Ffion Hague - 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.