Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby

The Right Honourable The Viscount Tenby TD PC
Home Secretary
In office 19 October 1954 – 14 January 1957
Prime Minister	Sir Winston Churchill Sir Anthony Eden
Preceded by	Sir David Maxwell Fyfe
Succeeded by	Rab Butler
Personal details
Born	4 December 1894 Criccieth
Died	14 February 1967 (aged 72)
Nationality	Welsh
Political party	Liberal Liberal and Conservative
Spouse(s)	Edna Gwenfrom Jones (d. 1971)
Alma mater	Jesus College, Cambridge

Major Gwilym Lloyd-George, 1st Viscount Tenby TD PC (4 December 1894 – 14 February 1967) was a British politician and cabinet minister. A younger son of Prime Minister David Lloyd George, he served as Home Secretary from 1954 to 1957.

Background, education and military service

Born at Criccieth in north Wales, Lloyd George was the second son of Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Richard Owen. His sister Megan was also active in politics, but the two moved in opposite political directions – Gwilym to the right, towards the Conservatives, and Megan to the left, eventually joining the Labour Party. Educated at Eastbourne College and Jesus College, Cambridge, Lloyd George was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1914. In 1915 he became Aide de Camp to Major-General Ivor Phillips, commander of the 38th (Welsh) Division. He transferred to the Anti-Aircraft branch of the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916 and rose to the rank of Major, being known for most of his political career as Major Lloyd George.

Political career

Lloyd George was Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Pembrokeshire from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1929 to 1950 (though by the late 1940s he was in effect an Independent Liberal in alliance with the Conservatives). It was after the death of his father in 1945 that Gwilym began hyphenating his surname as 'Lloyd-George'. From 1951 to 1957 he was Liberal and Conservative MP (see National Liberal) for Newcastle upon Tyne North. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in 1931 and again from 1939 to 1941, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food 1941–1942. He was Minister of Fuel and Power 1942–1945, Minister of Food 1951–1954, and Home Secretary and Minister for Welsh Affairs from 1954 until his retirement in 1957, when he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Tenby, of Bulford in the County of Pembroke. In 1955, during his time as Home Secretary, he had refused to commute the death sentence imposed on Ruth Ellis, leading to her becoming the last woman to be executed in the UK.

Family

Lord Tenby married Edna Gwenfron, daughter of David Jones, in 1921. They had two children: David Lloyd George, 2nd Viscount Tenby (1922–1983), and William Lloyd George, 3rd Viscount Tenby (b. 1927). He died in February 1967, aged 72, and was succeeded by his eldest son, David. Lady Tenby died in 1971.

Further reading

• Sweeting, Andrew. entry in Dictionary of Liberal Biography Brack et al. (eds.) Politico's Publishing, 1998
• http://www.liberalhistory.org.uk/uploads/25-Winter%25201999-2000.pdf A breach in the family: the defection from the Liberal Party of Megan and Gwilym Lloyd George by J Graham Jones
• Morgan, K.O., ‘George, Gwilym Lloyd-, first Viscount Tenby (1894–1967)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, rev. first published 2004; online edn, Jan 2011.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Viscount Tenby