William R. P. George

William Richard Phillip George (20 October 1912 - 20 November 2006) was a Welsh solicitor and Welsh poet. He was the nephew of the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Lloyd George.

George was born in Criccieth in North Wales. His father, William George, was the younger brother of David Lloyd George. While David Lloyd George pursued a political career, his brother took care of the family firm of solicitors.

George was educated at Friars School, Bangor, and at Wrekin College in Wellington, Shropshire. He studied law in the late 1920s at the private tutorial school, Gibson & Weldon, at 27 Chancery Lane. (One of his tutors was John Widgery, later Lord Chief Justice.) He took his articles in the early 1930s with the Clerk of Justices in Caernarfon, and he qualified as a solicitor in November 1934, when he joined his father's practice, William George & Son, in Porthmadog, Gwynedd. He continued to practise with the same firm until his death. At 94 years old, he was the fifth oldest practising solicitor in England and Wales, according to Law Society records (his father had continued to practise until he was 101). He served as Clerk to the Justices at Barmouth from 1948 to 1975, and as a deputy circuit judge in the Crown Court from 1975 to 1980. He was also solicitor to the National Eisteddfod.

Outside the law, he turned away from the family's Liberal leanings, to support Plaid Cymru. He was a conscientious objector in World War II, and an Independent councillor on Gwynedd County Council from 1967 to 1996, serving as Chairman in 1982. He received a CBE in 1996 for his services to local government.

He was also a Welsh poet of some distinction, and was crowned at the National Eisteddfod in 1974 for his free metre poem Tân ("Fire"). He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales in 1988, and was Archdruid of Wales from 1990 to 1993, taking the bardic name "Ap Llysor" (meaning "son of Solicitor"). He was also chairman of the Assembly of Welsh Counties, and Secretary of the Baptist chapel at Criccieth.

He published five volumes of Welsh poems, Dwyfor (1948), Cerddi'r Neraig ("Neraig Poems", 1968), Grawn Medi ("September Grapes", 1974), Tân ("Fire", 1979) and Dringo'r Ysgol ("Climbing the Ladder", 1989), and a collection Mydylau ("Haycocks") in 2004. He also wrote three biographies (including two of his uncle, Lloyd George, The Making of Lloyd George in 1976 and Lloyd George: backbencher in 1983, based on the archive that he inherited on his father's death in 1967) and his own autobiography, called 88 Not Out (ISBN 1-870394-58-5), published in May 2001.

He was married twice. He first married Dora Harley in 1943, but they were divorced. He married Greta Bogner in 1953, having one son (also a solicitor) and three daughters.

References

• "Lloyd George knew his father (and him)", News from the Law Society, 10 February 2006
• "Lloyd George nephew dies, aged 94", BBC Wales, 30 November 2006
• Obituary, The Independent, 22 November 2006
• Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2006