United KingdomWho was David Lloyd George?
David Lloyd George was born in Manchester in 1863 and raised in Llanystumdwy, Caernarfonshire, by his mother and his uncle, a shoemaker. He qualified as a solicitor and was elected Liberal MP for Caernarvon Boroughs in 1890, where he focused on Welsh disestablishment and land reform. He opposed the Boer War, became President of the Board of Trade in 1905 and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1908. During the First World War he served as Minister of Munitions and became Prime Minister of a coalition government in December 1916. He signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and remained Prime Minister until 1922. He is the only Prime Minister to have spoken Welsh as his first language.
Political views
Piloted the Old Age Pensions Bill through the Commons in 1908 and introduced state pensions.
Source: biography.walesPresented the 1909 People's Budget, describing it as a war budget against poverty and funding it with higher taxes on the wealthy and on land.
Source: library.walesArgued in his 1909 budget speech that it was neither just nor safe to leave large numbers of poor citizens in distress through sickness, old age and unemployment.
Source: api.parliament.ukIntroduced the National Insurance Bill in 1911, creating compulsory health and unemployment insurance.
Source: biography.walesOpposed and criticised the conduct of the South African War from 1899 to 1902.
Source: biography.walesWarned Germany in 1911 that Britain would not accept aggression in Morocco.
Source: biography.walesAgreed, reluctantly, to independence for southern Ireland after the First World War.
Source: gov.uk
Legacy
Supporters remember Lloyd George as a founder of the British welfare state and a dynamic wartime leader, often described in his lifetime as the man who won the war. Critics point to allegations that honours were sold under his government, his coalition's policy in Ireland, and his role in dividing the Liberal Party, which never governed alone again after 1922. His visit to Hitler in 1936 also drew later criticism. Historians generally credit him with reshaping the relationship between the state and social welfare.
In their words
Is it fair, is it just, is it humane, is it honourable, is it safe to subject such a multitude of our poor fellow-countrymen and countrywomen to continued endurance of these miseries