Ffion Hague - The Pain and the Privilege - The Women in Lloyd George’s Life

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.

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.