The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George’s Life

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