acted as an extended family and an early form of social services, with each chapel looking after its own sick and elderly and members clubbing together to meet shared expenses. Each chapel had its own ceremony to accept new members and bind them for life, and the Calvinistic Methodists and other denominations took their ‘cwrdd derbyn’ (confirmation service) very seriously indeed. Members were expected to play a part in the chapel community, attend services faithfully and pay a subscription each week to meet expenses. Interdenominational, even same-denomination, inter-chapel rivalry meant that relationships that crossed the boundaries were heavily discouraged.

This caused practical difficulties within the broader community. How could married partners belong to different congregations when membership was, in effect, a subscription to a large family? Husbands and wives would have to inhabit different social circles. In which faith would children be raised, and what about the financial contribution that families were expected to make? They could hardly afford to pay two. It was just not feasible. Admittedly, marrying into a different nonconformist denomination was better than marrying Church, but only just.

It was better to make sure that young people married within their own faith, and it was thus hardly surprising that Lloyd George should have first set eyes on Lizzie Jones in chapel. In fact, the first thing that attracted him to her was not her appearance, but her rich contralto voice. He himself was developing a pleasant tenor voice, and an interest in attending local singing festivals quickly followed his discovery that they were good places to meet young ladies. In 1883, just as he was recovering from his disappointing affair with Kate, he began to notice an attractive addition to the voices of the choir in chapel, and quickly matched it to the sparkling brown eyes of Lizzie Jones. She was a talented singer in a community of good singers, and had ambitions to train professionally as an opera singer. Lizzie was in demand to perform at events and eisteddfodau throughout Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire. This made her less available, and Lloyd George considerably keener:

Sun 25 Nov. A miserable Sunday in all respects for me…My feet wet all day owing to leaky shoes…L. went to Beddgelert on Friday to sing in an Entertainment there and in spite of my earnest request that she would not go, but the little Jezebel has stayed there over Sunday which has given me unutterable pain throughout the day. In earnest I do not know what to do with the girl. I wish to God I had never meddled with her, but I am afraid it is too late now. She has acquired a wonderful mastery over my idiot-heart.²³

For once in his life, Lloyd George had met his equal in flirtation. Lizzie seems to have led him a merry dance through the spring of 1884, and in June he records his frustration at not being able to make progress with her: ‘I wish to God she would keep away altogether. I might feel it, keenly perhaps, for a while, but I’d sooner get over it by not seeing her at all than by being compelled, as I am now, to see her and hear her voice twice a week.’²⁴

A few days later came another tantalising encounter: ‘Lizzie Jones sang some song with the burden “Oh, where is my boy tonight?” When she sang the last line, “I love him still he knows”—she gave me a glance.’²⁵

Her singing talent was clearly matched by a talent for teasing, and Lloyd George was most willing to play the game. Their liaison was cut short when Lizzie came down with diphtheria and was put in isolation. Even this did not deter Lloyd George, and although he was squeamish throughout his life when it came to illness, he insisted on visiting her sickbed. This gave the local gossips a field day, especially when Lloyd George suffered a sore throat shortly afterwards:

March 23rd 1885: After dinner strolling about the garden with Eliza Caerdyni [his cousin, daughter of Betsy’s sister Elin]—she makes excellent company, an agreeable girl; if anything, rather too much of a puritan. She told me how Mrs Owen Mynydd Ednyfed had been telling her that I got my sore throat from my ‘cariad’ [sweetheart]. Blast these malicious gossips.²⁶

Alas for Lloyd George, this particular ‘malicious gossip’ was to become his mother-in-law, but not before he had had to work hard to mend his reputation.

Soon afterwards Lizzie ended the relationship, leaving Lloyd George wounded but philosophical. She went on to marry a schoolmaster called Lloyd Williams and, as we shall see, was to make one last, devastating, appearance in Lloyd George’s life a few years later. After they parted on this occasion, he consoled himself again with the thought that he was better off without her: ‘it would cost between £200 & £300 to train in the Royal Academy of Music…It is not likely that I shall be in a position to do this for her for many a year yet.’²⁷

Lloyd George richly enjoyed his flirtations. He recorded every encounter and played the game with relish, but he also felt genuine affection for each girl. He was not just playing the field; quite the opposite. His diaries reveal a young man who despite good intentions fell in love rather too easily. He would become overwhelmed by his emotions, but thus far at least they ran pretty shallow. He got over each lost love quickly, and consoled himself with reasons why it would not have worked out before moving on to the next with equal sincerity.

By now Polly was seriously worried. Not only was Lloyd George proving himself to be highly resourceful in escaping the family’s supervision, but he also seemed to catch the eye of every pretty girl in the district. The family at Morvin House was only too aware that their hopes and all Lloyd George’s dreams of greatness could be utterly derailed if he got a girl pregnant. Not even Richard Lloyd could save his reputation then. A change of approach was called for. Polly decided that rather than try to hold back the tide, she would find him a suitable girlfriend and encourage him to settle down. Suitable meant a chapel girl, and that, she trusted, would keep him out of the worst kind of trouble. In this operation Polly was to show herself to be the equal of her brother in resourcefulness.

*The outcome was a political shock, since the election had been called early in order to deliver a renewed mandate for the Conservatives. The final result was Liberals 350, Conservatives 245, Home Rulers (Irish Nationalists) fifty-seven.

*Jennie remained in Criccieth until her death in 1930. She never married, and was generally thought to have pitched her expectations too high to be satisfied with her local suitors.

*Accounts differ as to when this happened. There is a suggestion that it was this that prompted Polly’s return from Criccieth in the mid-1870s, but since Betsy managed to pay a considerable sum to cover her sons’ articles, it is more likely that it was after 1882, a period when there is more evidence that the family were in financial difficulties. By 1892 they were on a stronger financial footing, and William George was able to build a substantial house, Garthcelyn, in Criccieth for himself, his mother, his uncle and sister.

4 Maggie Owen

POLLY SET ABOUT HER CAMPAIGN immediately and with energy by arranging evening singing sessions in chapel for the younger members, social events that the elders could not object to, and inviting her friends to call at Morvin House. It required more planning to extend her brother’s social circle to include girls from other chapels, since there were fewer excuses for getting together outside the chapel walls. Polly therefore arranged trips to local places of interest along the coast, and invited young people from neighbouring chapels to make up the numbers. One such outing took place on 13 July 1885, when she organised a day trip by steamer to Bardsey Island, two miles west of the tip of the Llyŷn Peninsula. Sixteen young men and women left Criccieth that morning in an excitable state, looking forward to spending a day together without the constant, spirit-dampening supervision of the chapel authorities. They were expecting a day of sunshine, picnicking and perhaps some mild flirting, but for two of them at least it was to be a life-changing adventure.

Bardsey was a well-known beauty spot, but local tradition also maintained that 20,000 saints or pilgrims were buried on the island. In the sixth century St Cadfan began to build a monastery there, and the island later hosted an Augustinian abbey whose ruins are still to be seen. Such was Bardsey’s spiritual significance in the early Middle Ages that three pilgrimages to it were the equivalent of one to Rome. Even the most puritanical chapel elders could not object to a day trip to such a holy spot. The Criccieth party left Porthmadoc aboard the steamer Snowdon, and on arrival they soon split up into groups of two or three, clambering up the steep slopes to find sunny spots to eat their picnic lunches. Lloyd George found himself in a group of three with Polly and one of her friends. In his diary entry for the day he records how much he enjoyed the company of a certain Miss Owen: ‘I was with Miss Owen, Mynydd Ednyfed, mostly. MEG (my sister) with us—Enjoyed myself immensely.’¹ Polly had scored a bull’s-eye.

Margaret Owen, known as Maggie, was the only child of Mr and Mrs Owen of Mynydd Ednyfed (Mount Ednyfed) farm. She was eighteen years old, and had returned to Criccieth from Dolgellau, where she had been attending Dr Williams’ boarding school for young ladies. It was highly unusual for a girl to be educated beyond the age of fourteen, and the Owens’ decision to send Maggie away to finish her instruction was a clear signal of their devotion, as well as a sign that they wanted the best in life for her. Lloyd George had noted her in his diary before—he commented on virtually all the girls he bumped into during the course of his day—but not in a way that suggested any particular attraction. In June 1884 he commented that Maggie Owen was ‘a sensible girl without fuss or affectation about her’. The following spring there was another reference: ‘May 1885 [Criccieth Debating Society soir=e] A really 1st class affair—the victualling part as excellent as the entertainment—playing forfeits and the like games until 11.30. About 30 present. Took Maggie Owen home a short way—her mother waiting for her in some house.’²

It was not typical of Lloyd George to take girls home the short way, but Mrs Owen was one step ahead of any glad-eyed youth, and was determined to make sure that her daughter got home promptly. By the time he had encountered Maggie Owen a few more times he noted that she ‘Seems to be a jollier girl as you get on with her.’³

Maggie Owen appeared not really to be the kind of girl to catch Lloyd George’s eye. She was not flirtatious or showy, but she had a grace and a quiet confidence that set her apart. She was pretty, with lively blue eyes, but was not considered a beauty so much as a good catch, and she had at least two other serious suitors in Criccieth. But she had been absent during Lloyd George’s adolescence, and was not as familiar to him as the girls he had grown up with. She now appeared in his life with all the allure of novelty just as he was getting over Lizzie Jones. As they wandered around Bardsey Island together, a mutual attraction grew between them.

On the face of it, there were major obstacles to a match between Lloyd George and Maggie Owen. For a start, she was far from ideal in Uncle Lloyd’s eyes for the simple reason that she was a Calvinistic Methodist. Indeed, Maggie’s family was almost as far removed from the Lloyds socially as was possible within the narrow confines of a small town like Criccieth. For their part, the Owens would have equally strong reasons to rule out Lloyd George as a potential match for their daughter.

Richard Owen, Maggie’s father, was a well-to-do farmer and a pillar of the Calvinistic Methodist community of Capel Mawr (Great Chapel) in Criccieth. As the prosperous proprietor of the hundred-acre Mynydd Ednyfed farm he was wealthy enough to invest some capital in the Porthmadoc fleet, to educate his daughter privately, and on his retirement in 1891 to build a pair of fine semi-detached stone houses looking out over Criccieth bay. He was not a member of the landowning class—he was a nonconformist, and he and his family spoke Welsh as their first language—but he was economically in a different class to the Lloyds, and indeed to most of the inhabitants of Criccieth. When he died he left an estate of £1,558.2s.6d (£131,000 in today’s currency) to his wife. Not without reason, Richard Owen and his wife considered themselves to be a cut above the Lloyds and the Georges.

Richard Owen could trace his ancestry back to Owen, the twelfthcentury Prince of Gwynedd. The power and the land belonging to this class had long since been superseded, but pride remained. Richard Owen might work for a living, but he took his place at the top of Criccieth society, with the natural authority of those born to rule. He was a strong, well-built man even by the standards of the mountain farmers of Llyŷn, and his reputation for physical feats was matched by respect for his sound judgement. He spoke slowly, was not easily roused to anger, and had deep-set eyes in a calm, serene face. His physical courage was legendary: he had once been charged by a bull, but had stopped it in its tracks by grasping it by the horns. This and other examples of his strength had earned him the respect of the whole community. He was often asked to adjudicate in disputes between his neighbours, some of whom had known him for decades yet still addressed him as ‘Mr Owen’. On market days he had his own wooden bench on the green in Criccieth that no one dared sit on unless by his invitation.

Richard’s local status was further enhanced by his election as head deacon of Capel Mawr, where he sat in authority next only to the Rev. Jones. The deacons together with the minister visited the sick, educated the young, and led and encouraged the faithful. They were also responsible for judging and punishing any member who strayed. Their ultimate sanction was to cast out a member from the congregation, and in so doing take away the sinner’s place in society. It followed that deacons were expected to lead exemplary lives themselves, and they carried great moral and social authority. As head deacon of Capel Mawr, Richard Owen would sit in judgement on any member of chapel who married out of the faith. For his own daughter to do so would humiliate him in the most public way possible.

Naturally enough, Richard had chosen his own bride from another ancient Welsh family: Mary Jones of Tyddyn Mawr could trace her ancestry to the tenth-century South Welsh King Hywel Dda, whose laws set the pattern of Welsh society for centuries. Mary Jones was typical of the strong-willed Welsh ‘mam’. She was a slightly-built woman whose husband towered over her, but she was as feisty as he was placid, and bustled from one task to the next with indefatigable energy. In her youth she was famous throughout the district as a fine horsewoman, and she was also renowned for her ferocious rages. When she was roused her diminutive frame would shake with anger and her flashing eyes would signal danger as she unleashed a ‘veritable Niagara of indomitable force’, according to her grandson Dick.⁴ Even when she was calm, her pursed lips and sharp gaze warned anyone nearby not to cross her, and she was quick to judge those who failed to live up to her high standards. Mary too was conscious of the natural dignity of her ancestry, and despite the fact that lack of education meant that she was unable to write she was much in demand as chairman and secretary of local societies.

Mynydd Ednyfed occupied a hundred acres of land high on the mountain behind the town of Criccieth, and it was there, on 4 November 1866, that Richard and Mary’s only child was born. Richard was a loving, indulgent father who doted on Maggie from the very first. Mary too demanded only the best for her daughter. Country people know that the most valuable stock comes from pure bloodlines, and Richard and Mary Owen, both proud of their noble ancestry, passed a double dose of pride to their daughter. Indeed, ancestry left its physical mark on Maggie, who was born with ‘bys yr Eifion’ (Eifion’s finger)—a crooked little finger on her right hand that, tradition has it, marks those descended from a fourteenth-century knight called Hywel y Fwyall (Howell of the Axe), whose crooked finger gave him a strong grip which helped to make him the best axeman in Wales. At least one member of each generation of Richard Owen’s family bore the telltale finger, and Maggie delighted in bearing the physical mark of her nobility. She was as Welsh as the hills on which she was born.

Maggie had a happy, easy-going nature. She spent her childhood in and around Criccieth, and occasionally caught sight of the young Lloyd George, dressed in his knickerbockers, walking alongside Betsy and Uncle Lloyd on their frequent journeys to and from Capel Ucha.

Richard Owen, along with most of the Calvinistic Methodists, was a supporter of the Liberal Party, which had succeeded in becoming the party of the Welsh nonconformists in their battle for religious recognition (through disestablishment) and equality. Nonconformists had suffered considerable persecution by agents of Church and state in the previous century, and the widening social gap between rich landowners and struggling tenant farmers and miners increased the alienation between the wealthy English establishment and the Welsh dissenting middle and working classes. The spiritual gulf between Church and Chapel, and the cultural barrier between English—and Welsh-speakers, made any politician who challenged the Tory establishment a natural friend to the nonconformist.

1885 and 1886 were turbulent years politically. In 1885 the Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, resigned after losing a crucial vote in the House of Commons. The Tory Lord Salisbury took over as caretaker PM, but after Parliament rose in August, electioneering began in earnest, and went on until an election was eventually called at the end of November. By then Lloyd George had stepped up his political activities, was becoming a regular speaker at political meetings, was even being hailed by some activists as a future MP. The election in November/December, which resulted in a minority Tory administration led by Salisbury, was followed by a split in the Liberal Party between supporters of Gladstone’s ‘Home Rule’ policy in Ireland and those of Joseph Chamberlain’s New Radical Union with its ‘unauthorised programme’ of federalism as the solution to the Irish problem. Wales remained staunchly behind Gladstone, who with his Welsh wife and family base in Hawarden in North Wales rightly considered the Principality to be a stronghold. Following the defeat of Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in Parliament in June 1886, a second election followed in July, in which Gladstone won thirty out of the thirtyfour Welsh seats, although elsewhere he did not do so well. With the Liberal Party divided, Salisbury held on to office, shored up by an alliance with Chamberlain and the Irish national MPs. It was to be the beginning of a rift in the Liberal Party between the moderate mainstream and the radicals.

In Wales, moderate men like Richard Owen wanted religious freedom and the right to earn a fair living on the land. He was a mainstream Liberal, naturally conservative, and with no time for those on the more radical fringes of his party who talked of social reform, the separation of the Church in Wales from the state, and even of Home Rule for Wales. David Lloyd George was a natural radical who had expressed admiration for Chamberlain, but the prevailing political wind in Wales carried him into the Gladstonian camp.

Richard and Mary Owen wanted Maggie to marry a Calvinistic Methodist, preferably a Liberal with conventional views, who was well established in life and able to offer her a comfortable future. From the elevated perspective of Mynydd Ednyfed, Lloyd George’s prospects did not look good. Before he had even begun to court Maggie, Mr and Mrs Owen regarded him as socially inferior and wholly unsuitable: he was a Baptist, and a political radical who was not yet firmly established in his profession. Worse still, Mrs Owen had her ears pressed well to the ground and regarded him as ‘fast’, a flirt who ‘walked out’ with too many local girls. To the Owens, Lloyd George seemed neither reliable nor respectable. Maggie could not have chosen anyone from her limited circle of acquaintance more likely to raise objections from her parents, and in the summer of 1885 these seemed insuperable. Nevertheless, with the time-honoured inevitability of such situations, the attraction between Lloyd George and Maggie grew with each meeting.

During the weeks following the Bardsey Island trip, Lloyd George took every opportunity to put himself in front of Maggie and her family. He had few excuses to visit Mynydd Ednyfed, but he made use of what little connection he had with Richard Owen’s political activities. At first, Mr Owen accepted Lloyd George’s sudden interest in establishing a Liberal club in Criccieth at face value, but he was no fool and he soon realised that the young man’s visits had more to do with Maggie than with politics. Lloyd George was promptly banned from Mynydd Ednyfed and told, firmly, to leave Miss Owen alone. This served only to increase his interest, but, temporarily defeated, he retired from the field to consider his tactics.

Mr Owen was seriously alarmed: not only did he and his wife disapprove of Lloyd George, they also had the ideal husband for their beloved child already picked out. His name was John Thomas Jones, and he was a deacon at Capel Mawr. To add to his qualifications the thirty-four-year-old Jones was financially well-off, having made a small fortune in Australian goldmines before returning to his native North Wales. He lived in a newly-built, substantial house overlooking Criccieth, and he was the very opposite of ‘fast’. He was rather uncouth and brusque of manner, but that was a minor disadvantage compared to the facts that he was the right denomination and had excellent prospects. The Owens were delighted when he started courting their daughter, but Maggie was not impressed. She resisted all attempts by her parents to persuade her to accept his proposals, and did not even mention his existence to his younger rival until well into their relationship.

Meanwhile, Lloyd George decided that if he could not court Maggie openly, he would take every opportunity of doing so covertly instead. He wrote to her frequently, and they conspired to meet at local social events. The first note from Lloyd George that Maggie kept is dated 30 December 1885, and was addressed respectfully to ‘Dear Miss Owen’:

I enclose tickets for our Societys entertainment. The meeting commences at 7.30 p.m. punctual.

Young ladies need not arrange for any escort home after the meeting, as the Society provides efficient protection for them in that respect!

Kindly recollect this so as to avoid troubling anyone to wait for you from the meeting.

Yours sincerely

D. Lloyd George⁵

The formal tone of the note was perhaps intended to be proof against prying eyes, and belies the clear understanding between them that security on the way home would be provided by one D. Lloyd George, personally.

A week later, Lloyd George’s diary records that he lay in wait for Maggie, hoping for a private meeting: ‘Very glad I waylaid Maggie Owen; induced her to abstain from going to the Seiat [evening service] by showing her by my erratic watch that she was too late, then for a stroll with her up LÔn Fêl.’⁶

Maggie fell for these none-too-subtle tactics several times over the next few weeks, and in turn her quiet charms grew steadily on him:

4 Feb. At 6 p.m. met Maggie Owen by appointment on the Marine Parade. With her until 7. I am getting to be very fond of the girl. There is a combination of good nature, humour and affection about her.⁷

Three days later, Lloyd George confessed to his brother his growing interest in Maggie, with an acknowledgement of the difficulty of courting a Calvinistic Methodist against the wishes of her parents: ‘After dinner with W.G. along Abereistedd and thence to chapel. Mentioned my predicament with regard to love affairs. He does not disapprove.’⁸

With characteristic speed, Lloyd George was falling in love:

9 Feb. At 5.45 attended Burial Board meeting, thence to an appointed rendezvous by 6.30 at Bryn Hir gate to meet Maggie Owen; took her home by round-about way, enjoyed the stroll immensely and made another appointment. It looks as if I were rapidly placing myself in an irretrievable position. Doesn’t matter. I don’t see that any harm will ensue. Left her at 7.45.⁹

He paused to throw a backward glance at the memory of Lizzie Jones only to reassure himself of the superior qualities of his new love:

15 Feb. (After concert) I then waylaid Maggie Owen to take her home. Never felt more acutely than to-night that I am really in deep love with girl. Felt sorry to have to leave her. I have I know gradually got to like her more and more. There’s another thing I have observed in connection with this, that my intercourse with L. rather tended to demoralize my taste; my fresh acquaintance has an entirely different influence. She firmly checks all ribaldry or tendency thereto on my part.¹⁰

Lloyd George was getting serious. Maggie Owen was in a different class to the girls he had flirted with in the past. It was not only her background—Lizzie, for example, was the daughter of the local fishmonger—but also her character. From the outset Maggie set high standards of behaviour, and without making herself a killjoy, seemed to make him behave better in return. She was not a girl to be toyed with or treated badly. Her natural dignity and fixed moral compass demanded respect. In the young Maggie Owen’s ‘checking’ effect on the flirtatious Lloyd George we see the essence of their mature relationship. It was her strength of character too that was in due course to inspire admiration and love throughout Wales and beyond.

By late spring 1886 Lloyd George was committed, announcing in his diary that he had made his choice, but all the evidence suggests that Maggie felt less sure. While she was happy to slip out from Mynydd Ednyfed to meet him in the early days of their courtship, when he pressed his case in earnest she began to have doubts. He continued to waylay her at every opportunity, but he waited nearly a year after the Bardsey Island trip before daring to use an endearment for the first time:

27 June. After making a feint of running for the train, envelope in hand, started via sea-wall and Turnpike, Criccieth, for the hills. M. expecting me. M. asked me what I would tell them at home if they wanted to know where I’d been. I replied: ‘I’d say I’d been to see my sweetheart.’ This is the second time I’ve called her so. She likes it. I am now quite committed.¹¹

Matters came to a head in July when he confided in Polly: ‘Told my sister M.E.G. to-night about M. She is well-pleased and thinks a lot of her, says I may mention the matter [of marriage] to M. shortly but that it would not do to marry for about five years at least.’¹²

Polly could see that a long engagement was the only sensible way forward, given the fact that Lloyd George was far from established in his career, and that his family could not give him any financial help. She would not have been blind to the other obstacles in the way of the young couple, and her advice was perhaps also coloured by the fact that Lloyd George would have to convince not one but two families to agree to the match.

This raises the question, why did Lloyd George’s devout Baptist siblings approve of the interdenominational match? The answer surely lies in the fact that they could see the advantages to their brother. Polly knew Maggie very well, and respected the strength of her character. Lloyd George would need a strong woman as a wife, both to support his limitless ambitions and to keep him in check, and Maggie appeared more than equal to the task. There were clear social advantages to the match: Lloyd George would benefit from his association with the well-to-do Owen family, which might be useful to him in building his law practice. Politically too, Lloyd George could not make a better match. A Baptist politician lacked a natural power base, since there were comparatively few Baptists in the area. A Baptist with no other recommendation would be seen as an outsider by both the church-going Tory voters and by the dominant nonconformist group, the Calvinistic Methodists. By marrying into a prominent Calvinistic Methodist family like the Owens, Lloyd George the future political candidate would be gaining a significant advantage.

Maggie was the catch of the district, and Lloyd George always deserved—and got—the best. It was true that there were issues to resolve before the marriage could take place, but Polly knew her brother supremely well, and never underestimated his determination to get what he wanted. She gently supported his campaign, speaking well of Maggie to those whose objections needed neutralising, encouraging Lloyd George to think of marriage, and keeping Uncle Lloyd out of his way. On the Owens’ side, however, there were no apparent advantages to a relationship between their daughter and Lloyd George. He was not marriage material in their eyes, and they doubted his ability either to support Maggie or to make her happy. On both counts they were eventually to be proved right.

Despite the dark stormclouds on the horizon, Lloyd George felt that all was well as he prepared to take a short trip to London over the August bank holiday weekend in 1886. His absence gave Maggie time to think, and she confided to a friend that she feared Lloyd George would let her down if she gave him her heart, although she confessed that she was very fond of him.¹³ With typical self-confidence, when this reached his ears Lloyd George rejoiced in the second admission without dwelling too much on the first. He regarded Maggie’s fears as a challenge, and he was sure enough of her affection to take the next step, and to propose to her.

Lloyd George chose his moment with care. Maggie had relatives living at Bodfan in Llanwnda, fourteen miles from Criccieth, and at the end of August she went to stay there for a few days. Lloyd George guessed that this would be his best chance of catching her alone, away from the baleful influence of her mother, and he followed with his plan of action worked out. His diary gives the story in detail:

25 Aug. Left Caernarfon per 4.40 train—dropped down at Llanwnda. Wrote at the Inn at Llanwnda a note for her…marched right up to the door [where she was staying], asked if Miss Owen was in, told the girl at the door that I was desired by her father Richard Owen to give her a note in passing! Eventually I saw her. It appears Miss Jones had read the note, M. being too excited to open it. She had to go to a party that evening, but promised to try and return by 8, and to meet me by the gate; I gave her a bouquet I had brought with me…I returned at 8 to Bodfan—but had to wait until 9.45 until the girls returned.

We can imagine his agony of suspense as he waited an hour and three quarters for his sweetheart to appear, but Maggie did finally arrive: ‘M came with me for a long drive in carriage (I had brought from Llanwnda). Here I proposed to her. She wanted time to consider, but admitted her regard for me. Although, when I write this, I have not been formally accepted, I am positive that everything is all right so far as the girl is concerned. I left her about mid-night. M. has some of the “coquette” about her—she did not like to appear to jump at my offer.’¹⁴

His confidence in Maggie’s regard was unshakeable, but he was mistaken in interpreting her genuine hesitation as mere coquetry. The truth was that she was disturbed by the gossip her mother and friends had passed on to her about Lloyd George’s reputation as a ladies’ man, and was not about to jump into a hasty engagement. She was also close to her parents, and was reluctant to go against their wishes.

Lloyd George knew when to press his advantage, and followed his appearance at Llanwnda with a letter on 28 August. ‘…Write me your answer to the question I gave you on Wednesday evening (or Thursday morning—I am not sure which it was!). Do, that’s a good girl. I want to get your own decision up on the matter. The reason I have already given you. I wish the choice you make—whatever it be—to be really yours & not anyone else’s.’¹⁵

Maggie’s religion had been the subject of gentle teasing between the lovers from the beginning, with Lloyd George trying to distract her from her regular attendances at Capel Mawr and avoiding his own duties at Capel Ucha as often as possible. The fact that Maggie did not object, and in fact seems to have enjoyed the fun as much as he, strongly belies the theory put forward by William George in later life that her hesitation was due to the religious difference between them. In October, after keeping Lloyd George waiting nearly six weeks for an answer, Maggie finally explained why she continued to hold back. He recorded the conversation in his diary:

1 Oct. To Mynydd Ednyfed & Mr and Mrs Owen having gone to Ty Mawr. I remained until 1 a.m. I pressed M. to come to a point as to what I had been speaking to her about [his proposal of marriage]. She at last admitted that her hesitation was entirely due to her not being able implicitly to trust me. She then asked me solemnly whether I was really in earnest—I assured her with equal solemnity that I was as there is a God in Heaven. ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘if you will be as true and faithful to me as I am to you, it will be allright.’ She said nothing about her Mother’s frivolous objection to my being a Baptist nor as to her own objection to my sceptical vagaries—for I told her emphatically the other day that I could not even to win her give them up & I would not pretend I had—they were my firm convictions.¹⁶

It seems that their different denominations were not an insurmountable difficulty for Maggie. Neither did she mind Lloyd George’s ‘sceptical vagaries’, his radical political convictions—in which case she would have done well to note that his courageous defence of them contained a warning: he would not give up his beliefs—or his political ambitions—for her or for anyone else. In this, he was to remain constant until the day he died.

While Maggie was considering whether or not to accept Lloyd George as a husband, her doubts with regard to his fidelity cropped up repeatedly, but she had no doubts at all about his professional success. Lloyd George was a man who would ‘get on’. What was not specifically discussed between them though was the future career he had in mind. Lloyd George was beginning to make a name for himself locally as a promising young lawyer, but he was also getting more and more involved in politics.

The swift changes of government in 1885-86 made for exciting times for the political activist in Morvin House. Most Liberals in Caernarvon Boroughs were Gladstonians. There is some evidence that Lloyd George’s natural political sympathy lay with Chamberlain, and but for a mixup with the dates of a crucial meeting in Birmingham he might have openly declared his support for Gladstone’s rival. It was politically canny, though, given the views of Welsh Liberals, for him to present himself as a Gladstonian, which is what he did.

Lloyd George’s political reputation had grown so rapidly by 1886 that he was shortlisted as the Liberal candidate for that year’s general election in the neighbouring constituency of Merioneth, but he soon regretted his candidacy. He withdrew, ostensibly to allow his friend T.E. Ellis to gain the Liberal nomination, but his diary reveals that he had been carried away by the enthusiasm of his supporters, and soon realised that he had neither the financial means nor the political experience to make a success of becoming an MP at such an early age: ‘When alone and calculating the possible consequences…I would not be in nearly as good a position as regards pecuniary, oratorical or intellectual capacity to go to Parliament now as in say 5 years hence. Now I would put myself in endless pecuniary difficulties—an object of contempt in a House of snobs.’¹⁷

During the election the Liberal candidate in Caernarvon Boroughs, Love Jones-Parry, made a mess of his campaign, first alienating his supporters by denouncing Home Rule, and then having a last-minute change of mind. He was defeated by his Conservative rival Edmund Swetenham. Nationally, support for Gladstone was not as strong as it was in Wales, and Salisbury returned to power with a majority of over a hundred seats.

Lloyd George was heavily involved in the local campaign despite the fact that he had decided not to stand for Parliament himself. His political activities could not have escaped the notice of his sweetheart. Indeed, it was during the years of their courtship that he became seriously committed to a political career and began to plan his way out of the law. His attitude towards his profession changed subtly: what was previously a source of pride became more a means to an end, a way of earning a living while developing his reputation as a political activist and speaker.

As Maggie wondered whether she could trust her young lover, did she fully understand what future life he was offering? Lloyd George’s diary records that their conversations were mainly about things they had in common: chapel, Criccieth society, her family’s disapproval, his legal clients. He did not seem to talk to her much about politics: she was not interested in the subject at this stage of her life, and he possibly regarded it as his own domain, and not a subject for feminine conversation. He would also have wanted to emphasise his professional successes to Maggie and her family, to prove that he could support a wife and family. His involvement in local politics would not necessarily have signalled his wider ambitions to Maggie. After all, her father was a leading local Liberal too, but he did not have any ambitions to enter politics professionally. Also, while with hindsight Lloyd George’s progress in politics seems the most significant development during this period, at the time much more attention was paid to his growing reputation as a lawyer. This may explain why Maggie was able later to claim that she did not regard his political career as a certainty when she was considering whether to marry him, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Throughout the rest of 1886, Maggie was losing her heart, if not her head, to her insistent suitor, and on 11 November Lloyd George triumphantly records: ‘Never on better terms. First time she ever gave me a kiss. She gave it in exchange for a story I promised to tell her.’¹⁸ Lloyd George and Maggie had been courting for over a year, and had been discussing marriage since August, but Maggie had been brought up as a respectable chapel girl, and did not even kiss her lover until November. The increased intimacy was cautiously acknowledged by Lloyd George as he addressed letters thereafter to ‘My dearest Miss Owen’, rather than the simple ‘My dear Miss Owen’ he had previously been using. He did not yet dare use her Christian name.

Maggie’s reluctance to commit herself was understandable, for the rumours of Lloyd George’s flirting were not all in the past. Only two days after their kiss, he records in his diary: ‘Rather strong rebuke from M. for having condescended to gabble at all with Plas Wilbraham girls. I foolishly let out somehow that I had done so—she let me off—dismissed me—in disgrace.’¹⁹

Given her mother’s views, Maggie was very sensitive to suggestions that Lloyd George was flirting with other girls, and he would have been well advised to steer clear of any potential or former girlfriends while he was waiting for her answer. This was to prove quite beyond him, and he saw no reason to mend his ways either before or after his engagement, trusting in his wits and in the strength of Maggie’s feelings to get him out of trouble. Both were to be tested to breaking point in the weeks leading up to their engagement as his old flame Lizzie Jones made her final destructive appearance in his life, and his determination to ignore the local rumour mill very nearly derailed his new relationship.

Regarding himself as engaged—unofficially at least—Lloyd George had been pressing Maggie to face up to her parents. They were still so opposed to the relationship that the lovers had to communicate secretly, leaving letters in a niche in the stone wall on the lane near Mynydd Ednyfed, which they referred to as ‘the post office’. They met behind the Owens’ back whenever Maggie could sneak away, but Lloyd George upbraided Maggie constantly in his letters for keeping him waiting, or for letting him down. He had obviously reached the end of his tether by November 1886. On Friday the nineteenth, he signed his letter to Maggie ‘Yours (hyd y ffrae nesa’ ac wedyn) D Lloyd George’ [Yours (until the next quarrel, and beyond) D Lloyd George]²⁰—and four days later he wrote an angry missive in a furious scrawl following yet another disappointment:

Wednesday morning,

Thanks for another sell—with regard to what you suggest about this evening I am not inclined to abandon my work at Porthmadoc any more upon the mere chance (as you term it) of your being able successfully to cheat your mother. You failed to do so last night & you may fail tonight. Letting alone every question of candour & duty it would be far more expedient in my humble opinion to tell your mother where you want to go. You have more than once vetoed the project of my discussing matters with her. However one of us will have to do it. As I told you before I disdain the idea of lurking like a burglar about premises when I merely seek to obtain an honest interview with my sweetheart & I have the same contempt for myself when I have been kicking my heels on the highway & lying in ambuscade like a footpad for half an hour more or less vainly expecting the performance of a definite promise of a stroll with my girl.

If you can meet me for a certainty at the usual time & place on Thursday evening (5.30 by Parkia Gate) kindly drop me a note at the post office today so that I may get it tomorrow. But should you propose making your promise contingent upon your mother’s passing humour then the project had better be deferred until you have been more thoroughly steeled.²¹

He had made his point, and Maggie wrote immediately to soothe him with the promise of a meeting by Criccieth cemetery, a secluded spot on the lane between Criccieth and Mynydd Ednyfed:

Dearest Lloyd George,

I will be by the cemetery this evening at 7 p.m. without fail.

Yours with love,

Maggie²²

More significant than the message was the way in which she signed her Christian name and wrote her love. It was a capitulation.

The following month, Lloyd George persuaded Maggie to confront her mother over her continuing refusal to allow him to visit Mynydd Ednyfed, and followed up his argument with a letter:

I trust you will have something to report to me tomorrow of the result of an interview with your mother. As I have already intimated to you it is but of trivial consequence to me what your mother’s views of me may be—so long of course as they do not affect yours. All I wish for is a clear understanding so that we may afterwards see for ourselves how we stand.

You will appreciate my anxiety to bring the matter to an issue with your mother. I somehow feel deeply that it is unmanly to take by stealth & fraud what I am honestly entitled to. It has a tinge of the ridiculous in it, moreover.

This being done, you will not be troubled with any more lectures & I am confident I shall be thereby encouraged to act in such a way as will ensure your requited Confidence.

Yours in good faith,

D Lloyd-George²³

The pattern of their relationship was set: Lloyd George would coax, persuade and tease Maggie to take the next step along the road to marriage. She would resist, caught between the twin forces of her mother and her suitor until he lost his temper. Forced to choose, she would give in, and so their relationship progressed, step by step. Lloyd George’s next goal was to become officially engaged, which meant getting Maggie to accept a ring. As she hesitated, unable to conquer her misgivings about his fidelity, matters took a turn for the worse.

By the start of 1887, despite Maggie’s parents’ opposition and Lloyd George’s mother and uncle’s ignorance of the situation, the couple were acknowledged sweethearts, even if they could not yet be openly betrothed. Maggie was still conscious of her lover’s bad reputation, and acutely aware of the damage a scandal could cause. In other words, this was not a good time for Lloyd George to be associating publicly with Criccieth girls who had caused tongues to wag in the past, since it would only reinforce Mrs Owen’s objections. He, as usual, felt immune from danger. As 1886 drew to a close, he was asked to act in a professional capacity in a breach of promise case. These suits, usually brought by a jilted fiancêe whose reputation had been compromised by her lover’s change of heart, were commonplace, and Lloyd George had already handled several. This time, though, the parties were known to him, for the claimant was Ann Jones, sister of his former girlfriend Lizzie.

As fellow members of Capel Ucha, it was natural for Ann and Lizzie to turn to Lloyd George when Ann sued her former fiancé, John Jones of Caerdyni Farm—or it would have been, if Jones was not Lloyd George’s friend and first cousin.* Given the delicate condition of his courtship of Maggie Owen, not to mention the family relationship involved, it would have been prudent for Lloyd George to refuse the case, but he did no such thing. Perhaps he preferred to face down his critics, or perhaps it went against the grain to refuse any case when his family needed the money so badly.

Oblivious to danger, Lloyd George seemed sure that his engagement was imminent, writing confidently to Mr R. Bonner Thomas, a Porthmadoc jeweller, on 26 January 1887 to order a ring for Maggie:

I enclose your finger card—the size of the rings I require is no. 7 on the card—I have matched it—send off for a few today without fail—I want them by Friday.

The prices might range between 7 & 15 guineas—get one or two with emeralds in as well as diamonds—but the majority I would prefer to be with diamonds alone.²⁴

Yet Maggie was not ready to accept his ring in defiance of her parents’ wishes, emeralds and diamonds notwithstanding. A quarrel followed, and Lloyd George’s next letter to her refers to ‘the heat of last night’s rancoure [sic]’, and is signed rather brusquely, ‘Yours D Ll G’, with a curt postscript: ‘It is time you should cast off your swaddling clothes.’²⁵

A second remonstration proved necessary as Maggie continued to prevaricate and to cancel meetings. This second letter is an extraordinary testament to his view of the world, and shows how clearly Lloyd George saw the path ahead, even at the age of twenty-four. Using all his powers of advocacy, he expresses his impatience with the slow progress of their courtship, and spells out the priority his work has in his life and will always have in future. He begins by berating her for keeping him waiting in vain—not because he missed her company, but because it inconvenienced him in his business dealings:

My dearest Miss Owen,

Without any preamble or beating about the bush, let’s straight to the topic. Here I am under the very disagreeable necessity—through no fault of my own you must admit—of addressing you for the hundredth time during a not very protracted courtship in a remonstrative spirit. Appealing to the love I have for you or that you have professed for me seems to be but vanity itself in your sight. I am now going to appeal to your sense of fairness & commiseration. I have repeatedly told you how I am steeped to the lips in an accumulation of work—that I am quite entangled & confounded by my office arrears—that I have to work late every evening & then get up early the following morning to effect some measure of disentanglement. You know how important it is for a young fellow starting in business that he should do his work not only efficiently but promptly. Another thing you have been told is that clients from Criccieth & the surrounding districts can only see me in the evenings & that they generally ask me to make appointments with them beforehand. And yet notwithstanding that you have been fully & emphatically acquainted with all these considerations the only assistance you give me is this—that in the course of a week’s time you have disappointed in three appointments made by you, that at the last moment, when my business arrangements had been made to suit those appointments, that moreover you kept me on Friday evening to loiter about for about 30 minutes before you even took the trouble to acquaint me with your intention to make a fool of me at your mother’s nod. Now letting love stand aside for the nonce—even a general sense of philanthropy might dictate to you that such conduct is scarcely kind on your part. I am sure you will recognise that it is not in keeping with your usual kindliness of spirit. I must really ask you for a little sympathy in my struggles to get on.

It becomes clear that his vanity has also been wounded:

Another thing—you well know how you lecture me about my lack of self respect. Well how is it you conduce to this quality to me? By showing me the utmost disrespect. You stick me for half an hour in a conspicuous spot to wait for you & having made an exhibition to all passers by, you coolly send word that it is your mother’s pleasure I should go home to avoid another disappointment.

Having engaged her sympathy and made her feel that she is in the wrong, he turns up the heat and forces her to make a decision:

Now once for ever let us have an end of this long standing wrangle. It comes to this. My supreme idea is to get on. To this idea I shall sacrifice everything—except I trust honesty. I am prepared to thrust even love itself under the wheels of my Juggernaut, if it obstructs the way, that is if love is so much trumpery child’s play as your mother deems courtship to be. I have told you over and over that I consider you to be my good angel—my guiding star. Do you not really desire my success? If you do, will you suggest some course least objectionable to you out of our difficulty? I am prepared to do anything reasonable & fair you may require of me. I can not—earnestly—carry on as present. Believe me—& may Heaven attest the truth of my statement—my love for you is sincere & strong. In this I never waver. But I must not forget that I have a purpose in life. And however painful the sacrifice I may have to make to attain this ambition I must not flinch—otherwise success will be remote indeed…

Write me your views candidly & in as good & honest a spirit as I impart mine to you.

With fondest love

From your sweetheart D. Ll.G.²⁶

This is an extraordinary letter, and is highly revealing as to the psychology of both author and recipient. It is a lawyer’s, not a lover’s letter. Love is secondary to business—no suitor ever made that clearer. Lloyd George will ‘thrust even love itself under the wheels of [his] Juggernaut’ if necessary to advance his career. It is in order to ‘get on’ that he needs Maggie by his side, and yet even in this frank letter he refrains from spelling out for her that he is referring to his political ambitions, not simply to his career as a rural attorney. Although the language he uses betrays the scale of his ambition, he draws back from telling her directly that he intends to make his mark on the national stage: that would have to wait until she was fully committed. His career would always come first, but he softens the blow a little by calling her his ‘guiding angel’. She is necessary to him, if only to achieve his ambitions.

There is no doubt that Lloyd George wrote sincerely and from the heart, but the letter is also a clever attempt to bend Maggie to his will. He appeals to her deep-rooted sense of duty, and the work ethic that was both a feature of her faith and a strong characteristic of her family. Maggie was raised to believe in hard work and obligation. Lloyd George knew this well, since it was her unyielding sense of duty to her parents that had frustrated him for so long. Appealing to her emotions would be like trying to persuade a river to leave its course: she would always place her duty first. In writing this letter he showed how well he understood her character, and how readily he would use that knowledge to manipulate her. His skill was to make it seem as if she had an equal duty to help him in his career. It was his strongest card, and he played it supremely well.

The letter must have given Maggie considerable food for thought, and while she was digesting it her concerns about his breach of promise case grew stronger. Unable to persuade him to drop the case, she wrote to him to air her views—it is one of the first letters from her that he kept.

My dear Mr George,

I have begged them to let me come to Portmadoc this evening, but father has utterly refused to let me go. I am sure I don’t know why, therefore I must submit to his will and stay at home…I am returning you the girl’s letter. After reflecting upon what you told me yesterday I must tell you that I should much prefer your leaving it to some one else to take up; not because of your relationship to the man nor to let him go unpunished by any means for he really deserves it, but for your own sake. All the old stories will be renewed again. I know there are relatives of mine at Criccieth, and other people as well, who will be glad to have anything more to say to my people about you, to set them against you and that will put me in an awkward position. I know this much, I shall not be at my ease while the thing is on, if you will be taking it up. If she were a stranger to you, and you took her case, people would wonder why on earth you took it against your cousin, knowing that your relations were against your doing so; but now they will draw different conclusions—that you are on friendly terms with these people while your duty is to do all that is in your power to make them forget that you ever were on friendly terms with them & taking up this case will not help you in the least to do it.

Let some one else do it. You can get plenty of excuses; one that your people are against you doing it and recommend some other lawyer. Should your reputation depend on it, as you said, that would only be from a professional point of view, not from any other point of view, I can assure you.

Yours faithfully,

M. Owen.²⁷

The formal way in which she addresses him and the plaintive tone of the letter betray her anguish at the thought of the renewed contact between Lloyd George and Lizzie Jones. But even faced with this highly convincing case, Lloyd George bafflingly dug in his heels, choosing to face the opposition of his family and his sweetheart and to risk his personal reputation by prosecuting his cousin on behalf of his former love’s sister. He does not explain his reasons in his diary, nor in any letter that survives, but financial considerations must have been among them, as well as sheer stubbornness and perhaps a desire not to allow Maggie to dictate to him which cases he should take and which drop.

When Maggie tried again to persuade him not to take the case, with a threat to end their engagement, he came out fighting. He wrote her a second carefully crafted letter designed to make her accept him on his own terms, using every means at his disposal to end her indecision once and for all:

My dearest Maggie,

Your ultimatum to hand & here I launch my protocol in reply.

What I wish to make clear is this. That whatever course you may think fit in your unfettered discretion to adopt has not been necessitated or even occasioned by any dishonourable or disgraceful proceeding on my part.

What is the gravamen of your charge? Simply this—that I have deigned to permit myself to be entertained with a little harmless music by a couple of girls whom a bevy of dried-up dessicated [sic] & blighted old maids object to. I am not sure whether their objection is not a recommendation. And can you give me anyone whom they don’t object to? Miss R: Bronygadair objected even to you. I might plead guilty if I only knew the charge. My calls upon the girl were of a purely professional character—as witness the fact that prior to this breach of promise affair I was not on speaking letting alone visiting terms with her.

Again, his tone is legal: he is writing a protocol, an early version of a treaty between them. In other words, he is setting out his terms, which Maggie must accept or reject him altogether. He knew that he was on firm ground, since Maggie had given away the fact that she was jealous of the time he spent with his former girlfriend. Knowing that her love for him was strong, he chose not to promise an end to such behaviour. Instead, he decided again to appeal to her sense of duty by arguing, not entirely successfully, that his professional duty required him to socialise with clients:

—Now I could give you good reasons for my not objecting to a little music to finish up the consultation. I aim to please all my clients & thus make them as much as possible personal friends & were an Italian organ grinder to put anything in my way I would probably endeavour to please him at the risk of a little personal discomfort by asking him to display the musical qualities of his infernal machine. Now Miss Jones is to me a really good client—for if her case is fought out as it may (& as it would but for my regard to your anxiety for a settlement) my bill of costs would be a matter of between £50 and £100. There is moreover the notoriety of advertisement involved in the case which is in actual fact more valuable to me. Well such a client, to begin with, is worth trying to please. Moreover whilst music is as innocent a recreation as you could possibly indulge in it always affords me unlimited pleasure.

Then, with breathtaking nerve, he justifies his behaviour on religious grounds, and accuses Maggie of snobbery in her disapproval of the Jones sisters:

Furthermore the girls are members of the same chapel as I am and one of the few religious dogmas of our creed I believe in is—fraternity with which you may couple equality. My God never decreed that farmers & their race should be esteemed beyond the progeny of a fishmonger & strange to say Christ—the founder of our creed—selected the missionaries of his noble teaching from amongst fishmongers. Do you really think that the Christ who honoured & made friendship with Zebedee the fishmonger’s son would disdain the acquaintance of a poor toiling fishmonger’s daughter…To tell you plain truth I thought there was more humanity in you than to be led away by such silly notions.

My preference for you rather than for those girls arises not from any social distinctions—these I have the utmost contempt for—but it arises entirely from your superiority in many endearing qualities.

He goes on to criticise her debating tactics, demolishing her arguments as if he was facing a particularly inept prosecutor in court:

And now, honestly, don’t you think you have chosen the most inopportune moment for your outburst…even if it were a very improper &wicked thing to listen to the song of a fishmonger’s daughter—it is now about a month since I heard the chime of her voice—except in chapel. You are like Blucher of Waterloo—you only appear on the field when the enemy has fled…I will admit your letter is a clever piece of special pleading. You have picked up disjointed tit-bits from one story and shown that in conjunction with a rag from another story it bears such &such a colour. You have been mixing colours &then accuse me with being responsible for the hideousness of the resulting picture. Very clever you know but scarcely candid.

Then comes the most crucial passage in all the letters of Lloyd George and Maggie’s long courtship. He lays out in an entirely unambiguous way what he expects of her as his wife, the terms on which their future lives are to be lived, and his ambition as both lawyer and politician:

You very fiercely suggest that possibly I have committed a blunder in my selection. Well, I do make mistakes often, but as a rule it does not take me two years to find them out. And besides…my ideas as to the qualifications of a wife do not coincide with yours. You seem to think that the supreme function of a wife is to amuse her husband—to be to him a kind of toy or plaything to enable him to while away with enjoyment his leisure hour. Frankly, that is simply prostituting marriage. My ideas are very different—if not superior—to yours. I am of opinion that woman’s function is to soothe &sympathise &not to amuse. Men’s lives are a perpetual conflict. The life I have mapped out will be so especially—as lawyer &politician. Woman’s function is to pour oil on the wounds—to heal bruises of spirit received in past conflicts &to stimulate to renewed exertion. Am I not right? If I am then you are pre-eminently the girl for me. I have a thorough belief in your kindliness and affection.

With stunning clarity and disarming honesty, Lloyd George outlines his firm, lifelong philosophy for Maggie to accept or reject: her role would be to ‘soothe and sympathise’, to be the companion of his hearth and to heal his wounds after each battle. She need not worry about amusing him: his words contain just a hint of a suggestion that he could—and would—find his playthings elsewhere.

With all the facts laid out, he challenges Maggie to make her decision:

As to setting you free, that is a matter for your choice &not mine. I have many times impressed upon you that the only bond by which I have any desire to hold you is that of love. If that be lost then I would snap any other bond with my own hand. Hitherto my feelings are those of unflinching love for you &that feeling is a growing one.

You ask me to choose—I have made my choice deliberately &solemnly. I must now ask you to make your choice. I know my slanderers—those whom you allow to poison your mind against me. Choose between them &me—there can be no other alternative.

He concludes his case with the confidence of an advocate whose victory is assured, but his anxiety as to her answer shows, if only in the pleading postscript:

May I see you at 7 tomorrow? Drop me a note will you. I would like to have a thorough talk with you. We must settle this miserable squabble once &for all.²⁸

This time, after deploying all his courtroom eloquence, the field was his, and Maggie finally accepted a diamond cluster ring as a formal token of their betrothal.

When she allowed Lloyd George to place the ring upon her finger she accepted more than just his word that he was faithful to her: she accepted his definition of her role as his wife. This was to be a defining moment in Maggie’s life, but it is far from clear how well she understood the deal she was accepting. She can have been in no doubt as to the strength of Lloyd George’s ambition, for he literally spelled it out for her, but even so, did she really understand how far he wanted to go, and in which direction? In later life she was to acknowledge her naïvety in this respect in an interview: ‘I thought I was marrying a Caernarvonshire lawyer. Some people even then said he was sure to get on, but it was success as a lawyer that they had in mind. I am sure neither of us guessed then what lay before us.’²⁹

Most commentators have interpreted her words as retrospective selfjustification for her refusal to leave Criccieth for London—if she did not know at the outset that he was set on becoming a politician, she could not be accused of subsequent unreasonableness or lack of support for her husband. But in view of the rift that beset their marriage later, it is worth pausing to consider exactly what future Maggie thought she was accepting.

Maggie must have known of Lloyd George’s ambition to become a Member of Parliament, for as we have seen, he briefly considered becoming a candidate in the 1886 election. This does not necessarily mean, though, that she understood what being the wife of an MP involved. Maggie Owen led a sheltered life at Mynydd Ednyfed, and her knowledge of politics was filtered through either her father or her fiancé, neither of whom was very keen to talk to her about such matters. She could not have known much about what being married to an MP was like. Furthermore, the nature of the job itself was changing at that very point in history, with MPs who regarded their parliamentary roles as status-enhancing, albeit unpaid, sinecures giving way to a more professional political class.

In 1887 that change was only beginning to show in North Wales, and local MPs had hitherto managed to keep a fairly constant presence in Caernarvonshire as well as to carry out their parliamentary duties. Surely it was reasonable for Maggie Owen to assume that she would continue to live in Criccieth while her husband pursued his ambition and ‘got on’ in Westminster? There is no evidence in their letters that they ever discussed the details of their future life, or that she ever gave him an undertaking that she would leave Criccieth for London. Also, if Maggie failed to anticipate how high her husband would climb, she was not alone, since his eventual success was unprecedented. If in the full flush of her first serious love affair she chose not to look too far ahead, and to take the future on trust, how far is she to be blamed?

From her rare public comments, it seems that Maggie never envisaged leaving her beloved Criccieth for good. It would have been entirely out of character for her to do so, and would make her later behaviour inexplicable. But she did accept the wifely role that her future husband described. She would help him through the ‘perpetual conflict’ of his life. It was an essentially submissive role: she was to be the companion of his hearth, the comfort to which he returned each night. For better or worse, she would be Mrs Lloyd George.

*John Jones was the son of Elin, Betsy George’s sister.

5 Mrs Lloyd George

PERSUADING MAGGIE TO ACCEPT his ring was one thing, but getting her mother to accept their relationship was quite another, as Lloyd George was to discover. In the early months of 1887 the outlook was indeed bleak. Lloyd George was not allowed near Mynydd Ednyfed, and the lovers still had to meet in secret. The situation in Morvin House was no better: Lloyd George did not dare tell his mother about the relationship, and to confide in Uncle Lloyd was out of the question. But Lloyd George was not easily deterred. Throughout his life he had found that if he worked hard and used his head, the things he wanted tended to fall into his lap, and although he was frequently frustrated at the slow progress of his courtship, he never once admitted the possibility of defeat.

As a boy, Lloyd George was fond of reading military history. He saw each challenge in his own life as a battle to be won, and, as befits a future war leader, his long campaign to be married to Maggie Owen was planned and executed with determination and precision. In his diary, he reveals his strategy: ‘Find I can always work much better for an immediate defined object than for a remote possible one—so think it advisable to have fixed time.’¹

Since the previous summer Lloyd George had concentrated on winning Maggie’s heart. Now, in the next phase of the campaign, he was intent on winning her hand. His goal was to persuade Richard Owen to give him permission to marry his daughter, who, still only twenty years old, could not legally marry without her parents’ consent. Maggie loved her parents dearly, and was in all respects a dutiful daughter. Lloyd George knew that it would cause her great unhappiness to go against their express wishes in a matter as important as marriage. For that reason also he needed their agreement to the match, and he knew that the main problem was not likely to be the doting father, but his fiercely judgemental wife.

The breach of promise case involving Ann and Lizzie Jones had indeed caused all the local rumours about Lloyd George to resurface, as Maggie had predicted. On 22 March he wrote gloomily in his diary: ‘It appears that Misses Roberts of Bronygadair and Ystwellgu have been reviling me to Mrs Owen—tllg her that they are surprised how I could stand in my shoes [with Maggie] when I had been courting “merch Nansi Penwaig” [Nancy Herring’s daughter].’ But he turned the situation to his advantage, taking the opportunity to move towards his next goal: ‘Told her that if her parents continued to nag at her in that style that the only way to put an end to it was to get married.’²

Maggie was not to be manipulated so easily: her mother’s objections hit home, especially since she was already worried about Lloyd George’s flirting. Lloyd George knew that he needed to win over the disapproving Mrs Owen, and since he was not allowed to approach her himself, he would have to rely on impressing people close to her who could plead his case.

His first and most devoted advocate was Maggie herself, and Lloyd George had for many months been coaching his sweetheart on how to manage her mother. Back in November the previous year he had been half-jokingly feeding her excuses to slip out to meet him, and had even felt in a strong enough position to poke fun at Mrs Owen’s obstinacy: ‘I send you herewith a formal ticket of invitation to the lecture…You can square your mother by reminding her that Mr Williams is one of the etholedigion [the elect—i.e. a Calvinistic Methodist] &that Griffydd ap Cynan was an eminent Methodist divine who flourished before Christ &in fact initiated him into the true principles of Calvinism. That ought to propitiate her.’

Again, when he had received letters from T.E. Ellis, his friend who had been elected MP for Merioneth in 1886 and who was a respectable Methodist, he wrote:

I enclose the two last letters I received from T. Ellis. It would do your mother good to read these letters as it will bring home to her mind that it is not perhaps essential to even good Methodism that you should taboo other sectarians. Darllenwch nhw i’ch mam bendith tad i chi [Read them to your mother, for goodness’ sake]. She’ll pull as wry a face as if she were drinking a gallon of assafatida [a popular but pungent herbal remedy]. Did you tell her what a scandal she has created about us throughout Lleyn?³

Lloyd George’s humorous tone was becoming tinged with exasperation; he was not used to facing opposition as determined as this, and in Mrs Owen he very nearly met his match. But he had no equal in persistence. Shortly after giving Maggie her ring, when he was called to London at short notice he set her a tricky task to accomplish during his absence:

Remember to behave in my absence ‘fel pe byddwn bresenol yn y corph’ [as if I were present in the flesh] as I shall be ‘yn yr ysbryd’ [in spirit]. Redeem your faithful promise to show your mother the token of our engagement. You may also should you deem it prudent (this I leave to your discretion) arrange an appointment for me to discuss matters with your father mother or any or either or both of them.

That’s a good week’s work (for you)—I have cut out for you.

With sincerest love…

It seems that Maggie did not find the courage to approach her parents during his absence—or decided that there was no point in doing so—and it was to be many months before she and Lloyd George could even meet at her home, let alone have her parents’ blessing to marry.

A few pages later in the carbon letter-book in which lie copies of all Lloyd George’s letters is a draft letter to Miss Roberts, Ynysgain, urging her despite her illness to keep an engagement for tea at Mynydd Ednyfed. Dorothy Roberts was a cousin of the Owens, and Lloyd George had been courting her good opinion almost as assiduously as he had courted Maggie’s. Miss Roberts lived some way outside Criccieth, and was therefore less influenced by the gossip surrounding Lloyd George’s love life. Despite being well established in middle age, she was in an excellent position to advise Maggie. The two were great friends, and Maggie confided her innermost feelings to her cousin. Miss Roberts was a frequent visitor to Mynydd Ednyfed, and could help soften Mrs Owen’s opposition to the match, so Lloyd George decided to launch a fullblown charm offensive.

He began to call on Miss Roberts frequently as he attempted to persuade her of the strength of feeling between himself and Maggie. Before long, Dorothy Roberts had fallen for his charm, and not only spoke favourably of him to Mary Owen, but also helped shore up Maggie’s courage as she faced her parents’ disapproval. According to Lloyd George and Maggie’s eldest son, Dick, ‘It was her aunt [i.e. Dorothy Roberts] who stiffened her backbone and helped her to follow the dictates of her heart in the face of her parents’ violent opposition.’⁴ Dorothy advised Maggie to put love ahead of family, chapel and politics. This might sound excessively romantic, but it was based on thorough knowledge of the characters involved, and was of course exactly what Maggie wanted to hear.

Another of Lloyd George’s supporters was also female. For some time, Lloyd George had found the ‘post office’, where he and Maggie left notes for each other, troublesome. The problem was that they could not be sure that the notes would reach their recipient quickly. When Maggie could not get away, or Lloyd George’s work sent him on an unexpected journey, letters often failed to reach them in time, and Lloyd George’s frustration grew with each mishap. He needed a go-between, someone who had access to Maggie, and so he began to work his charm on the Mynydd Ednyfed maid, Margiad.

Margiad was a steadfast but canny character whose devotion to her mistress, Mary Owen, was surpassed only by her fierce loyalty to Maggie, whom she had helped to raise. In the early stages of the courtship she was sent out to the lane by Mrs Owen to tell Lloyd George not to wait around for Maggie, and she also carried the message that he was not a welcome visitor to Mynydd Ednyfed. Lloyd George knew exactly how to get around a country girl like Margiad, though, and soon the two were conspiring together to persuade Maggie to slip away from under her mother’s nose. It was quite a feat to transfer Margiad’s loyalty from her employer to himself: Lloyd George’s attractiveness to women, it seems, was nearly universal—only his future mother-in-law remained impervious.

As the year wore on, Lloyd George made little progress. Maggie had got over the breach of promise case, but her jealousy was sharpened, and Lloyd George was frequently admonished for his flirtatious behaviour: ‘Got a lecturing from Maggie very strong about Tymawr girls. Wrote her a long reply in evening.’ And again: ‘long altercation…made up in the end as usual. “Love quarrels oft in pleasing concord end” quite true, fortunately, Mr Milton.’⁵

At the same time, Lloyd George was making sure that he had the support of his own family—at least, of those members of it in whom he could confide. This was vitally important, since he was relying on the Morvin House family to support him financially when, as he fully expected, his political career took off. The first step had been to persuade William to leave Breese, Jones &Casson to join Lloyd George’s fledgling practice. William had asked Mr Casson for permission to leave in 1886, but Casson saw no reason to help a rival firm, and refused. This was perhaps just as well. The atmosphere at work was difficult for William since his brother had started competing with his employer for cases, but without access to the firm’s legal textbooks he would have been hard pressed to pass his finals. He took his final examinations in May 1887, and there was much celebration in Morvin House when he passed with first class honours.* After qualifying William was released from his articles and promptly left to join his brother. The plaque on the door of Morvin House was changed to read ‘Lloyd George &George’, and from that point onwards Lloyd George had a diligent and tireless business partner in his younger brother.

Polly too had to be kept on side, since Lloyd George would have to tell his mother and Uncle Lloyd about his relationship with Maggie sooner or later, and he would need her as an ally. He confided in her regularly, and in April told her of his plans to marry before waiting the five years she had advised, providing he could pay off his debts to Uncle Lloyd:

Walked after dinner MEG past Ynysgain Fawr. Told her my ideas as to getting married, that I wanted to pay Uncle his £200 first and then directly I am remunerated another £300—told her that if I were to complete matters in hand, I should probably get about £500 for them, and that W.G. could collect them in about 6 months. She didn’t in any way dissuade me but approved of the amount I had fixed so that perhaps after all my impulse had directed me wisely—persons most likely to disapprove don’t do so…owing to other reasons the sooner I get married the better—it will steady me.⁶

Lloyd George’s sums did not allow for the fact that he and Maggie had nowhere to live. This made it even more important to get the Owens’ approval: he knew they would not allow their daughter to go without a roof over her head.

Through the spring of 1887 and into summer, Lloyd George continued to flirt, Maggie continued to upbraid him, and Mrs Owen continued to disapprove. Things could not go on as they were, and the month of August was to bring with it a few summer storms that would force matters to a head.

Given the strength of feeling of their families there was no question of either Maggie or Lloyd George converting to the other’s denomination, so they had to find a compromise. They decided that it would be perfectly possible to maintain their own denominational loyalties within the marriage. In the spring they had started to attend services together at Capel Mawr, and Lloyd George soon realised it was not a happy place. Tension had been simmering under the surface for some time, caused by a proposal to offer services in English during the summer months for the benefit of the visitors to Criccieth. This led to a disagreement between those who equated the Calvinistic Methodist faith with Welshspeaking patriotism and those who felt it was their duty to evangelise and reach out to those who came to join their community, even temporarily. The controversy widened to include all manner of other issues, and erupted into a full-blown crisis in August 1887, when the congregation divided into two implacable camps. The national governing body of the Calvinistic Methodist Church was eventually called in to adjudicate. Its decision was to allow a group of disaffected members, including the Rev. Owen, to establish their own separate chapel in Criccieth.

Maggie and her family found themselves in the middle of this painful wrangle. It was extremely difficult for Richard Owen to face the fact that the congregation was irretrievably divided, but when the time came he cast his lot with the Rev. Owen. Such was the strength of feeling among the dissenters that the considerable expense of a new building was borne rather than attempt a reconciliation with Capel Mawr. The whole family transferred their membership to the new chapel, Seion.

Political battles of this kind were irresistible to the young Lloyd George. As a non-member at Capel Mawr he was not able to participate directly, but he was not slow to spot an opportunity to use the row to his advantage. By publicly supporting the Rev. Owen, he was able—finally—to gain some currency with Richard Owen. This emboldened him to wonder if he should press his advantage and formally ask for Maggie’s hand:

30 August. Bye the bye I am in a very queer state of mind upon this question [of marriage]. My urge is strong for a marriage straight away—say in [an] hour. On the other hand I am anxious that it should not come off until the spring at the earliest. Maggie I believe to be in a very similar state of mind but on the whole I think she wd. prefer the earlier date. However my present view is that prudence dictates spring as the date &I rather imagine that the event will be postponed to that season. I shd however like to be in a position to ask the old folks consent now. One very good reason for postponement is that there is no available house for one’s residence—except Cefniwrch which neither of us cares for. The only thing to be said for it is this, that if it so be let furnished for a short period we might have another house by the end of that period. It is when I am with Maggie that I find myself most anxious for marriage. Her society has a wonderful charm for me &I believe she now much prefers me to her parents. She will tell me so occasionally.⁷

There is no doubt that Lloyd George was charmed by Maggie’s company—but trouble still occurred when he was out of her sight. Through the summer she still found reason to take him to task for flirting with other girls, and the subject became a constant source of friction between them. In July, Lloyd George wrote to Maggie from Trefriw near Llanrwst, where he was staying with a friend:

Don’t imagine angry things about me,—that’s a pet. I shall redeem all misbehaviour yet. Believe me, though I am bodily in the coffee room of the Belle Vue Hotel Trefriw with Parry Pwllheli by my side assiduously inditing a letter to one of his numerous sweethearts I am in mind at M[ynydd Ednyfed] with my sweetheart by me. I swear by the pen which I now hold in my hand that I shall not flirt nor even wink improperly at a girl. Parry is my surety as to that.⁸

Maggie was unlikely to be reassured by the fact that Parry, with his ‘numerous sweethearts’, was responsible for keeping Lloyd George in line, but neither did she realise the full, obvious implication of his continual flirting: while she was with him he resisted casual flirtations, but when they were apart he was unable to be faithful.

In a letter from the same period, there is a tantalising hint that Maggie may have tried to bring Lloyd George to heel with a little flirting of her own. This was disastrous. He retaliated triumphantly that she had now given him an excuse for all his indiscretions: ‘Your letter…will justify all my flirtations for the past—and future [these two words were added as an afterthought]—and teach me how to gloss them over when caught.’⁹ She could not say she had not been warned.

The Capel Mawr controversy had a special resonance for the Owen family because Richard and Mary Owen had at one time hoped that Capel Mawr’s young minister would eventually be their son-in-law. Lloyd George was not aware of this at first, but over the summer Maggie confessed to him that she had received three offers of marriage, and that one of her suitors was the Rev. Owen. Secure in her affection, Lloyd George felt that this showed becoming modesty in his future wife, and recorded proudly in his diary: ‘Cannot help admiring the honour and lack of brag which caused the girl not to show these letters to me ere this.’¹⁰

After a lull of many months Lloyd George was back on track and escalating his campaign to get a wedding date fixed. Having gained a strategic advantage with the Owens at last, he pressed his case. The first objective was to be allowed to visit Maggie openly, for, six months into their engagement, Mrs Owen would still not allow him across the threshold of her house, nor would she give Maggie permission to meet him elsewhere. The couple had to meet in the dead of night, which must have been tiring as well as somewhat ridiculous. Lloyd George’s midnight roving had not gone unnoticed at home. Uncle Lloyd was still in the dark with regard to his nephew’s relationship with Maggie, but he had noticed his night-time excursions. Suspecting the worst, Richard Lloyd had taken to wandering the streets of Criccieth asking if anyone had seen him, so it was more important than ever for Lloyd George to be able to meet Maggie during civilised hours. In the meantime he did the best he could by hiding his uncle’s boots before leaving the house so that the old man could not follow.

Feeling more confident now that he was on better terms with Mr Owen, Lloyd George chose to go on the offensive and bully Maggie into confronting her mother:

Long talk as to my night visits. Told her that I was not enamoured of them especially as my uncle seemed to feel them so sorely—but they were our only resource since her mother was not civilized enough to permit my visiting her during decent hours. I suggested that she shd. tell her mother that I intended to come up at 8 every evening &she said that she had been thinking of the same thing, that she was thoroughly tired of our midnight meetings as they involved a sense of transgressing respectable rules. She finally promised to tell her mother on Monday without fail. She may do so.¹¹

Lloyd George was not absolutely sure that she would go through with it, but Maggie was not lacking in courage, and she resented the indignity and the impropriety of the midnight meetings too. She was also getting thoroughly tired of being caught in the middle between her mother and her lover: ‘My parents are angry with me one day and you another. I am on bad terms with one or the other continually…Well I am very miserable, that is all I have to say, Dearest Dei,* and I hope things won’t be long as they are now.’¹²

This time, perhaps feeling short of friends as a result of the Capel Mawr rift, or perhaps responding at last to their daughter’s pleas, the Owens relented. Mrs Owen made a half-hearted attempt to limit Lloyd George’s visits to three a week, but she must have known that she had been utterly defeated. With Lloyd George comfortably ensconced in her parlour from eight till ten each evening, it was only a matter of time before she would have to agree to a wedding.

By October, the issue was not if Lloyd George and Maggie would be married, but where and how. Lloyd George turned his mind to how to announce his engagement to his own mother and uncle. The denominational difference was likely to be an even greater obstacle to his own family than it was for the Owens, since even the strict rules of the Calvinistic Methodists did not live up to the puritanical standards of the Disciples of Christ. The prospect of their Davy, the golden boy of the family, marrying into another denomination was bound to cause a great upset. Lloyd George’s regard and respect for his uncle’s judgement was still strong, and he wrote in his diary in October: ‘We had a good talk about marriage. We arranged to get married soon—provided my uncle did not upon my talking the matter over with him show good cause to the contrary.’¹³

November 1887 came, and with it a significant milestone. On the fourth Maggie reached her twenty-first birthday, and her parents could no longer legally prevent her from marrying, although they could still withhold their blessing. They could only ask the young couple to respect their wishes, arguing that there were still practical reasons why the wedding could not take place yet. Lloyd George wrote in his diary on 1 November:

I then had a talk with Mr &Mrs Owen—they pleaded for delay—that they had made up their minds not to stay at Mynydd Ednyfed…but that they could not get anything like a good price for the stock these bad times…that if they sold their things under value it would be our loss in the end—they wished us to wait for a yr. or so—that we were quite young &c…I thought the old man very cunningly tried to persuade me to delay by showing me it was in my own interest…I told them when [Richard Owen] said something about money that I wanted no money as I had of course before coming to that point seen that I wd. have sufficient myself without any extraneous aid (I am not sure whether it would have been better to plead poverty—but I wanted to show them that I took no commercial views of my engagement). The interview ended by their asking me to reconsider the matter &see them again about it.¹⁴

With matters having reached this advanced stage, it was time for Lloyd George to steel himself to tell his invalid mother that he would soon be leaving home. He was careful to make sure that Polly was on hand with plenty of praise for Maggie, but this was not enough to soften the blow, and he recorded in his diary how upset Betsy was on hearing the news: ‘the poor old woman cried and said she felt my leaving very much. She then gave me some very good advice about being kind to Maggie, never saying anything nasty to her when I lost my temper, to be attentive to her if &when she was ill, that sort of thing. She praised M. very much from what she had heard from M.E.G. [Polly].’¹⁵

In her weakened, dependent state Betsy could not bear the thought of either of her sons marrying. She would have been upset even if Lloyd George were marrying a Baptist, but he knew that it would not be as easy to gloss over the chapel issue with Uncle Lloyd. For the meantime therefore he decided to say nothing to the old man until the very last minute, when all the arrangements for the wedding were in place.

At the end of November the Owens were still refusing to give the couple their blessing, but they finally gave in to Maggie’s pleading over Christmas—the denominational mismatch was such a serious matter that they had to formally consult Seion’s deacons before acknowledging the engagement. They began to bargain with Lloyd George over the location and form of the ceremony. Richard Owen would not hear of his daughter being married in a Baptist chapel, and Lloyd George knew that his uncle would not countenance a Methodist wedding. Two things were clear: a compromise would have to be found, and since neither family would be in a mood to celebrate, the wedding had better take place at a distance from Criccieth. Lloyd George argued strongly for Capel-y-Beirdd, a Baptist chapel three miles away, but Richard Owen had been defeated on every count thus far, and insisted on having his way with regard to the location. Lloyd George’s diary records his frustration: ‘The old folk still very adverse [sic] to going to Capel y Beirdd. Their hostility due in a great measure to a silly pride quite as much as to religious bigotry. I am inclined to get stiff about the matter. I would not care a rap where to get married, were it not that I am going out of my way to cater for sectarian pride and bigotry.’¹⁶

Richard Owen finally decided that the wedding should take place at the Calvinistic Methodist chapel at Pencaenewydd, and would brook no opposition. Lloyd George knew when to give in gracefully, and at last a date was set. Maggie and he would be married on 24 January 1888.

Pencaenewydd is a tiny hamlet hidden in the hills five miles inland from Criccieth. It is about as obscure a location for a wedding as could be found—hardly the natural choice for the popular Criccieth belle Maggie Owen. Richard Owen was signalling his disapproval as clearly as he could.

Finally, the time had come for Lloyd George to tell Uncle Lloyd that he was to be married, and to present him with the fait accompli of the wedding arrangements. He waited until 9 January, only two weeks before the ceremony he hoped his uncle would conduct, and, balking at witnessing the reaction of his guardian and mentor, he asked Betsy to break the news. Disappointing Richard Lloyd was one of the hardest things that Lloyd George had had to do in his life: he had never forgotten how much he owed his uncle, and marrying a non-Baptist was a poor way to repay him. He did not usually shirk difficult tasks, and his diary entries betray his nervous feelings as he approached this, the last hurdle of all: ‘Mam told Uncle today that I propose getting married in a fortnight—he seemed to feel it but said nothing except that he hoped we would go through the business without any fuss.’

Uncle Lloyd’s love for his nephew overcame his disappointment, and by the following day good relations were restored: ‘Told Uncle my reasons for not telling him before—he took it very well…He said that everyone told him my little girl was a charming and sensible lassie. He told us to learn steadiness, domesticity and unselfishness etc; warned me that I was entering in to a new family, and must adapt myself to its proclivities—excellent advice—feel much relieved after telling him.’¹⁷

Richard Lloyd had only a passing acquaintance with Maggie, but he could see that Lloyd George was quite determined, and whatever his private feelings, he accepted the match. In his diary he wrote that evening: ‘Mae pawb yn dweud ei bod yn eneth fwyn, synhwyrol ac yn eneth ddefnyddiol’ (Everyone says that she is a lovely sensible girl, and a practical girl).¹⁸ He agreed to conduct the ceremony, only stipulating that he would prefer the wedding to be as simple and unshowy as possible. In this respect, he was at one with Richard and Mary Owen.

When the news of the impending marriage became known, Maggie and Lloyd George were at last able to formalise their courtship. Given its clandestine nature, he had not had a chance to get used to acknowledging such a serious relationship in public. In addition, they had only a few days in which to make the wedding arrangements. On 19 January Lloyd George went to Pwllheli to take out a marriage licence, and it was then that the importance of the commitment he was about to enter hit him: ‘Never felt so queer. It was then I began to thoroughly realize what I was doing and I felt quite stunned tho’ without an atom of repentance or regret.’¹⁹

He was seemingly in the same frame of mind when he went away with some friends for a half-hearted stag weekend: ‘Drove to Rhyl with Howell Gee and Alun Lloyd—either I was in an extra serious mood owing to coming events or the company indulged in hilarity which I did not appreciate, for I did not enjoy myself—They drank, smoked and played billiards, and flirted with giddy barmaids.’²⁰

It was with trepidation that Lloyd George finally approached his wedding day.

West of Llanystumdwy, a narrow road snakes its way inland into the heart of the Llŷn Peninsula, passing through the quiet hamlet of Pencaenewydd before meandering onwards. The village consists of a few farms and cottages and a pair of solid, semi-detached houses separated from the road by their well-kept gardens. Set further back from the road is a Calvinistic Methodist chapel, a plain, unremarkable stone building with a pair of tall, narrow arched windows overlooking the road. It is now a private residence but still bears a simple slate plaque with the words ‘Pencaenewydd M.C. 1822’ inscribed upon it.

It was there that David Lloyd George and Richard Lloyd made their way on the cold morning of Tuesday, 24 January 1888. They set off early, leaving Criccieth on the 7.15 train to Chwilog, five miles away. There they were met by Myrddin Fardd (the poet John Jones), a long-standing family friend, and they breakfasted with him before walking the three miles to Pencaenewydd. As they approached, a heavy mist shower began, as if to further dampen the mood. No other family members joined them for the ceremony. This was principally out of respect for Uncle Lloyd’s request for a quiet wedding. Whatever their private feelings on the matter, Betsy, Polly and William went about their business as usual on this momentous day.

At 10.15 the bridegroom entered the chapel and waited for his bride. He had just turned twenty-five years old, and had grown into a handsome young man, slim and carefully turned out, with a fashionable handlebar moustache adorning his upper lip. He wore the long frockcoat of the period, a waistcoat and a tie beneath a starched wing collar. His most striking features were his lively, intensely blue eyes, which on that morning could be forgiven for wearing a rather anxious expression. Maggie at twenty-one was very attractive; pretty rather than beautiful, but with calm blue eyes in a rounded face, compact features and a trim figure. They would make a good-looking couple.

The bride and her father arrived in the Mynydd Ednyfed carriage, accompanied by the Rev. John Owen. Maggie’s former suitor was there at Richard Owen’s insistence, for, notwithstanding any possible awkwardness, he had been asked to jointly preside over the ceremony, adding just a little bit more Methodism to placate the bride’s family.* A second carriage drew up containing members of the Owen family—Mary Owen almost certainly, and perhaps Dorothy Roberts too—and they took their places inside the small chapel. The ceremony was conducted by Richard Lloyd, with prayers and a reading by John Owen. It went without a hitch, and the newlyweds were pelted with rice as they left in a carriage, bound for a short honeymoon in London.

At long last the deed was done, and Lloyd George and Maggie were married. Later that day he wrote in his diary: ‘I am very glad the whole business is over—Never felt so anxious.’²¹ Richard Lloyd’s comment in his diary was simply: ‘May Heaven make it to Dei and his Maggie a very bright red letter day.’²²

*Lloyd George, distracted by his political activities, had managed only a third class honours degree.

*Maggie variously addressed Lloyd George in writing as ‘D’, Dei, or ‘Die’, all abbreviations of ‘David’.

*The Rev. Owen’s feelings about the day’s proceedings are not recorded, but he later returned a postal order that Lloyd George sent him in recognition of his services, with a generously worded letter saying: ‘I never accept anything for marrying and burying people, nor for christening children, and I certainly would not break the rule with a couple of friends. Should either of you feel desirous of being properly buried I shall stick to my rule, or should any christenings be unavoidable in your family the terms will be the same…Wishing you both long life and real happiness, and with my kindest regards to Mrs George and yourself…’

6 From Wales to Westminster

UNCLE LLOYD AND RICHARD OWEN may have wanted minimal fuss over the wedding, but Criccieth was determined to celebrate. As the newlyweds sped by train to London a bonfire was lit, fireworks set off and the whole town draped in bunting and flags to mark the wedding of two of its most popular young citizens. The greyness of the skies failed to deter the organisers, and although the suggestion was made that they should postpone celebrations until the couple returned from honeymoon this was rejected, since it was equally likely that the weather would be unfavourable then.

Lloyd George and the new Mrs Lloyd George spent a week enjoying the sights of London, no doubt relieved that the long-anticipated wedding had finally happened. But even on honeymoon, Lloyd George’s ambition did not allow him to stop working. He wrote a letter to D.R. Daniel, a political associate, from his London hotel, failing even to mention the wedding. What is yet more astounding is that this letter followed one that he had written on his actual wedding day, presumably before setting out from Morvin House at daybreak. He did at least make a passing reference to the significance of the day in that letter, but only in a brief and very oblique way: ‘yr ydwyf am gychwyn i wlad bell—gwell hefyd, disgwyliaf’ (I am about to set off for a far distant land—and a better one too, I expect).¹

Lloyd George did not neglect Maggie, though, and together they made the most of the opportunities London offered, seeing a varied selection of the theatrical entertainment on offer—Hamlet, Puss in Boots and Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. The only incident that marred an otherwise happy time was an altercation between Lloyd George and a cab driver over a fare. The two nearly came to blows, but Maggie intervened.

Mr and Mrs David Lloyd George arrived safely back in Criccieth on 3 February to an enthusiastic welcome from a crowd of well-wishers. Mr Owen’s carriage was waiting at the station, and in a scene that would have been unimaginable only a few months previously, Lloyd George was borne back to Mynydd Ednyfed—where it had been decided that the couple would live at first—not as a guest, but as a member of the family. The disputes that had threatened the engagement were put aside, and Lloyd George’s diary entry for the night of their return shows his relief at the warm reception he received: ‘Mrs Owen very pleased to see us. Felt very awkward this first night at Mynydd Ednyfed. Both Mr. and Mrs. O were however very kind and assisted us to feel as homely as possible.’²

For Maggie, this arrangement was ideal. She was able to resume life with her beloved parents and almost-as-beloved maid, Margiad. She lived, as before, in her childhood home, but with the welcome addition of her handsome husband. Her parents made every effort to get on with the new member of the family, and having forgiven him for winning their daughter’s hand, quickly came to appreciate the qualities that appealed to her so strongly. Whenever Maggie was with Lloyd George in London over the following years, Richard Owen wrote a weekly letter with all the news from Mynydd Ednyfed, addressed affectionately to ‘Annwyl Blant’ (Dear Children), and at home he worked hard to promote his son-in-law’s political career. Had he realised how quickly Lloyd George would put aside his marriage vows, and how soon his political activities would give him the opportunity to stray, perhaps the welcome would not have been so warm.

The first months of marriage were golden for Maggie. She was a good-humoured young woman, naturally disposed to be happy, and had been very distressed by the endless quarrels of the previous months. Now she could live again as the pampered daughter of Mynydd Ednyfed while at the same time enjoying married life. To add to her happiness, she took pride in the professional success of her new husband. Each time he won a case or achieved public praise for his oratory she would carefully cut out the press reports and paste them in a scrapbook. A letter she wrote to him soon after the wedding is full of affection and contentment:

My dearest Die,

…I was very glad to hear that the case was partly heard yesterday &I fully trust that you will be able to return home Sunday morning. I will stop at home to expect you, so come up straight, will you?…Mother &I were at Morvin House last night, we had a cup of coffee before going home. You didn’t relish the going away without a few minutes with your Mag, so I was told. Well neither did I. If it had been possible I would have been at the station in no time, but there was no chance.³

Living with her parents may have appealed strongly to Maggie at the time, but it was probably not the wisest start to the young couple’s married life. A more definitive separation from her family might have given Maggie a better chance of learning about being a wife. At Mynydd Ednyfed, Mary Owen ran the household. Maggie was allowed to avoid all but the tasks she truly enjoyed: mainly gardening, which was a lifelong passion. She had never embraced the traditionally feminine skills: her school reports confirm that although she was a very good student in all other subjects, she was only ‘fair’ when it came to domestic science and simple sewing.⁴ She was neglectful of the more mundane aspects of housekeeping, and never seemed to get the hang of daily tasks such as lighting fires. This did not matter at Mynydd Ednyfed, where Mary and the servants attended to such things, but it became a bigger issue between Maggie and her husband later on.

Lloyd George was as fond of his creature comforts as Maggie was careless of them. He had been raised by extremely capable women whose first priority had been his comfort and welfare. Lloyd George and Maggie were raised in an age when it was considered a wife’s first duty to care for her husband and children. Maggie would prove to be superb at the latter, but she did not always attend as assiduously to the former. Lloyd George upbraided her from time to time for her lack of expertise in sewing and cooking, and they would often quarrel if he came home to an unlit hearth or an empty larder. But in the early days of their marriage it was not a cold hearth that awaited Lloyd George at the end of the day. His diary records his contentment when he returned home late one night to find that ‘Maggie was lying on the hearth waiting for me,’⁵ and in the summer following their wedding, Maggie found that she was expecting their first child.

The whole family rejoiced at the news, and Maggie was happy and contented during her pregnancy, which passed without complication. Her husband was working hard, and her letters to him while he was away on business or speaking at political gatherings are full of love:

Your letter to hand this morning &many thanks to you for writing, as I did not expect a letter this morning till tomorrow &it was all the sweeter for that reason.

I am afraid you won’t come home till Thursday, will you? Unless Mr Meek says you must which would be a good thing from my point of view…

I have no more to tell you, only that we are all alive and kicking here all of us mind you, hoping your cold is better. Let me know when to expect my sweetheart home, will you?

Best love

From your loving child* [&] wife

Maggie

Maggie did not have to wait long for her faith in Lloyd George’s ability to be justified. Only weeks after their wedding he took on a legal case that would put him on the first rung of the political ladder and make his name famous throughout Wales. He was asked to act in it partly because of his growing reputation for impressive performances in court, and partly because it coincided neatly with his political views, which were also becoming well known. The case concerned a prime example of the discrimination and injustice suffered by Welsh nonconformists at the hands of the English establishment; Lloyd George could not have devised a more appropriate peg on which to hang his political career.

The story began in 1864 when the parish church of Llanfrothen, a village eight miles east of Criccieth, received the gift from a Mr and Mrs Owen of a small adjoining strip of land to be an extension of the graveyard. It was walled in, consecrated and used for burials over the following years. At the time all burials on church ground had to be held according to Anglican rites, a rule that was bitterly resented by nonconformists. In 1880, after a decade of fruitless attempts, the Liberal MP for Denbighshire, George Osborne Morgan, succeeded in passing an Act to allow nonconformists to conduct funerals in parish churchyards according to their own rites. The law was changed, but the Church of England was not going to give up its monopoly on burials without a fight.

The vicar of Llanfrothen was Rev. Richard Jones, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who deeply resented the new Act and was determined to prevent its implementation, in his churchyard at least. Rev. Jones examined the paperwork closely, decided that the Owens’ land had not been properly transferred in 1864, and persuaded Mrs Owen to re-convey her gift to the Church, specifying that only Anglican burials were to be permitted in it. This meant that nonconformists in the parish either had to submit to being buried according to Church rites or be buried in a scrap of land used for the graves of suicides and other undesirables.

The situation came to an explosive head in April 1888, when Robert Roberts, an old quarryman and a nonconformist, died. He had specified in his will that he wished to be buried next to his daughter, who had previously been buried in the Llanfrothen churchyard extension. The family arranged for a nonconformist funeral to be held, and to prevent this from happening, the Rev. Jones locked the churchyard gates and ordered the grave which had been prepared to be filled in. In desperation, Evan Roberts, the deceased’s brother, turned to Lloyd George for advice. Lloyd George came to the conclusion that, since the churchyard extension had been used for burials since 1864, it was subject to the 1880 Burial Act, and therefore the Rev. Jones was acting illegally. He confidently advised the family to return to Llanfrothen, prise the gates open by force and conduct the funeral according to the deceased’s wishes. Such open defiance of the Church was virtually unprecedented, and the case attracted widespread publicity.

The Rev. Jones was incensed, and sued the Roberts family for trespass. The case came before Porthmadoc County Court in May 1888, with Lloyd George acting for the defence. A jury of local people found in favour of the Roberts family, but in a breathtaking example of bias, the judge inaccurately recorded their verdict and ruled for the Church. Lloyd George refused to be beaten, and encouraged the family to appeal. The case came before the High Court in London in December 1888. Amid triumphant scenes that were reported widely in newspapers and celebrated throughout the length and breadth of Wales, the Lord Chief Justice overturned the previous judgement, awarded the family their costs and, for good measure, reprimanded the Porthmadoc judge for his conduct.

The commentators were virtually unanimous: Lloyd George had single-handedly challenged the persecutors of nonconformism and won justice for his people against the English-speaking establishment. The young lawyer from Criccieth was a hero.

Maggie was proud of her husband, who had proved to the world that he was principled, courageous and eloquent. Had she realised the full consequences of his notoriety, though, she might not have been so happy. The Liberal Party in Caernarvon Boroughs was selecting a candidate for the general election presumed to be forthcoming in 1892. Ten days or so after the Llanfrothen triumph they made their decision. Their candidate was Lloyd George, the hero of the hour.

Though he lived in a rural area of North Wales, the constituency which Lloyd George was to represent in Parliament for fifty-five years was comprised of the urban populations of six townships: Criccieth, Pwllheli, Nevin, Caernarvon, Bangor and Conway. It had around 4,000 registered voters out of a total population of nearly 29,000. The naturally Liberal populations of Criccieth, Pwllheli and Nevin were counterbalanced by the Church-dominated, largely Tory-voting citizens of the cathedral city of Bangor. The constituency could sometimes confound expectations, as had happened in the general election of 1886. The Liberals and the Liberal Unionists had swept the board in Wales, winning twenty-eight of the thirty-four parliamentary seats, but, presented with an unpopular Liberal candidate, Caernarvon Boroughs had elected the Tory Edmund Swetenham.

There is an element of luck in every successful political life, and it was Lloyd George’s good fortune that there was an opportunity for him to be selected as a candidate in his home constituency so early in his career. He had worked hard to be in a position to be a credible candidate, serving as Secretary of the local Anti-Tithe League and launching a Liberal newspaper, Udgorn Rhyddid (Freedom’s Trumpet) with some friends. Financially he was worse off after marrying than before, but perhaps his Llanfrothen victory had given him confidence that he could make a success of his law practice, or perhaps he simply could not bring himself to refuse an opportunity that might not come again for years. Having stood aside in 1886 he was not about to do so again, and after winning the nomination he prepared to wait—at least two years, he thought—for the next general election.

This was not at all to Maggie’s liking. As she prepared for the birth of her first child, she might have been able to ignore Lloyd George’s increasing preoccupation with politics, but when he accepted the candidacy for a seat that was winnable at the next election she could no longer do so. She tearfully tried to dissuade him from accepting, arguing that it was impractical for him to take on an unpaid job in London when they were expecting a baby and did not even have a house of their own. This was not unreasonable. A less ambitious man might have preferred to secure his family financially before launching himself into national politics. But Lloyd George had been raised to go as far as he could as early as he could. He took the view that his family would always provide for him, and he received encouragement from Morvin House. It was left to William George to worry about how the newly formed two-man legal practice could support two families with Lloyd George, at best, a part-time partner.

Lloyd George and Maggie’s first child, Richard (known as Dick), was born on 15 February 1889 in the room in which Maggie herself was born. His parents’ excitement was matched by his grandparents’ delight. Richard and Mary Owen loved children and would play a large part in their grandchildren’s lives, often taking care of them for weeks while their parents were in London. In happy anticipation of many more new arrivals, Richard Owen decided to retire from farming, and after realising his assets he built a pair of tall, semidetached stone houses in Criccieth overlooking the bay. He and Mary would live in one, and Maggie and her family would be close at hand, next door.

This new arrangement was much more to Lloyd George’s taste. Despite his improved relationship with his in-laws, there were signs that he was missing his personal freedom, and he was finding reasons for spending evenings away from Mynydd Ednyfed. This was, to an extent, justifiable, since as he was the Liberal candidate he needed to make himself known, and he was also working hard to build up his legal practice. He did not see the two as separate activities: to place himself in the best possible position at the time of the next general election, he had to develop his reputation as a public speaker, and following the Llanfrothen case, his court addresses were often reported in the press. During 1889 his law and political careers progressed in harmony, his success in court adding to his reputation as a rising political star. As an advocate he displayed the eloquence, the debating skill and the remarkable independence of mind that were to characterise the mature politician. He was at his best championing the rights of the people he had grown up with against the landowners, and he became famous for his audacious and aggressive challenges to any display of prejudice from the bench.

The impact of Lloyd George’s behaviour was all the greater because the local JPs and judges would have expected a local solicitor to show due deference not only to their legal authority over him, but also because the landowners had grown accustomed to getting their own way where nonconformists were concerned. It might have been wise for Lloyd George to be a little less antagonistic towards the bench, but he had already left behind the thought of a career in law, and was playing to a wider audience than that in the courtroom. His clashes with the magistrates attracted valuable publicity, and his reputation as defender of the working man’s rights helped his political career. He had nothing to lose in attacking the pompous, class-prejudiced magistrates who presided in court. They in turn did not know how to deal with the fearless young attorney who simply would not let them ride roughshod over the rights of the Welsh people.

Maggie was delighted by Lloyd George’s growing fame as a lawyer, speaker and people’s champion, but he was also becoming more established in the Liberal Party in Caernarvonshire, which was less to her liking. She did not join in any of his political activities, but she faithfully wrote to give him the political gossip during his business trips. Early in 1889 she wrote: ‘I am sorry to inform you that the most zealous person on the side of Cebol at Mynydd Ednyfed has turned round to canvass for Mr Graves. She is going to see these persons instead of Father. Old Cebol is very ill, poor fellow. Father thinks that if he gets in, he will jump out of bed like a shot, and should he lose will die poor fellow.’⁶

Maggie was referring to the local elections of January 1889, when, following the 1888 Local Government Reform Act, county councils were formed for the first time. The elections were the cause of much celebration in Wales, representing as they did the first wholesale transfer of local power from squires and magistrates to elected politicians. The voters of Caernarvonshire were not slow to take advantage of their opportunity. The Liberals were determined to maximise their representation on the new council, and took control with a handsome majority. Indeed, the Liberals took every county in Wales, with the exception of Brecon in the south. Naturally Lloyd George had been seen as a potential candidate, but his eyes were on the greater prize of Westminster. Nevertheless, he campaigned energetically throughout the county with the message that electing Liberal, Welsh-speaking nonconformists to the councils was a vital step along the road to self-government for Wales.

At the age of twenty-six, Lloyd George was already seen as one of the most able and prominent politicians in North Wales, and the newly formed council co-opted him to the position of Alderman, usually reserved for senior Councillors.* The co-option of the ‘Boy Alderman’ was widely reported; there was no doubt that Lloyd George’s star was in the ascendancy.

In welcoming the results of the county elections, Lloyd George spelled out his desire for self-determination in Wales. As ever, he was at the forefront of the radical wing of the Liberals, stating in a speech in Liverpool in 1889: ‘Those elections afforded the best possible test of the growth in Wales of the national movement, which, after all, is but a phase of the great Liberal movement.’ The growing confidence of the new political class in Wales was creating momentum for a campaign similar to that which Irish MPs were pressing for Home Rule. The young Lloyd George and his fellow radicals were impatient for self-determination, tired of having Wales’ claims to Home Rule treated less seriously than those of Ireland. To the South Wales Liberal Federation in February 1890 he declared:

Welsh Home Rule alone can bring within the reach of this generation the fruits of its political labours. Now it surpasses my imagination to conceive how persons who are ardent advocates of Irish Home Rule can discover any plausible reason for objecting to Welsh Home Rule…For my own part, I cannot help believing that the prospects of Wales would be brighter and more promising were her destinies controlled by a people whose forefathers proved their devotion to her interests on a thousand battlefields with their hearts’ blood, and a people who, despite the persecutions of centuries, have even to this very hour preserved her institutions and her tongue, and retained the same invincible love for her hills.⁷

With so many calls upon his time, one might have expected Lloyd George to save his leisure hours for his wife and young son. But the parlour of Mynydd Ednyfed was less attractive to him than the meetings of the local amateur dramatic society, where the company was congenial and he could indulge his love of oratory. He became a regular attendee at the society’s private parlour meetings, and was able to indulge his love of female company at the same time. His son Dick later claimed that Lloyd George had an affair during this period with a widow in Caernarvon. The lady was identified only as ‘Mrs J’, a well-known Liberal activist and a popular member of Lloyd George’s social circle. If this is true, his marital fidelity to Maggie lasted only a few months.

The revelation that Mrs J and Lloyd George were on intimate terms was apparently prompted by the sensational discovery that she was pregnant, which soon came to the attention of the leaders of the Liberal Association. Faced with the potential ruin of all his political hopes, Lloyd George had to ensure both that the scandal was ended before he could be deselected, and that Maggie did not find out about it. With Mrs J’s cooperation, he succeeded on both counts. Dick writes that she accepted an annuity for life with the condition that no documentary evidence or photographs of the child ever came to light.

Dick’s colourful account of his father’s love life has been rightly viewed with a degree of scepticism, since he had reason to be angry with his father. When the book was published in 1960 Lloyd George was long dead, and a rift between them had led to him disinheriting his firstborn. Furthermore, Dick was by then a sick man who needed money, and some say he was well remunerated for his sensational material, and that the book was actually ghost-written. The book contains many rumours of affairs. Dick concluded that his father was ‘probably the greatest natural Don Juan in the history of British politics’, and that ‘With an attractive woman he was as much to be trusted as a Bengal tiger with a gazelle.’⁸

But the story of the affair with Mrs J gains credibility from Lady Olwen Carey Evans, Lloyd George’s third child, who mentions the Caernarvon widow in her own autobiography. Olwen was in her nineties when her memoir (also ghost-written) was published in 1985, but unlike Dick she had maintained a good relationship with her father. More to the point, she was a sensible and level-headed woman who neither worshipped nor reviled her father. To a greater extent than any of his other children, she was immune to the glamour of his personality, and was better able to judge his strengths and weaknesses. Her book deals with his womanising in a matter-of-fact way, describing his lifelong weakness for women while emphasising also the strength of his marriage: ‘Although it was not until after I married that Mother ever mentioned Father’s infidelities to me, I was aware from an early age that there were other women in his life…I believe Father started having affairs with other women very soon after my parents were married.’⁹

Given the lack of hard evidence for many of Lloyd George’s rumoured affairs, it has been suggested that there is an element of myth in his reputation as a womaniser. It is true that he covered his tracks well, and no indisputable evidence has been uncovered to link him with any illegitimate offspring. No mistress has confessed publicly to a liaison apart from his second wife, Frances, and during his life he won every court case involving his personal life. But everyone who knew Lloyd George well acknowledged this side of his character, and the testimony of his closest confidants, his family and his political colleagues must carry significant weight. From the wives of his parliamentary colleagues to secretaries in his office, his conquests, it seems, were many and varied. If he did not in fact live up to his reputation, he must surely be among the most unfairly maligned figures in history.

It is not surprising that so little hard evidence exists. Lloyd George carried out his liaisons with women who had a great deal to lose and nothing to gain by exposing him. Either from preference or from deliberate calculation, he also often favoured women who did not keep diaries or make demands of one of the country’s most eminent politicians. Those who did were swiftly cut out of his life. He also won the loyalty of his mistresses because, in his own way, he genuinely loved women. He did not deceive them with promises of a future together, and he tended to leave behind goodwill, not enmity, at the end of a liaison. Such appears to have been the case with Mrs J, who remained on good terms with him for many years.

It was thanks to the good nature of his lover, and perhaps also to William George’s legal skills, that the young Liberal candidate survived to fight his first general election. Domestic harmony was also preserved, although the family later ‘tacitly acknowledged’, as Olwen put it, that they had a half-brother living in Caernarvon. Dick made extensive enquiries when he first heard the rumours as an adult, and concluded that the story was true. He avoided being seen with his half-brother in public because the physical resemblance between them was so strong. Due to the speed with which the settlement was arranged, Maggie never came to hear the rumours. As Olwen commented, she was spared this time, but was not to be so fortunate in the years to come.

Unaware of her husband’s behaviour, Maggie continued to play little part in Lloyd George’s professional and social worlds. Her life revolved around her baby, and she was preparing to leave Mynydd Ednyfed to move to the new house in town. She was also pregnant again, with Dick barely nine months old.

On 20 March 1890 Maggie had arranged to meet Lloyd George at Criccieth station. He had gone to Porthmadoc early in the morning on business, and the two of them planned to spend the rest of the day together in Caernarvon. As she arrived on the platform Maggie was handed a telegram addressed to ‘Lloyd George’. Assuming that it was for her, she opened it and read the four-word message that was to change her life: ‘Swetenham died last night.’ Maggie was thus the first to receive the shocking news that Edmund Swetenham, Caernarvon Boroughs’ Conservative MP, was dead of a heart attack at the age of sixty-eight. Maggie knew what the news meant: there would be a byelection in Caernarvon Boroughs, and instead of enjoying the next two years quietly with his wife, Lloyd George was facing the first major battle of his political life immediately, and with no time to prepare.

Struggling to take in the unexpected news, Maggie did not know what to do and held back from buying her ticket to Caernarvon in case Lloyd George wanted to cancel the trip. But when he arrived on the Porthmadoc train they decided to go ahead as planned, perhaps sensing that this would be their last outing together for the foreseeable future. They did not have a happy time. As Maggie later put it, ‘The sunshine seemed to have gone from the day…The shadow of the coming election spoiled everything.’¹⁰

Lloyd George was not the only one to be caught out by Swetenham’s death. The Conservatives had to find a new candidate at once, and luckily for Lloyd George, the best candidate they could field at such short notice was the Llanystumdwy squire, Hugh Ellis-Nanney. There was rich irony in the battle between the Highgate lad and the living embodiment of the social system he hated so much.

As the campaign began, the outcome was far from certain. Lloyd George was in many ways the perfect candidate for the constituency: local born, Welsh-speaking and eloquent. He had also been making himself known to the electorate for over a year. Ellis-Nanney on the other hand was affable, well-meaning and an experienced candidate, having stood for Caernarvonshire Division in 1880, and for South Caernarvonshire Division in 1885. But he had lost both times, and was not in good health when he was persuaded to try again in 1890. He was also not Welsh-speaking, which was becoming more of an issue with the electorate. With little time to prepare, Ellis-Nanney played the strongest card in his hand, depicting his opponent as a radical firebrand and, less advisedly, as a young man who was more interested in the wider world than in Caernarvon Boroughs. The slurs only emphasised the unflattering contrast between the squire and his brilliant young opponent.

Lloyd George had two tireless campaigners at his side in Uncle Lloyd and his brother William. The three set out to attend to every possible detail during the election period, and Lloyd George consulted them on his every move, even enlisting his brother’s help in writing his election address. In it, he held back his most radical views in order not to frighten off the more moderate Liberal voters. His address ‘To the Free and Independent Electors of the Carnarvonshire District Boroughs’ was resolutely Gladstonian. He declared early on: ‘I come before you as a firm believer in and admirer of Mr. Gladstone’s noble alternative of Justice to Ireland,’ before making a brief reference to Wales’ own claims, not to Home Rule, since that was still controversial, but to the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, which would end the dominance of the Church over the Welsh nonconformist majority, and which was the Liberals’ main campaign in the late 1880s and 1890s. He said:

I am deeply impressed with the fact that Wales has wants and aspirations of her own which have too long been ignored, but which must no longer be neglected. First and foremost among these stands the cause of Religious Liberty and Equality in Wales. If returned to Parliament by you, it shall be my earnest endeavour to labour for the triumph of this great cause. Wales has for many a year yearned in her heart for the attainment of that religious equality and freedom which is impossible whilst the English Church as by law established is imposed upon us as the National Religion of Wales, and is maintained by Welsh national endowments, and whilst clerical bigotry dominates over our Churchyards.¹¹

The reference to churchyards was a none-too-subtle reminder of the candidate’s personal triumph at Llanfrothen.

The Tories bitterly opposed Welsh disestablishment, and William George described in his diary how fierce the battle became: ‘We are in the thick of the fight. Personal rather than party feeling runs high. The Tories began by ridiculing D’s candidature; they have now changed their tune. Each party looks upon it as a stiff fight…The struggle is not so much a struggle of Tory v Liberal or Radical even; the main issue is between country squire and the upstart democrat.’¹²

Lloyd George was not afraid of being tagged ‘an upstart democrat’. He rejoiced in being a new breed of politician. By virtue of his education and legal qualifications he belonged more truly to the professional middle classes than to the ‘gwerin’ or peasant class, but he emphasised his humble origins in a speech that came to be recognised as prophetic:

I see that one qualification Mr Nanney possesses…is that he is a man of wealth, and that the great disqualification in my case is that I am possessed of none…I once heard a man wildly declaiming against Mr Tom Ellis as a Parliamentary representative; but according to that man Mr Ellis’s disqualification consisted mainly in the fact that he had been brought up in a cottage. The Tories have not yet realised that the day of the cottage-bred man has at last dawned.¹³

Indeed it had.

On 10 April 1890 the 4,000 voters in Caernarvon Boroughs went to the polls. Lloyd George spent the day with his supporters in Pwllheli before meeting up with Uncle Lloyd at Avonwen. The following day he made his way to the Guildhall in Caernarvon, where the votes were being counted. It was going to be a close-run thing. The votes piled up in two equal-looking heaps, and then Lloyd George was given the bad news: he had been defeated. But the returning officer had spoken prematurely. Lloyd George’s supporters had been primed to be on the lookout for any irregularity or skulduggery, since they (rightly) suspected that their opponents would do anything to secure victory. At the eleventh hour, Lloyd George’s electoral agent, J.T. Roberts, spotted a sheaf of twenty Liberal votes in the Conservative pile. He demanded a recount, and the result was overturned. By the skin of his teeth—only eighteen votes—Lloyd George had been elected to Parliament.

A large crowd was waiting as he emerged onto the balcony of the Guildhall, his brother at his side, and it greeted the new Member with half-crazed enthusiasm. After making a short speech in Welsh, Lloyd George travelled to Bangor, where he hailed the result as ‘a victory of democracy over the aristocracy’¹⁴ before dashing off a telegram to Uncle Lloyd. His message combined the rhetoric of victory—‘Have triumphed against enormous influences’—with engaging practicality: ‘home six; they must not engage band as rumoured, illegal; ask Maggie down’.¹⁵

Uncle Lloyd was overjoyed. He was not an excitable man, nor one given to exaggeration, but he wrote in his diary that night that the result was ‘almost a miracle’¹⁶—a word he did not use lightly. At 6 p.m. the newly elected Lloyd George returned to Criccieth, where he was greeted by crowds, bonfires and bunting—but no wife. Five months pregnant and with a fourteen-month-old baby to nurse, Maggie had decided that it was not sensible to leave Mynydd Ednyfed, despite her husband’s request. Lloyd George was rather prone to make unreasonable demands of her, ignoring her physical condition when she was pregnant and the practical difficulties of looking after young children. Although she occasionally ignored his pleas, it did not cause much friction between them, at this stage at least.

The celebrations in Criccieth lasted well into the night, and when, finally, Lloyd George was escorted home by an elated and noisy crowd he was met, not by an adoring and excited wife, but by a furious nursemaid charged with looking after the infant Dick. The new MP was brought quickly down to earth. He was subjected to a stern telling off, and his supporters were ordered to stop their shouting immediately for fear of waking the baby. It was a sharp reminder of his wife’s priorities.

*The word ‘child’ was added as an afterthought by the expectant mother.

*Lloyd George’s brother William would be elected Chairman of Caernarvonshire County Council in 1911, and in 1917 he too was co-opted as Alderman, a position he held until his death in 1967.

7 Kitty Edwards

WHEN MARGARET HEARD THAT HER husband had been elected to Parliament, she wept. Lloyd George later recalled that they were ‘tears of regret for the ending of her hopes for a quiet, untroubled existence in the country’.¹ However unrealistic her expectations of a quiet country life had been when she married, they were, it seems, genuine, and were now dashed to pieces.

The result of the Caernarvon Boroughs by-election attracted extensive coverage in the Welsh press and nationally. This was partly due to the name the successful candidate had already made for himself, but also because Lloyd George had overturned the Conservative majority of the previous general election, and, then as now, such upsets attracted a lot of comment. Lloyd George’s arrival at Westminster also received far more attention than it would have done if he had been elected amid a throng of others at a general election.

David Lloyd George MP took his seat on budget day, 17 April 1890, and his wife added the newspaper reports to her scrapbook:

It was a striking sight, the closely packed benches, the Chancellor of the Exchequer [George Goschen] with many little volumes of notes, bracing himself up for a grand effort; while immediately below the venerable figure of Lord Cottesloe stood the young M.P. for the Caernarvonshire Boroughs, nearly seventy years his junior, pale with excitement and the thoughts of the career opening before him.²

Maggie did not accompany her husband to London: amid the excitement following the election, Lloyd George had no time to find accommodation, and when he was in the capital he stayed with Criccieth friends or at the National Liberal Club, according to his circumstances. But she was not far from his thoughts, and he took the first possible opportunity to write to her, during the budget speech itself. His pride and sense of achievement in getting into Parliament, the ‘region of his future domain’, is tangible: ‘This is the first letter which I write as an introduced member of the House of Commons and I dedicate it to my little darling. I snatch a few minutes during the delivery of Goschen’s budget to write her. I was introduced amid very enthusiastic cheers on the Liberal side.’³ The next day, he wrote to his brother with the bemusement of a new Member of Parliament: ‘My first division last night. I voted against Bi-metallism, but I couldn’t tell you why.’⁴

As Lloyd George was finding his feet at Westminster, Maggie was wondering how they would manage now that her husband was an unsalaried MP with little or no time to spend on building his business. Unlike Lloyd George, who was not practical by nature, both she and William George could see the financial difficulty his election had placed them in as a family, and William’s diary betrays the sleepless nights the situation caused him: ‘For the village lad to have beaten the parish country squire is a (great) honour. Two practical questions present themselves: (a) How is D to live there? (b) How am I to live down here?’⁵

The law practice, now mainly run by William George, would have to provide for all: Lloyd George, Maggie and their growing family as well as Uncle Lloyd, Betsy and Polly. The firm was doing reasonably well as a result of some hard work by William, and had moved to premises in Porthmadoc. Uncle Lloyd helped out as an office clerk, but the family’s income would be spread thinly for some years to come. As late as 1894, William George recorded in his diary that his supper consisted of a cupful of hot water with some bread and butter. The first of many requests for financial help came from London when Maggie paid her husband a visit:

Dei wished me to ask you to send him £5 by return please. He has been using some of my money. If he doesn’t get it your dear sister can’t return home on Saturday without leaving her husband quite penniless in this great city…He also wants you to send him a few blank cheques. For goodness sake don’t send him many. They are such easy things to fill in and then the slashing signature of D. Lloyd George put to them—which I fear you would not be too glad to see.⁶

Maggie was as careful with money as Lloyd George was extravagant. Every penny was precious, and she formed money-saving habits that remained with her for life. Unfairly perhaps, they gave her a reputation for being tight-fisted. In her defence, she never enjoyed spending money on herself, but even Polly, who was perfectly aware of their financial situation, commented on her meanness to William George while on a visit to London in 1891:

You will be anxious perhaps to know whether your P.O’s came to hand safely. I may say that they are in the strictest sense of the word. Mag pounced upon them directly &no one has seen a scrap of them since or ever will…A rare one for keeping money is my little sister-in-law. She is a very kind little hostess and we get on very nicely together, it is when it comes to spending that she shows her miserliness, she will borrow a penny to pay the tram sooner than pay for you herself.⁷

During the first few weeks after his election, Lloyd George immersed himself in national politics and London life. He was anxious to find a place to live so that Maggie could join him, and did not seem to see the impracticality of this plan. In June 1890 he entreated her to make the eighteen-hour round trip from Criccieth by train so that they could spend Sunday house-hunting—not a prospect that would entice many women who were seven months pregnant.⁸ His pleading was all the more extraordinary because Maggie’s second pregnancy had not been straightforward. Her letters to Lloyd George, though trying to reassure him, are full of fear that she might lose the baby: ‘This afternoon we are going to Dwyfor Villa to tea, the walk will do me good if I do it slowly &rest at Criccieth. I’m going and coming back. Much more good than a drive that shakes me so much.’ And again: ‘I don’t feel very well today don’t be alarmed if you find an unease in the family when you come down. I am in good spirits. Mag.’⁹

Lloyd George was worried, and despite his efforts to cheer her up, Maggie was clearly having a hard time. She wrote:

I am longing dreadfully after you today. After being home for a flying visit you seem to have gone from my sight without hardly having seen you, &it may seem very silly on my part but I go to every room in the house today to find a trace of your having been occupying it, &I find but little traces of you, but when I do I relieve myself in tears, but I shall be alright when I get a letter tomorrow morning.

…send me a loving letter tomorrow &I shall be happy &make haste home on Saturday if you cant come before. I feel that I must see you once more before I am taken ill.¹⁰

There was great joy when Mair Eluned Lloyd George was born without complication on 2 August 1890, although the proud father was not at home to witness the event. He was told of the birth of his first daughter by his brother in a telegram, and caught the mail train to Criccieth for a flying visit before returning to London.

Lloyd George naturally wanted to participate in full in his first parliamentary session, but when the House rose in mid-August his family expected him to return to Criccieth to nurture his constituency, to help his brother with the law practice, and to spend time with his wife and new baby. Maggie was clearly looking forward to having her husband back, but he had other ideas: to Lloyd George politics was a full-time occupation, and when Parliament was not sitting he gave speeches across the country and travelled abroad with his political friends, a fact that his wife and brother eventually had to accept.

This was hard for Maggie. She could not see the attraction of London for her husband, and resented the time he spent there when he could be with his family. On one occasion soon after Mair’s birth Lloyd George announced that he was staying in London for the weekend to prepare a speech instead of coming home. Maggie had been looking forward to a visit, and her disappointment was sharpened when he mentioned casually that he had been distracted from his work by his friend and fellow Welsh Liberal MP, S.T. Evans, who she felt was a bad influence on him. On the Sunday, the two had taken a bus to Kew Gardens and had failed to attend chapel. Maggie was incensed:

Well I don’t approve of the way you spent your Sunday &I am sure by the way my old Dafydd put it that he knows I don’t. Thanks to you all the same for being honest in telling your Maggie. Tell her everything will you always never keep anything from her. If you were at home now &wanted to make a speech &your old Mag asked you to come with her to Chapel for 2 hours you would at once say well I can’t come I can’t go to such and such a place unprepared &make a fool of myself &that I must be responsible for the result if you come with me, but S T Evans turns up &asks you to go with him to waste a day you consent I am sure with a bright smile &no conditions as to responsibility. I shall remember last Sunday in future.

Maggie chose to believe that Lloyd George was a reluctant participant in the day trip, and blamed his friend for the episode:

I can’t bring myself to like S T Evans after what you told me. He is not teetotller (I am sure that is not spelt properly) for one thing &other things [i.e. his flirting] that you’ve told me, which I always dislike in men, that he must be rather fast. Perhaps I am mistaken. Tom Ellis [nonconformist MP for Merioneth] would be the man I should like to see you friendly with. I don’t think there would be any danger of your being any the worse for being in his company. I am not so sure about STE.

Her idea of a well-spent Sunday was not at all the kind that appealed to Lloyd George: ‘Buasai yn llawer gwell i ti fod yn Grassgarth hefo Davies yn cadw cwmpeini iddo fe. Gallset neud dy speech tra buasai Davies yn y capel ond iti fynd yno hefo fo unwaith’ (It would be far better for you to be at Grassgarth with Davies* keeping him company. You could prepare your speech while Davies was in Chapel, if you only went with him once).¹¹ Maggie’s outburst did not change her husband’s behaviour, but it did make him more careful to conceal his pleasure trips from her.

Lloyd George’s entry into the world of national politics took place during a period of great change. Irish Home Rule was dominating the political headlines, supporters of female suffrage were beginning to attract attention to their cause, and demographic and social changes in densely populated industrial areas were leading inexorably to the formation of a new political force as the Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893 under the chairmanship of Keir Hardie. Simultaneously, the dominance of the landed gentry in Parliament was giving way to men with ‘new’ money or from the professions, although in 1890 the average Conservative MP still had roughly twice the personal income of the average Liberal Member. The House of Commons reflected the habits and lifestyle of the aristocracy, creating a potentially hostile and threatening atmosphere to a working-class MP. But it was not intimidating to Lloyd George. He soon grasped the ways of the House, taking to it as naturally as if he had been born to it.

The change of character in the membership of the House meant that in the general election of 1892, Lloyd George was joined by more men of similar backgrounds. He himself increased his majority from the wafer-thin eighteen votes of the by-election two years previously to 196, despite facing the well-liked Tory candidate Sir John Puleston, Constable of Caernarvon Castle and veteran of the American Civil War. Of the thirty-four Welsh Members returned, thirty-one were Liberals, and over twenty were Welsh-born. Significantly, the group contained six village-school-educated men, fourteen lawyers, fourteen businessmen and twenty-two nonconformists. The Liberals, led by Gladstone, were not so successful elsewhere, and with a reduced Liberal majority of only forty, if they banded together as a group the Welsh Members to some extent held the balance of power. They were not slow to take advantage of the fact. Courted by the government, the Welsh MPs were determined to secure the great prize: a Bill for the disestablishment of the Welsh Church which would end the state-maintained dominance of the Anglican Church in Wales and give religious equality—at last—to nonconformists.

Maggie was not politically aware when she married, but she could see that these were important battles, and that her husband’s participation in Westminster politics at this time was crucial to the future of her own country, denomination and way of life. She could not see though why he had to be away from her when Parliament was not in session. He in turn could not understand why she did not want to follow him to London to look after him there.

Lloyd George wanted his family with him in London—‘I don’t know what I would give now for an hour of your company. It would scatter all the gloom &make all the room so cheerful,’ he wrote in June 1890¹²—but the unpleasant reality was that he could not afford to set up a second household on his income. At first he stayed in Acton with the Davies family, who became close friends and welcomed Maggie whenever she could visit London. But she now had two children under two years old to take care of, and also had plenty to occupy her at home, packing up at Mynydd Ednyfed and preparing to move to the new house in December 1890. It would have been difficult for her to spend more time in London even if the succession of temporary digs had been satisfactory, and they clearly were not.

The Lloyd Georges’ first home in London was a set of rooms in Verulam Buildings, Gray’s Inn, which they took on a lease of £70 (£6,147 at today’s values) a year early in 1891. The rooms were serviced, and there was a porter at the gate and two housekeepers on the premises, but the lease was surrendered at the end of the 1892 parliamentary session. That winter they took a six-month lease on a set of rooms at 5 Essex Court in the Temple, and in late autumn 1893 Lloyd George took a flat, No. 30 Palace Mansions in Addison Road, Kensington, for £90 a year which was to be their London home for six years. For the most part, however, Maggie stayed in Criccieth, resigning herself to the long absences that came to characterise her relationship with her husband at this time.

There has been much speculation about Maggie’s attitude towards living in London. Her visits there were so infrequent during 1894, when she was expecting their fourth child, that Lloyd George arranged for the flat to be let for six months, and it was again sub-let in 1896, when she was pregnant a fifth time (the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage). It does not appear that she was in London very often during the remainder of 1896, in 1897 (although she was there when she suffered another miscarriage in the spring) or 1898, until, finally, with the marriage at crisis point, she consented to let their Criccieth home and move to a family house near Wandsworth Common. Even then she delayed making the move for as long as possible.

The overwhelming consensus among Lloyd George’s biographers is that Maggie simply preferred Criccieth to London. In this way, the blame for the difficulties in their marriage has been divided between the philandering husband and the absent wife. The evidence, though, strongly suggests that, her preference apart, Maggie’s decision not to join Lloyd George in London at the beginning of his parliamentary career was based on practical considerations. After all, when the children were older she did—albeit reluctantly—move to London, and she was mostly at her husband’s side through his years as Chancellor and Prime Minister.

The conventional view is largely based on Lloyd George’s pleas in his letters home for Maggie to join him, although the possibility exists that he was exaggerating his loneliness to divert attention from his active socialising in her absence. Nevertheless, the love between him and Maggie was strong, and he was clearly anxious to have his family with him more often during these early years. This was the first time in his life that he had had to fend for himself without women to take care of his needs, and he did not enjoy it. He was not temperamentally equipped to look after himself. He had been spoiled as a child by the devoted Betsy and Polly, and cared for latterly by the servants at Mynydd Ednyfed. For the pampered young man, who to the end of his life was never able to tie his own shoelaces, it was a shock to the system to come home to an empty room with no food to eat and no clean collars for his shirts. In some ways, as we shall see, his solitary existence in London suited him, and he made the most of the opportunity to enjoy his new social circle, but the loneliness was not entirely faked, and his domestic helplessness was a real problem.

Lloyd George was not a systematic man, especially when it came to correspondence. Despite writing regularly and frequently to Maggie, William George and Uncle Lloyd, he never kept track of the letters he received, and the majority of theirs to him have been lost. Consequently, Maggie’s views on living in London and her reasons for her undisguised preference for Criccieth have not received similar attention.

There are many facts that would have affected her decision. Travel between Criccieth and London involved an uncomfortable and expensive nine-hour train journey via Bangor, Shrewsbury and Crewe. Money was desperately short, and when Lloyd George was elected, the twenty-three-year-old Maggie had a baby of fourteen months with another on the way. When Mair Eluned was born the practical difficulties doubled. It was far from clear in 1890 that Lloyd George would hold on to his seat for more than a couple of years, when the next general election was expected. Also, in the 1890s the parliamentary timetable was less regular and less frantic than it is now: sessions ran, typically, from January to late summer, with a short break at Easter, but Members were then free to return to their constituencies for the rest of the year, unless they were in office with government departments to run. Life as a backbencher involved having one foot in Westminster and the other in the constituency. It may have seemed utterly reasonable to Maggie that she and the family should stay where they were, with Lloyd George returning as often as he could.

The family’s health was another major factor. Lloyd George wrote to Maggie in June 1890:

You can’t imagine how glad I was to get such a long and interesting letter from you. I read it with avidity and delight. I went out for a stroll before breakfast to the Embankment Gardens & read your letter there. It made me quite happy. There is a sort of pleasure even in ‘hiraeth’ [homesickness] itself. I am sorry that they are cutting the hay so soon. Were it next week I might come then. I would so like to scent the hay. It would be such a contrast to this infernal sooty stinky [city].¹³

London was not a healthy place to live in the 1890s. Country people had long feared the contagion and ‘bad air’ of the rapidly growing cities—one of the reasons for Betsy and William George’s return to Wales from Lancashire in 1864. In subsequent years things had got worse. Some of the richest men in London were brewers, who provided an alternative to drinking the city’s dirty water, which posed a very real danger: a House of Commons cleaner died of cholera as late as 1893. City doctors were widely mistrusted, especially with regard to childbirth: infant mortality in the cities was 30 per cent higher than in the country. Maggie was happy to visit London before she became a mother, but with young children it was a different matter. The prospect of looking after two babies in a cramped set of rooms was a real deterrent. No wonder she thought it best for the children to stay in their comfortable house by the sea in Criccieth, with her parents on hand and servants to look after them.

In later life, Maggie declared with seeming sincerity that ‘a wife must put her husband first, her children second, and herself last. That is the way to take couples happily to their golden wedding.’¹⁴ It is difficult to reconcile that view though with her actions when her children were young. From the moment she first fell pregnant in 1888, the children filled her world, and although she loved her husband passionately, there is not much evidence to support the view that she put his needs above theirs. All in all, this was the worst time in her life to ask Maggie to live for long periods in London. During the first seven years of their marriage, she was pregnant for a total of thirty-six months, gave birth four times,* and assuming she nursed each child for six months after birth (a conservative estimate for the period), there were only fourteen months during the years 1888-95 when she was not either pregnant or nursing. After 1895 Maggie’s health was not strong, and she miscarried twice before giving birth to the couple’s last child, Megan Arvon, in April 1902.

Maggie’s life was centred around her children, her family and chapel. In London, she had none of the support systems she needed to make a home. Her social circle was small and scattered across the city, and getting about with small children was not easy. Lloyd George was wholly preoccupied with the intoxicating world of politics, and kept highly irregular hours. Yes, it was her duty to look after her husband, but did she not have an equal duty to look after her children? In the years ahead, this question was to cause increasing tension between them.

In the early 1890s, however, their relationship was warm and close, and Lloyd George’s affection for the children fills his letters: ‘When am I going to get little Dickie’s photo? I want it badly. I can’t stand this solitude much longer.’¹⁵ But while he was missing Maggie, he was not missing Criccieth. He had found life there, with gossips monitoring his movements, too confining and he never grew to like the town. He complained about the weather (very wet), and the fact that as his fame grew he was never left in peace. As the years wore on he came to regard time spent in Criccieth as a matter of duty, not respite. Early on in his parliamentary career he was making excuses to Maggie instead of returning to the family home at weekends. The truth was that, in his early thirties, he was relishing his freedom and enjoying the more cosmopolitan life in London. Maggie’s absence gave him plenty of time, and the incentive, to make the most of the social opportunities that were open to a young star in the Welsh Liberal Party. He made friends with his fellow Welsh MPs and with members of the flourishing Welsh community in the capital.

There has been a flow of people from Wales to London as far back as records exist, and the numbers grew to a torrent in the nineteenth century, forming a large, socially mixed group of immigrants. Then, as now, the Welsh in London did not feel a pressing need to gather protectively together. They spread themselves out across the city, with a slightly denser concentration in the west and north-west around Paddington and Euston, the two great gateways to Wales. Many of the migrants came from farming communities, and they made two farming-based trades their own: dairy and drapery. The sight of a Welsh dairy or draper’s shop was a familiar feature of Victorian London, and the great Welsh retailers’ names are still visible, Peter Jones, Dickins and Jones and D.H. Evans among them. These establishments, and countless smaller ones, attracted more Welshmen and women to work as dairy maids, shop assistants and domestic servants. They intermarried freely with native Londoners, lived above the shop or in the houses they served, and built up a community life around the numerous Welshlanguage chapels and churches they built in the city. Some did well: two nineteenth-century Lord Mayors of London were Welsh, and when the National Eisteddfod was held in the Albert Hall in 1887, royalty attended.

The prosperous Welsh in London readily opened their doors to Lloyd George, who enjoyed their lively social gatherings. He got to know them—and their wives—and there was enough evidence of flirting to make Maggie suspicious. In a letter written soon after Mair’s birth, she sounded a warning: ‘I am glad you have not seen any girl you should like better than poor me, but are you sure that you have not seen anyone to flirt with. Remember to be careful in that line as I will soon find out.’¹⁶

As early as 1893-94, in an undated fragment, Lloyd George had to defend himself against the same charge: ‘Am y reception [As for the reception]. I behaved very modestly. I am sure Mrs Gwynoro hardly saw me speaking even to any ladies—at least very casually.’¹⁷ He evidently felt he needed to make it clear to Maggie that his companion on this occasion was not physically attractive: ‘I dined that evening at Wynford Phillips & took his wife, a black thin skinny bony Jewess whom you could not squeeze without hurting yourself. This lady I took to the reception & left her there directly he arrived.’ He then lists all the women he met at the event, some of whom were clearly known to Maggie, and others whom he took care to describe in highly unflattering terms: ‘I met Mrs Evans of Llanelly (formerly Miss Hughes) Belle Vue, Miss Griffith Springfield, Miss Jones (hogan goch & spectols) [a red-haired girl with spectacles] & Mrs Dr. Price, Mrs Dr. Parry & a few more whose names even I do not recollect.’¹⁸

Dick recalls that this was a typical tactic of his father’s. Maggie was quick to confront her husband with evidence of any inappropriate behaviour. She had inherited a little of her mother’s temperament, and could be fierce when roused. Lloyd George believed that attack was the best form of defence: when accused he would come out fighting, disarming Maggie with a teasing response or a forthright denial. Their letters, though warm and affectionate, are littered with accusations and denials, some jocular, others less so. In November 1895, Lloyd George wrote: ‘Oh yes, Miss Jones. She is lovely. Twenty-one, charming & so jolly. It is a perfect delight to spend Sunday in the same house. Dyna i ti rhen Fagi! [There you are, old Maggie!] Love, fond & warm from your sweetheart.’¹⁹ Again, in February 1896: ‘You are a jealous little creature! Miss May is not there. As a matter of fact I have not seen her for months.’²⁰ And from Rome, where he was holidaying with two colleagues, he addresses a letter to ‘My dear suspicious old Maggie’:* ‘Mrs Blythe is a widow—young, pretty and genial. Are you scared stiff to hear this, old Maggie? Well, you needn’t be. She worships the memory of her dead husband and can think of nothing else.’²¹

Hardly reassuring. He went on to deploy another favourite tactic, suggesting that another member of his party was misbehaving, making himself look angelic in comparison: ‘They all know how fond I am of my Maggie. They see me writing letters when that is difficult…Gilchrist never talks of his wife and children, but I do often.’²²

Lloyd George genuinely considered himself to be a good husband and family man.* He was certainly a regular and enthusiastic correspondent, and he took a close, affectionate interest in his children. But left to his own devices in London, there were plenty of women who were more than happy to offer him the comfort of their parlours, posing a threat to the distant Maggie. An undated letter written to Lloyd George in the 1890s spells out the danger:

My Dear Mr Lloyd George

I have just returned from Birmingham. Went there yesterday and now I am back here in my flat [and my maids]. If you are going no where else tomorrow afternoon come up here and have some music. I shall be staying here now for a while so hope to see you.

In haste, yours etc

RFL²³

Again, from 1899 comes the distraught voice of a lady friend who wanted more attention than Lloyd George was able to offer:

My Dear Lloyd

Do please answer my letters. I never knew whether you got the one I sent you before you went abroad wishing you ‘bon voyage’. I am on [illegible] in case they do not reach you safely. Come & see me one Evening this week only let me know then I shall be in. I am dying for a long talk with you. Now do not fail to answer this letter.

Ys in haste,

Kate²⁴

Scribbled across the top of the letter, which is on black-edged mourning paper, is the instruction:

Read & tear it up at once but mind and write me. I have news for you too. A surprise.

We do not know what happened next, but the end of the story emerges in a telegram sent to Lloyd George at the Liberal Club. It seems that he had used the time-honoured way out of a tedious correspondence by continuing to ignore her letters:

I do think you unkind—you might put me out of my misery & acknowledge the receipt of my letters. I shall never write again unless you answer this. Will you come here or meet me tomorrow night—Friday? K²⁵

It is possible that Lloyd George was innocent of any wrongdoing in this case—there is no concrete evidence of indiscretion. But he was at the very least unwise to behave in such a way as to invite emotional letters of this kind. He was alone in London, at the height of his attractiveness. He was a popular and entertaining guest, and was as free as a single man to enjoy some music and female company once the business of the House was over for the day. From the start, he had redrawn the rules of marital fidelity to exclude sex from the deal. Maggie had his first loyalty, his love and his name. Anything she could not provide—including companionship and sex when they were apart—he felt free to take from others. Maggie had every reason to fear the worst.

The one thing Maggie did not have to fear was divorce. Quite apart from the fact that he loved her, Lloyd George was not going to leave his wife, for before he had served his first full session in Parliament he had witnessed at close quarters one of the most calamitous divorce scandals of the age. The affair between the leader of the Irish National Party, Charles Stewart Parnell, and Mrs Katharine O’Shea rocked the political establishment to its core. It made the young Welsh MP even more determined to put ambition before love, and political success above all else.

Katharine O’Shea, the wife of a captain in the 18th Hussars, met the charismatic Parnell in 1880, and they were soon living together in London and Brighton. She became closely involved in his political work, nursed him through his frequent periods of illness, and was often consulted by British and Irish politicians alike as Irish Home Rule became a more pressing issue. Her home was the first port of call when Gladstone or his lieutenants wanted to speak to Parnell, who was rapidly becoming one of the most prominent politicians of the day. He was worshipped in Ireland, and as the leader of the Irish Nationalists in the House of Commons, he held the balance of power.

It was perhaps inevitable that the chink in his armour, his relationship with Mrs O’Shea, with whom he had three children, would be used against him. The long-absent Captain O’Shea, who had seemed wholly unperturbed by his wife’s living arrangements, was persuaded by Parnell’s enemies to sue for divorce in 1889, citing Parnell as corespondent. Parnell refused to fight the case, relying on his personal reputation to help him ride out the crisis, but he lost the support of Gladstone, and with it the leadership of his party. It was the end of his career, and also the end of the campaign for Irish Home Rule which was his life’s work. He and Mrs O’Shea were eventually married in June 1891, and he died a little over three months later. He was forty-five.

The sheer scale of the scandal surrounding the O’Shea divorce case is difficult to imagine today. ‘Kitty’ O’Shea was reviled in the press, and Lloyd George attributed the loss of a by-election in Bassetlaw in December 1890 to the scandal. Parnell’s fellow MPs were amazed and appalled that he could have sacrificed the great Irish cause for the sake of a woman, no one more so than Lloyd George. He wrote: ‘The Irish party are now upstairs discussing Parnell’s future. I saw him just now in the tea-room looking as calm & as self-possessed as ever. But it is a serious business for him. Here he is quite a young man having attained the greatest career of this century, dashing it to pieces because he couldn’t restrain a single passion. A thousand pities. It is a still worse business for some of us fellows holding doubtful seats…’²⁶ A few days later he referred to Parnell as ‘a base selfish wretch’:

Everyone is so preoccupied about Parnell. Well it appears that fellow persists in brazening it out. The situation is getting very serious & acute & no one knows what will become of it. If Parnell sticks & his party stick to him it is generally conceded that Home Rule is done for. Isn’t he a rascal. He would sacrifice even the whole future of his country too.²⁷

Parnell was universally condemned for having put personal happiness ahead of his duty to his country.

What did Lloyd George glean from this episode? It was an early lesson in the ways of high society. Queen Victoria was still on the throne, but the Prince of Wales, heading the fast ‘Marlborough set’, was establishing new rules when it came to combining public life with private happiness. The Parnell affair elicited a strange mix of old attitudes and new ones.

Prince Edward, who became Edward VII in 1901, was the ultimate playboy prince. He had earned himself the nickname of ‘Edward the Caresser’ with a series of affairs which scandalised his parents and enthralled the nation. Indeed, it was during a visit to his son’s college in Cambridge in the wake of an incident involving a popular actress called Nellie Clifden that Prince Albert contracted his fatal dose of typhoid, and Queen Victoria never forgave her son for being the indirect cause of her widowhood. In an attempt to regularise his private life, Prince Edward was married off to the beautiful and virtuous Princess Alexandra, but that did not curb his behaviour for long. Soon he and his intimate circle, the so-called Marlborough House set, were developing a code of practice that allowed them to indulge in serial affairs without upsetting the social order. The rules of the game were simple, and designed to keep the players out of the divorce courts. Affairs were confined to women of the same, aristocratic social class. Single women were out of bounds, as were married ones until they had had two or three children, including the necessary heir. But after family obligations had been fulfilled, gentlemen and married ladies could conduct discreet affairs during country-house Saturday-to-Monday parties or long afternoon visits in town while husbands were at their clubs. House-party hostesses would understand what was expected of them in arranging bedroom accommodation for their guests. In this way immoral behaviour was cloaked in respectability, and scandal averted. Young girls’ marriage prospects were not ruined by affairs with older men, and elaborate rules involving chaperones were devised to make sure that everyone obeyed the code.

After making the proper kind of dynastic marriage, providing their aristocratic husbands with heirs, and transferring their children’s care to nannies, well-born women would find themselves at leisure. They were often bored, and played the game as enthusiastically as their husbands. Society colluded to keep everything discreet, even when prominent ladies gave birth to ‘late’ children who looked nothing like their husbands. The only threat to this happy arrangement, the thing to be avoided at all costs, was the public scandal of the divorce courts. Then the gloves came off, and the losers—usually women—were reviled in the press and excluded from society.

As an illustration of this code of conduct, there could be no better example than the Parnell affair. Everyone who knew Parnell and Mrs O’Shea, from the Prime Minister himself to the chambermaids who served them, treated Mrs O’Shea as Parnell’s lawful wife, and no one seemed to trouble themselves about the morality of the situation. But the fateful intervention of Captain O’Shea removed Parnell’s private life from the realm of the Marlborough House set rules, and cast it firmly into the public arena, where such things could not be accommodated. Thus Gladstone, who had been perfectly happy to acknowledge the affair in private, could not risk supporting Parnell through a public scandal. This may seem like utter hypocrisy—it seemed so to Mrs O’Shea at the time—but it was a reflection of the fact that the middle and working classes expected their national leaders to keep out of such scandals.

This was the world in which Lloyd George found himself when he entered Parliament, and this was the context to his own behaviour during the years that followed. The Parnell affair had lessons to impart in terms of both his marriage and his career, and he learned them well. Within his marriage, he was able to keep transient flirtations and affairs separate from the love and commitment he offered Maggie. While expecting total fidelity from his wife, he indulged in relationships with other women and was never faithful to any of them, making full use of the prevailing silence of the press in such matters. This was a million miles away from the attitudes in Criccieth, but then, Lloyd George was far away from Criccieth. Such was the impact of the Parnell affair on Lloyd George that he would give Frances Stevenson a biography of Parnell when he asked her to be his mistress. The warning was implicit: there would be no divorce in his case. There would be no scandal. His career came first.

However clear in his mind Lloyd George was on this point, the story of the gallant Irish politician who sacrificed his career for love sent a very different message to others of his acquaintance. One of them was Catherine Edwards, the wife of a respectable doctor in Cemmaes, Merioneth, who by fancying herself as the Welsh Kitty O’Shea caused the first major scandal of Lloyd George’s parliamentary career.

By the summer of 1896, Maggie’s life had settled into its uneven split between Criccieth and London, and since Lloyd George had maintained his majority in the general election of 1895, she could be confident that her life as an MP’s wife was likely to continue. She was thirty, and her brood now numbered four chicks, with Dick aged seven, Mair six, Olwen four, and the youngest, Gwilym, eighteen months. She was pregnant for the fifth time, and as usual she intended to stay in Criccieth until the birth. She and Lloyd George were still spending long times apart. He was making a name for himself as a backbencher and leader within the Welsh Parliamentary Group, and had taken several long holidays with political friends, while she stayed behind in Criccieth, which seemed to suit them both.

Money was still a problem. In his struggle to keep the family financially afloat, Lloyd George was apt to be tempted into unwise business dealings, and in 1893 the prospect of a quick return on a goldmine in far-distant Patagonia had been too attractive to resist. The consequences were disastrous, and in an attempt to turn the situation around he decided to take a trip to Argentina during the 1896 parliamentary recess, leaving on 21 August and returning on 27 October. He also needed a holiday, for his mother had died on 19 June. She was sixty-eight, and had been an invalid for many years. Lloyd George returned to Criccieth for a small, private funeral, and was so upset that Richard Lloyd sent him back to London so that politics could distract him from his grief. Maggie was too unwell to attend Betsy’s funeral, and during his trip—or possibly just before his departure—she lost the baby. While she was recovering from this setback, unbeknownst to her a child was being born to a cousin of hers, Catherine Edwards. This child was going to cast a shadow over her life for the next three years.

Catherine Edwards, or ‘Kitty’ as she was (ironically) known, was a ‘pretty, pert, amiable young woman’²⁸ who lived with her daughter and her husband, the local doctor, near the village of Mathafarn. In August 1896 her husband realised that she was pregnant, which was a surprise to him since the couple were estranged and had occupied separate bedrooms since 1894. What happened next came within a whisker of destroying Lloyd George’s political career.

Kitty later claimed that on 10 August her husband used physical violence to induce her to sign a statement written in his hand. It read:

I, Catherine Edwards, do solemnly confess that I have on 4th of February, 1896, committed adultery with Lloyd George MP, and that the said Lloyd George is the father of the child, and that I have on a previous occasion committed adultery with the above Lloyd George.²⁹

Dr Edwards denied using violence against his wife, but he did throw her out of the house, and just over a week later she gave birth to a child at a temperance hotel called The Tower in Penygroes, near Caernarvon. At the time it was claimed that the baby was born near its full term, but the date of the confessed adultery, together with Dr Edwards’ ignorance of his wife’s condition until August, lend credence to a later doctor’s report that the child was born substantially premature, weak and sickly at just over four pounds. The child did not survive to adulthood.

Naturally, within a small community, news like this could not be kept quiet, and Lloyd George’s political enemies made sure that the gossip persisted. While Lloyd George was abroad the rumours reached the ears of his brother William. To his credit, William never entertained the notion that his brother could be guilty as charged, but he recognised the gravity of the situation, recording gloomily in his diary: ‘The event that has overshadowed everything else in my little world during the last two days is the charge which is being made against D in connection with Mrs Dr Edwards…I hope to God that neither Uncle nor Maggie will hear anything of this slander until D returns when, of course, he will be in a position to deal with the “affair” effectively.’³⁰

William knew that the scandal would end Lloyd George’s career if he was not able to defend himself adequately, a fear that was reinforced the next day when he received a letter from R.O. Roberts, Lloyd George’s election agent, containing the sombre message: ‘The story is in everybody’s mouth here, and naturally enough, people are shocked whether it be true or not. If true, then D’s days are numbered; if untrue then it is a most devilish trick to blacken a man in his absence.’³¹

William immediately set about discovering the facts in order to mount a defence, taking care that Maggie heard nothing of the matter. He wrote a letter to Lloyd George with the bare bones of the accusation and sent it to Southampton to await his return. Having consulted Uncle Lloyd’s diary, which faithfully recorded Lloyd George’s whereabouts every day, he satisfied himself that his brother was innocent, and proceeded to do everything he could to keep a lid on the story. However, he did not know the date of the alleged adultery. He must have counted back nine months from the birth of the child rather than check the date in Kitty’s ‘confession’, because Uncle Lloyd’s diary clearly showed that Lloyd George did spend the night of 4 February at Dr Edwards’ house. Edwards had been called out during the night, and had not returned until morning, leaving his wife and Lloyd George alone in the house. This did not mean that Lloyd George was guilty, but William was premature in celebrating his brother’s innocence.

Dr Edwards was a Liberal supporter, and Lloyd George had got to know him when he campaigned for the Liberal candidate in Montgomeryshire in an 1894 by-election. A letter written to Lloyd George by Kitty suggested that he had also got to know Mrs Edwards rather well:

I am addressing this to the Club and the minute you have read it please commit it to the fire, I shall not expect an answer until you write to tell me you are going to spend a few days with us again…No more news, you may expect some trout from me in April, I shall send as many as I catch to Maggie and you and if my basket is not sufficient to supply your larder the Dr must help.

Excuse such an untidy letter and with my kind regards

Believe me

Yrs very sincerely

Kitty Edwards³²

Kitty Edwards was a young, flirtatious, bored wife, and it later emerged that not one but two other men were also in the frame as the possible father of her second child. Nevertheless, for some reason, under the pressure of her husband’s interrogation, she named Lloyd George as her lover, and for a short time this was believed by Dr Edwards.

In late October, Lloyd George returned home to Criccieth to find political uproar awaiting him, with all except his wife and his uncle in the know. He denied the charge and, advised by his brother, wrote to Dr Edwards to protest his innocence. The brief correspondence between them suggests that Edwards by then accepted that his wife had lied, but the doctor put the matter in the hands of his solicitor. Sooner or later with all this activity going on Maggie was bound to find out, and find out she did. She was not told about the affair by her husband, but discovered it when she read a letter that was addressed to him. It provoked a violent quarrel between them. Maggie was understandably distressed, but she came to believe in his innocence, and remained stalwart in her support for him through the whole, drawn-out affair.

In March 1897 Dr Edwards finally sued for divorce, and was promptly counter-sued by Kitty on the grounds of his cruelty. Lloyd George was not cited as co-respondent (that dubious honour went to Edward Wilson, the stationmaster at nearby Cemaes), but the libel of Kitty’s confession had circulated so widely that the judge asked Lloyd George if he wanted to join the suit so that he could clear his name publicly on oath. This presented Lloyd George with a dilemma. Maggie was insistent that to appear in court in connection with such a sordid business would inevitably lead to more gossip. Mud sticks, she felt, even if he was found not guilty. On the other hand, refusing to clear his name could also lead to more rumour. Eventually, strongly advised by his brother (who consistently gave him excellent, impartial legal advice), Lloyd George decided to keep his name out of the proceedings.

If Maggie ever doubted her husband in this matter, she did not show it. On the contrary, whatever her private feelings, she maintained a philosophical, almost nonchalant attitude, writing to William George:

PRIVATE:* Is it not a great nuisance to have this old story risen up again? I trust it will be over on Monday for Die’s sake—he is worrying about it. This world is a very cruel one, don’t you think so? The innocent must suffer in order to shield the culprits. There are several persons in this matter who are left out of it altogether, who no doubt are guilty of misbehaving with this woman.³³

In November 1897, by which time the scandal had been circulating for a full fifteen months, a court date was set. Shortly before then, a deal was reached between Dr and Mrs Edwards: she dropped her claims of cruelty in return for his withdrawing the charge against Edward Wilson. The reason for this deal became apparent later, and was connected with the discovery of indiscreet letters written by Mrs Edwards to a third man, known only as ‘Gillet’, which exonerated the stationmaster. But this did not emerge at the time and the judge proceeded to grant Dr Edwards a decree nisi on the grounds of his wife’s adultery ‘with persons unknown’.

Clearly this did not satisfactorily address the rumours concerning Lloyd George, so the judge took it upon himself to read out Kitty’s confession in court, adding: ‘I have no hesitation in saying that I think no case whatever has been made out against Mr Lloyd George—I think it was in the interests of Mr Lloyd George himself that the written confession has been brought forward and dealt with fully.’³⁴

The relief to Lloyd George and his family must have been considerable. The only cloud on the horizon was that since the proceedings would be reported in the press, Uncle Lloyd had to be told about the affair. He wept and was thoroughly upset, but still, Lloyd George’s name had been cleared.

And so the matter would have rested had not the divorce been interrupted in a most unfortunate manner. During the then compulsory six-month period between the granting of decree nisi and decree absolute, the man who employed Kitty as his secretary—Dr Beddoes of Aberystwyth—contested the decree nisi on the grounds that Dr Edwards had forced his wife to sign the confession. This dug up the scandal all over again, and led to a second court hearing in June 1899. The strain on Lloyd George and his family was compounded as further details of the affair came to light. Kitty’s confession was reprinted in the press, and when the court hearing came around, the whole business descended to near farce. Kitty’s letters inviting Gillet to visit her when her husband was away were exposed. She had also written to Dr Edwards begging him to let her return to the marital home, acknowledging, ‘I know I have sinned, but I have repented bitterly…I cannot expect you to receive me home yet, and of course the child shall never come,’³⁵ which hardly backed up her claim that the child was her husband’s all along. Lloyd George referred to the resurrection of the case as ‘another dose of purgatory’, and it weighed heavily on both him and Maggie. His political opponents made the most of his discomfort, and the matter only ended when the judge unhesitatingly granted Dr Edwards his decree absolute.

There is no definitive answer to the question of whether Lloyd George did or did not have a relationship with Kitty Edwards, but given the evidence of her letter it seems most likely that there was a flirtation, if not a sexual relationship, between them. The two court cases and William George’s investigative work focused on identifying the father of the child, but fathering the baby was only the first of two charges Kitty made against Lloyd George in her confession. The second was that she had ‘on a previous occasion’ committed adultery with him, a charge which was more difficult to disprove. It may well be that a relationship existed between them in 1894, a relationship that may even have caused the rift between Kitty and Dr Edwards, but that by 1896 she had taken another lover who was actually the father of her child. We shall probably never know for certain.

Despite her unflinching loyalty, Maggie was troubled by this episode. Even so, the mounting evidence of Lloyd George’s tendency to stray did not persuade her to move the family base to London. It took a far more serious affair of his to persuade her not to leave him alone in the city. The two affairs were not unconnected, since it was when the Edwards case was at its height, and Lloyd George was under great pressure, that he felt the need for some comforting female companionship in London. With his career on a knife-edge and his wife still based in Criccieth, he needed support and he readily found it from another quarter.

*R.O. Davies, a Criccieth acquaintance and chapel-goer, was a successful London draper. He and his family lived in Grasgarth, a comfortable house in Acton with a large garden and a tennis court.

*Following Dick and Mair, Olwen was born in 1892 and Gwilym in 1894.

*Lloyd George often refers to his wife as ‘old Maggie’. In Welsh, particularly in North Wales, the word ‘hen’, which literally means ‘old’, is used as an endearment. A more accurate translation would be ‘little Maggie’ or ‘dear Maggie’.

*In 1895 he wrote to Maggie: ‘Ellis Griffith [MP for Anglesey] & I were comparing notes the other day & we both said that if we were asked on a future great occasion in what capacity we would like to be tried before the Judgement seat we would answer As a husband if you don’t mind. We both thought we would fare pretty well if we had to stand or fall by our merits or demerits as husbands.’

*This was intended to signal to William that the note was for his eyes only, not to be read to the rest of the family.

8 Mrs Tim

VISITING THE HOMES OF Welsh friends was a normal Sunday-afternoon activity for the Lloyd Georges in London. When Dick was about eight years old, he and his father went to pay a social call in Putney, finding the lady of the house alone. Returning home, Dick ran to find his mother and excitedly told her of his adventures. He had seen Tada (Father) and the lady playing a game. ‘He was eating her hand,’ he said.¹ Maggie knew what that meant: Lloyd George was having an affair with Elizabeth, wife of his friend Timothy Davies. A row followed, the first of many over ‘Mrs Tim’.

Elizabeth Davies was twenty-six in 1897, fourteen years younger than her husband. She lived in Oakhill Road, Putney, in a house named Pantycelyn,* within walking distance of the Lloyd Georges. Her life was comfortable if not exciting, with a rather dull husband and three children. Timothy Davies was a solid member of the London Welsh community, who Lloyd George rather unkindly held up to Maggie as a kind of ‘insipid, wishy washy fellow’.² On his letterhead he styled himself a ‘General Draper, Silk Mercer, Ladies Outfitter, Carpet and a furnishing warehouseman’, and he owned a number of premises in Walham Green in Fulham. He was President of the Welsh Presbyterian Association and a Liberal who shared the same radical views as Lloyd George. He married Elizabeth (known as ‘Lizzie’ to her husband, ‘Mrs Tim’ to the Lloyd George family) in 1893. She became an accomplished hostess, popular among the London Welsh, and Tim soon began to bring Lloyd George home. After making a success of his commercial ventures, Davies concentrated on politics, serving on London County Council, becoming Mayor of Fulham in 1901 and, with Lloyd George’s active support, Liberal MP for Fulham from 1906 to 1910 and for Louth from 1910 to 1920. Before then, his home had become a refuge for the lonely young Lloyd George, a haven of good meals, blazing fires and political conversation.

The two men struck up a friendship, travelling abroad together at least twice without their wives—to Rome in December 1897 and on a cruise at the end of 1898. Perhaps Timothy Davies was oblivious to the growing attraction between Lloyd George and Lizzie, or perhaps he decided to follow the lead of the Prince of Wales’ set and ignore the relationship. Either way, as Mrs Tim embarked on an affair with Lloyd George that was to last many years, her husband looked the other way.

Dick described Mrs Tim as ‘a lively, attractive creature, rather loquacious, very stylish, perhaps a little flamboyant’.³ She wore a scent that reminded him of a basket of carnations, and she went out of her way to charm the little boy. As for his father, Mrs Tim became the first woman to occupy a regular place in Lloyd George’s life since his marriage to Maggie.

It was inevitable that this relationship would hurt Maggie. She could be certain that Lloyd George would not risk the major scandal of divorce, but it irked her that he should spend his time with another woman, especially a woman she considered inferior to herself in all but housekeeping ability. This tension shows in her letters. In May 1897 she upbraided Lloyd George for giving Mrs Tim a ticket for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee festivities, instead of the more worthy Davies family he had stayed with in Acton as a new MP. In reply, he came out fighting:

What a jealous little wife I have got to be sure! Now let me prove to her how groundless her suspicions are—as usual. So much was I in agreement with her as to the prior claims of the [Acton] Davies’s, that I offered them my extra seat last night—but they had already received as many as eight seats elsewhere. I then told the Morgans, having got the Davies’s out of the way, that I had an available seat—but they also had ‘excellent seats’ in another quarter. So poor Mrs Tim only comes third or even fourth. But still I don’t wish her to occupy even that back seat if you object. Is there anyone else you would like me to hand my seat to?⁴

Lloyd George believed in brazening out any embarrassing situations, both in politics and in his personal life. His mistress, unlike Kitty Edwards, was not the type to risk her own comfortable situation, and Lloyd George trusted her not to expose their affair or to make excessive demands on him. Far from trying to keep the families apart, Lloyd George encouraged social contact between them. As the relationship between him and Mrs Tim flourished, his whole family was drawn into their social arrangements. Dick recalls being taken often to Pantycelyn, and going for long walks on which he and the Davies children would be sent ahead, allowing his father and Mrs Tim to have a leisurely tête-à-tête. Finally the penny dropped that this woman was making his mother unhappy, and although Mrs Tim was friendly and generous towards him, Dick turned against her with a fierce ‘childish hostility’.*

Other members of the family also realised that there was more to their father’s visits to Putney than social duty, including Olwen, who already had a reputation for being outspoken. She recalls playing a guessing game with her father, her siblings and Maggie, who had made her husband a present of a pen. Lloyd George held the pen aloft and invited his children to guess who had given it to him. ‘Is it a lady?’ he was asked. ‘Oh yes!’ ‘Is it someone you kiss?’ asked Dick. ‘Well, yes!’ came the reply. Then, in her innocence, Olwen dropped the bombshell. ‘Is it Mrs Timothy Davies?’ The embarrassed silence that followed opened her eyes for the first time to her father’s infidelity.⁵

In the spring and summer of 1897, tension simmered between Maggie and Lloyd George. Maggie was jealous of Mrs Tim, and they were both feeling lonely as they continued to spend long periods apart. At the end of May, Maggie wrote from Criccieth chiding her husband once more for not spending enough time with his family. He, always on the lookout for ways of increasing his income, was about to start up a law practice in London, at 13 Walbrook in the heart of the City. His partner, the Anglesey lawyer Arthur Rhys Roberts, was expected to do the work, while Lloyd George, with his store of London contacts, provided the clients. Money, he replied to Maggie, was the reason he needed to stay in London. Her dismissive response provoked him to set out a few home truths:

You say you would rather have less money and live in a healthy place. Well, hen gariad [little love], you will not forget that you were as keen about my starting as I was myself. Then you must bear in mind that we are spending more than we earn. I draw far more than my share of the profits [of the North Wales practice] though I don’t attend to 1/10th of the work. This is neither fair nor honourable & feel sure you do not wish it to continue.

For all their sakes, he argued, it was time for his family to join him on a permanent basis:

Now you can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs & unless I retire from politics altogether & content myself with returning to the position of a country attorney, we must give up the comforts of Criccieth for life in England. As to attending to the business during sessions & running away from it afterwards your good sense will show you on reflection that it is impossible. No business could be conducted successfully on those terms. You are not right, however, that this presupposes living entirely in London. If you prefer, we can take a home somewhere in the suburbs—say Ealing or Acton, Ealing for choice. There the air is quite as good as anything you can get in Wales as it is free from the smoke of the great city. Or if you prefer we could go still further out & live say in Brighton as Clifton does…Think of it, old pet, & think of it with all the courage of which I know you capable.⁶

Maggie would not budge, and by August Lloyd George’s sympathy was wearing a little thin: ‘How infinite your self-pity is! Poor lonely wife. You are surrounded by all who love you best—father, mother, children, Uncle Lloyd & all. But can’t you spare some sympathy & compassion for the poor lonely husband who is surrounded on all hands by wolves who would tear him—did they not fear his claw?’⁷

A few days later he wrote Maggie a loving letter, but the teasing, affectionate tone of the correspondence between them was about to be rudely interrupted. They were still under pressure from the Edwards divorce case, but the incident that sparked their most serious quarrel yet was Maggie’s decision not to accompany her husband on a trip to Llangadog in Carmarthenshire, presumably on political business. On 13 August Uncle Lloyd recorded in his diary that both Maggie and William George had received strong letters from Lloyd George: ‘Mag heard from D.Ll.G—fully expecting her to go to Llangadock. Pity he made his mind so—as she is unable to go. W.G. had letter today also, it seems.’⁸ His tone is sympathetic towards Maggie—at least, he does not seem to blame her for not going. He and William George often thought Maggie’s decision to stay in Criccieth far more reasonable than Lloyd George allowed. They were in a position to see the practical difficulties of moving a young family between Criccieth and London, and tended to take Maggie’s side.

Not so Lloyd George. His letter to William was angry and vengeful. He decided to force Maggie to join him in London permanently by giving up their house in Criccieth:

My wife declines to go out of her way to spend Sunday with me at Llangadock. She makes the kids an excuse. Becca [Owen, a cousin] would be only too glad to take up her quarters at Bryn Awel* for a few days to look after them. I have made up my mind to give up the Criccieth house altogether. M. is giving notice today. She has failed to let it furnished, and even if she succeeded I shall want the furniture for a house up here [in London]. I mean to let the flat and take a small house in the suburbs. You can’t keep kids in a flat. Can’t you let Bryn Awel for me unfurnished?⁹

Lloyd George’s peremptory tone and unilateral decision-making might have brought some wives to heel, but not Maggie. It was one thing for him to ask her to join him in London, quite another for him to give up the house her father had built for their use without her agreement. Maggie wrote a furious and destructive letter threatening her husband with a public scandal. It has not survived, and we do not know if she was alluding to his relationship with Mrs Tim, some other personal matter, or, since Lloyd George was under pressure from his constituents because of the infrequency of his visits, a political exposure. The gist of her threats can be deduced from Lloyd George’s reply. In a cold, cruel letter he hit back, targeting her own weak spot: her failure as a wife:

When next you discuss your relations with your husband with the servants you may tell Jane—since you quote her views as having so much weight—that the marriage vow was not one-sided. You have worried me to distraction about my share of it. What about yours? You have wilfully disobeyed your husband—in a matter he was entitled to obedience—yes in a matter any other wife would have been only too delighted to obey him in.

You threaten me with a public scandal. Alright—expose me if that suits you. One scandal the more will but kill me the earlier. But you will not alter my resolution to have neither correspondence nor communication of any sort with you until it is more clearly understood how you purpose to guide your course for the future. I have borne it for years & have suffered in health & character. I’ll stand it no longer come what may.¹⁰

He does not deny that Maggie has the ammunition to cause a scandal. Instead he argues that it is all her fault. Her neglect is responsible for his defects of both ‘health’ and ‘character’. Instead of reassurance, she received an ultimatum: he would not write or talk to her again until she agreed to join him in London. Her reply, unfortunately, is also lost and the trail of letters is difficult to follow, since in the heat of the argument they wrote to each other more than once a day,* but it seems that it was an angry one. This drew a curt and equally unconciliatory letter back from Lloyd George: ‘What colleague do you allude to? You are still at your old trick of innuendo. You say this business is childish. You may yet find it is more serious than child’s play.’¹¹

Maggie must have sent another letter the same day containing an apology, for Lloyd George wrote again later in a softened tone, and although he returned to the ongoing quarrel, he also sent a gift of fruit: ‘I would much rather see you express sorrow for your refusal to comply with your husband’s earnest desire to see you than defend yourself as you do. It was a wilful act of disobedience. Of course I did not command. That is what no husband cares to do to his wife but I did entreat—for the last time.’¹²

Maggie, though, was not quite ready to let the matter rest. It seems she sent another intemperate letter—or perhaps their letters crossed—followed immediately by an apologetic and capitulatory telegram. Sensing victory, Lloyd George wrote back pressing his advantage to secure his goal of getting Maggie to agree to move to London:

My sweet but stupid Maggie

That telegram just saved you. Your letter this morning made me wild—there was the same self-complacent self-satisfied Pharisaism about it as ever. You had done no wrong. Even now there is a phrase in it that I cannot pass by unnoticed. When did I ever suggest in the faintest measure that you were a burden to me? Have I not always complained rather that you ‘burdened’ me too little with your society? You have no right to make these charges. What I have said I neither withdraw nor modify how grave soever the implication may be—nor do I wish to retract a syllable of what I told you in London about my being even happier when you & the kids are around me. A wise woman who loved her husband well & who knew herself well-beloved by him, would not write foolish letters arguing out the matter with him & doing that badly—she would rather put these things together, ponder them well & resolve at all costs to redeem the past.

He then goes for the kill.

Be candid with yourself. Drop that infernal Methodism which is the curse of your bitter nature & reflect whether you have not rather neglected your husband. I have more than once gone without breakfast. I have scores of times come home in the dead of night to a cold dark & comfortless flat without a soul to greet me. When you were surrounded by your pets.

Next comes the nearest thing to a confession Lloyd George ever made:

I am not the nature either physically or morally that ought to have been left thus. I decline to argue & you will mortally offend me if you attempt it. I simply ask you in all sincerity of soul—yes, & as a message of true love I supplicate you to give heed to what I am telling you now—not for the first time. I shall then ask you how you would like to meet your Judge if all this neglect led me astray. You have been a good mother. You have not—& I say this now not in anger—not always been a good wife. I can point you even amongst those whom you affect to look down upon—much better wives. You may be a blessing to your children. Oh Maggie annwyl [darling] beware lest you be a curse to your husband. My soul as well as my body has been committed to your charge & in many respects I am as helpless as a child.¹³

As an argument of defence, the letter is masterful. It would not sound out of place as a sermon, delivered in solemn tones from the pulpit of Seion. How well Lloyd George knew his wife. In asking her to abandon her Methodism he plays on it for all he is worth, conjuring up the Calvinistic exhortation to reflect on sin, and encouraging her to take on the responsibility and guilt for his own moral lapses.

The row was over, and the correspondence between them swung back into its previous comfortable rhythm, but a powerful message had been delivered to Maggie. She did not dismiss Lloyd George’s covert warning that her absences were leading him into temptation. While she was in Wales the despised Mrs Tim had a clear field, and with the children growing older, she had less reason to cling on to Criccieth. Nevertheless, the bonds were difficult to break, and it was not until the end of 1898 that she finally agreed to join her husband in the city she hated.

With peace restored—somewhat precariously—between Maggie and Lloyd George, a happier period ensued. Indeed, for a family commuting between North Wales and London, theirs was a remarkably stable home life, due to Maggie’s unblinking focus on her children. The elder children, Dick, Mair and Olwen, had happy memories of growing up in Criccieth, largely cared for by Richard and Mary Owen and watched over by Uncle Lloyd in Garthcelyn, the house William had built for the family. With Maggie dividing her time unevenly between Criccieth and London, Dick remembers her as an occasional visitor during his infancy, with longer spells at home before a new brother or sister arrived. As a young child he missed his mother very much, and he may have exaggerated their periods of separation. His early memories may also have been coloured by the fact that he was sent back to Criccieth to attend school during the Boer War which broke out in 1899, and lived apart from his family for large parts of the year. Mair left no diary or memoir to speak for her, but Olwen, three years younger than Dick, writes of growing up in London with only extended holidays spent in Criccieth. The truth probably lies in between: the family was firmly based in Criccieth in the early 1890s, but as time went on pressure grew on Maggie to spend more time in London. She usually took the youngest member or members of the family with her, leaving the elder children behind, which would account for the different recollections of Dick and Olwen.

Dick was a sensitive boy who inherited his mother’s love of North Wales but did not possess his father’s brilliance and ambition. His restless energy found an outlet in mischief, especially during endless sermons in chapel, and he was made to sit with Richard Owen in the ‘set fawr’, the front pew reserved for deacons, on more than one occasion to put a stop to his antics. He had a gift for mimicry, and when he began to acquire some English he found he could deflect his mother’s anger by assuming an exaggerated accent and declaring ‘Oh I say!’, reducing her to helpless laughter. He was very close to Maggie, whom he worshipped, and as the first grandchild in either the Owen or the Lloyd family, he was secure in the attention of both.

As a child growing up by the sea in Criccieth, Dick was enthralled by the sight of the hundred-ton schooners moored to the stone jetty under the castle rock waiting their turn to load up with Porthmadoc slate. He watched their sails unfurl as they left the shelter of the bay for the open sea, and listened to the tales of weather-hardened fishermen on the seafront. The ‘maes’ (village green) gave yet more scope for entertainment as farmers and stockmen compared notes with Richard Owen presiding. Here, though, young Lloyd Georges had to behave or risk the displeasure of Uncle Lloyd, who frequently sat on a bench overlooking the maes. As the eldest child, Dick was more aware of the tension between his parents than were his siblings, and he was badly affected by their heated rows.

With regard to religion, a compromise was reached despite the entrenched attitudes of the older generation. Dick was raised a Baptist, and attended Berea, the handsome new chapel which replaced Capel Ucha in 1886, with Uncle Lloyd every Sunday; Mair was christened a Methodist like Maggie; Olwen was a Baptist; and Gwilym a Methodist. Only Megan, the youngest, bucked the pattern by becoming a Methodist too. When Maggie was at home she would take all the children with her to Seion, but when she was away Dick would sometimes take Megan to the Baptist service on Sunday mornings, and both would go to the Methodist service in the evening. This was all highly irregular, but not, it seems, confusing to the children, who were loyal to their own denomination while being perfectly at home in the other.

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