The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George’s Life
It was better to make sure that young people married within their own faith, and it was thus hardly surprising that Lloyd George should have first set eyes on Lizzie Jones in chapel. In fact, the first thing that attracted him to her was not her appearance, but her rich contralto voice. He himself was developing a pleasant tenor voice, and an interest in attending local singing festivals quickly followed his discovery that they were good places to meet young ladies. In 1883, just as he was recovering from his disappointing affair with Kate, he began to notice an attractive addition to the voices of the choir in chapel, and quickly matched it to the sparkling brown eyes of Lizzie Jones. She was a talented singer in a community of good singers, and had ambitions to train professionally as an opera singer. Lizzie was in demand to perform at events and eisteddfodau throughout Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire. This made her less available, and Lloyd George considerably keener:
Sun 25 Nov. A miserable Sunday in all respects for me…My feet wet all day owing to leaky shoes…L. went to Beddgelert on Friday to sing in an Entertainment there and in spite of my earnest request that she would not go, but the little Jezebel has stayed there over Sunday which has given me unutterable pain throughout the day. In earnest I do not know what to do with the girl. I wish to God I had never meddled with her, but I am afraid it is too late now. She has acquired a wonderful mastery over my idiot-heart.23
For once in his life, Lloyd George had met his equal in flirtation. Lizzie seems to have led him a merry dance through the spring of 1884, and in June he records his frustration at not being able to make progress with her: ‘I wish to God she would keep away altogether. I might feel it, keenly perhaps, for a while, but I’d sooner get over it by not seeing her at all than by being compelled, as I am now, to see her and hear her voice twice a week.’24
A few days later came another tantalising encounter: ‘Lizzie Jones sang some song with the burden “Oh, where is my boy tonight?” When she sang the last line, “I love him still he knows”—she gave me a glance.’25
Her singing talent was clearly matched by a talent for teasing, and Lloyd George was most willing to play the game. Their liaison was cut short when Lizzie came down with diphtheria and was put in isolation. Even this did not deter Lloyd George, and although he was squeamish throughout his life when it came to illness, he insisted on visiting her sickbed. This gave the local gossips a field day, especially when Lloyd George suffered a sore throat shortly afterwards:
March 23rd 1885: After dinner strolling about the garden with Eliza Caerdyni [his cousin, daughter of Betsy’s sister Elin]—she makes excellent company, an agreeable girl; if anything, rather too much of a puritan. She told me how Mrs Owen Mynydd Ednyfed had been telling her that I got my sore throat from my ‘cariad’ [sweetheart]. Blast these malicious gossips.26
Alas for Lloyd George, this particular ‘malicious gossip’ was to become his mother-in-law, but not before he had had to work hard to mend his reputation.
Soon afterwards Lizzie ended the relationship, leaving Lloyd George wounded but philosophical. She went on to marry a schoolmaster called Lloyd Williams and, as we shall see, was to make one last, devastating, appearance in Lloyd George’s life a few years later. After they parted on this occasion, he consoled himself again with the thought that he was better off without her: ‘it would cost between £200 & £300 to train in the Royal Academy of Music…It is not likely that I shall be in a position to do this for her for many a year yet.’27
Lloyd George richly enjoyed his flirtations. He recorded every encounter and played the game with relish, but he also felt genuine affection for each girl. He was not just playing the field; quite the opposite. His diaries reveal a young man who despite good intentions fell in love rather too easily. He would become overwhelmed by his emotions, but thus far at least they ran pretty shallow. He got over each lost love quickly, and consoled himself with reasons why it would not have worked out before moving on to the next with equal sincerity.
By now Polly was seriously worried. Not only was Lloyd George proving himself to be highly resourceful in escaping the family’s supervision, but he also seemed to catch the eye of every pretty girl in the district. The family at Morvin House was only too aware that their hopes and all Lloyd George’s dreams of greatness could be utterly derailed if he got a girl pregnant. Not even Richard Lloyd could save his reputation then. A change of approach was called for. Polly decided that rather than try to hold back the tide, she would find him a suitable girlfriend and encourage him to settle down. Suitable meant a chapel girl, and that, she trusted, would keep him out of the worst kind of trouble. In this operation Polly was to show herself to be the equal of her brother in resourcefulness.
*The outcome was a political shock, since the election had been called early in order to deliver a renewed mandate for the Conservatives. The final result was Liberals 350, Conservatives 245, Home Rulers (Irish Nationalists) fifty-seven.
*Jennie remained in Criccieth until her death in 1930. She never married, and was generally thought to have pitched her expectations too high to be satisfied with her local suitors.
*Accounts differ as to when this happened. There is a suggestion that it was this that prompted Polly’s return from Criccieth in the mid-1870s, but since Betsy managed to pay a considerable sum to cover her sons’ articles, it is more likely that it was after 1882, a period when there is more evidence that the family were in financial difficulties. By 1892 they were on a stronger financial footing, and William George was able to build a substantial house, Garthcelyn, in Criccieth for himself, his mother, his uncle and sister.
4 Maggie Owen
POLLY SET ABOUT HER CAMPAIGN immediately and with energy by arranging evening singing sessions in chapel for the younger members, social events that the elders could not object to, and inviting her friends to call at Morvin House. It required more planning to extend her brother’s social circle to include girls from other chapels, since there were fewer excuses for getting together outside the chapel walls. Polly therefore arranged trips to local places of interest along the coast, and invited young people from neighbouring chapels to make up the numbers. One such outing took place on 13 July 1885, when she organised a day trip by steamer to Bardsey Island, two miles west of the tip of the Llyŷn Peninsula. Sixteen young men and women left Criccieth that morning in an excitable state, looking forward to spending a day together without the constant, spirit-dampening supervision of the chapel authorities. They were expecting a day of sunshine, picnicking and perhaps some mild flirting, but for two of them at least it was to be a life-changing adventure.
Bardsey was a well-known beauty spot, but local tradition also maintained that 20,000 saints or pilgrims were buried on the island. In the sixth century St Cadfan began to build a monastery there, and the island later hosted an Augustinian abbey whose ruins are still to be seen. Such was Bardsey’s spiritual significance in the early Middle Ages that three pilgrimages to it were the equivalent of one to Rome. Even the most puritanical chapel elders could not object to a day trip to such a holy spot. The Criccieth party left Porthmadoc aboard the steamer Snowdon, and on arrival they soon split up into groups of two or three, clambering up the steep slopes to find sunny spots to eat their picnic lunches. Lloyd George found himself in a group of three with Polly and one of her friends. In his diary entry for the day he records how much he enjoyed the company of a certain Miss Owen: ‘I was with Miss Owen, Mynydd Ednyfed, mostly. MEG (my sister) with us—Enjoyed myself immensely.’1 Polly had scored a bull’s-eye.
Margaret Owen, known as Maggie, was the only child of Mr and Mrs Owen of Mynydd Ednyfed (Mount Ednyfed) farm. She was eighteen years old, and had returned to Criccieth from Dolgellau, where she had been attending Dr Williams’ boarding school for young ladies. It was highly unusual for a girl to be educated beyond the age of fourteen, and the Owens’ decision to send Maggie away to finish her instruction was a clear signal of their devotion, as well as a sign that they wanted the best in life for her. Lloyd George had noted her in his diary before—he commented on virtually all the girls he bumped into during the course of his day—but not in a way that suggested any particular attraction. In June 1884 he commented that Maggie Owen was ‘a sensible girl without fuss or affectation about her’. The following spring there was another reference: ‘May 1885 [Criccieth Debating Society soir=e] A really 1st class affair—the victualling part as excellent as the entertainment—playing forfeits and the like games until 11.30. About 30 present. Took Maggie Owen home a short way—her mother waiting for her in some house.’2
It was not typical of Lloyd George to take girls home the short way, but Mrs Owen was one step ahead of any glad-eyed youth, and was determined to make sure that her daughter got home promptly. By the time he had encountered Maggie Owen a few more times he noted that she ‘Seems to be a jollier girl as you get on with her.’3
Maggie Owen appeared not really to be the kind of girl to catch Lloyd George’s eye. She was not flirtatious or showy, but she had a grace and a quiet confidence that set her apart. She was pretty, with lively blue eyes, but was not considered a beauty so much as a good catch, and she had at least two other serious suitors in Criccieth. But she had been absent during Lloyd George’s adolescence, and was not as familiar to him as the girls he had grown up with. She now appeared in his life with all the allure of novelty just as he was getting over Lizzie Jones. As they wandered around Bardsey Island together, a mutual attraction grew between them.
On the face of it, there were major obstacles to a match between Lloyd George and Maggie Owen. For a start, she was far from ideal in Uncle Lloyd’s eyes for the simple reason that she was a Calvinistic Methodist. Indeed, Maggie’s family was almost as far removed from the Lloyds socially as was possible within the narrow confines of a small town like Criccieth. For their part, the Owens would have equally strong reasons to rule out Lloyd George as a potential match for their daughter.
Richard Owen, Maggie’s father, was a well-to-do farmer and a pillar of the Calvinistic Methodist community of Capel Mawr (Great Chapel) in Criccieth. As the prosperous proprietor of the hundred-acre Mynydd Ednyfed farm he was wealthy enough to invest some capital in the Porthmadoc fleet, to educate his daughter privately, and on his retirement in 1891 to build a pair of fine semi-detached stone houses looking out over Criccieth bay. He was not a member of the landowning class—he was a nonconformist, and he and his family spoke Welsh as their first language—but he was economically in a different class to the Lloyds, and indeed to most of the inhabitants of Criccieth. When he died he left an estate of £1,558.2s.6d (£131,000 in today’s currency) to his wife. Not without reason, Richard Owen and his wife considered themselves to be a cut above the Lloyds and the Georges.
Richard Owen could trace his ancestry back to Owen, the twelfthcentury Prince of Gwynedd. The power and the land belonging to this class had long since been superseded, but pride remained. Richard Owen might work for a living, but he took his place at the top of Criccieth society, with the natural authority of those born to rule. He was a strong, well-built man even by the standards of the mountain farmers of Llyŷn, and his reputation for physical feats was matched by respect for his sound judgement. He spoke slowly, was not easily roused to anger, and had deep-set eyes in a calm, serene face. His physical courage was legendary: he had once been charged by a bull, but had stopped it in its tracks by grasping it by the horns. This and other examples of his strength had earned him the respect of the whole community. He was often asked to adjudicate in disputes between his neighbours, some of whom had known him for decades yet still addressed him as ‘Mr Owen’. On market days he had his own wooden bench on the green in Criccieth that no one dared sit on unless by his invitation.
Richard’s local status was further enhanced by his election as head deacon of Capel Mawr, where he sat in authority next only to the Rev. Jones. The deacons together with the minister visited the sick, educated the young, and led and encouraged the faithful. They were also responsible for judging and punishing any member who strayed. Their ultimate sanction was to cast out a member from the congregation, and in so doing take away the sinner’s place in society. It followed that deacons were expected to lead exemplary lives themselves, and they carried great moral and social authority. As head deacon of Capel Mawr, Richard Owen would sit in judgement on any member of chapel who married out of the faith. For his own daughter to do so would humiliate him in the most public way possible.
Naturally enough, Richard had chosen his own bride from another ancient Welsh family: Mary Jones of Tyddyn Mawr could trace her ancestry to the tenth-century South Welsh King Hywel Dda, whose laws set the pattern of Welsh society for centuries. Mary Jones was typical of the strong-willed Welsh ‘mam’. She was a slightly-built woman whose husband towered over her, but she was as feisty as he was placid, and bustled from one task to the next with indefatigable energy. In her youth she was famous throughout the district as a fine horsewoman, and she was also renowned for her ferocious rages. When she was roused her diminutive frame would shake with anger and her flashing eyes would signal danger as she unleashed a ‘veritable Niagara of indomitable force’, according to her grandson Dick.4 Even when she was calm, her pursed lips and sharp gaze warned anyone nearby not to cross her, and she was quick to judge those who failed to live up to her high standards. Mary too was conscious of the natural dignity of her ancestry, and despite the fact that lack of education meant that she was unable to write she was much in demand as chairman and secretary of local societies.
Mynydd Ednyfed occupied a hundred acres of land high on the mountain behind the town of Criccieth, and it was there, on 4 November 1866, that Richard and Mary’s only child was born. Richard was a loving, indulgent father who doted on Maggie from the very first. Mary too demanded only the best for her daughter. Country people know that the most valuable stock comes from pure bloodlines, and Richard and Mary Owen, both proud of their noble ancestry, passed a double dose of pride to their daughter. Indeed, ancestry left its physical mark on Maggie, who was born with ‘bys yr Eifion’ (Eifion’s finger)—a crooked little finger on her right hand that, tradition has it, marks those descended from a fourteenth-century knight called Hywel y Fwyall (Howell of the Axe), whose crooked finger gave him a strong grip which helped to make him the best axeman in Wales. At least one member of each generation of Richard Owen’s family bore the telltale finger, and Maggie delighted in bearing the physical mark of her nobility. She was as Welsh as the hills on which she was born.
Maggie had a happy, easy-going nature. She spent her childhood in and around Criccieth, and occasionally caught sight of the young Lloyd George, dressed in his knickerbockers, walking alongside Betsy and Uncle Lloyd on their frequent journeys to and from Capel Ucha.
Richard Owen, along with most of the Calvinistic Methodists, was a supporter of the Liberal Party, which had succeeded in becoming the party of the Welsh nonconformists in their battle for religious recognition (through disestablishment) and equality. Nonconformists had suffered considerable persecution by agents of Church and state in the previous century, and the widening social gap between rich landowners and struggling tenant farmers and miners increased the alienation between the wealthy English establishment and the Welsh dissenting middle and working classes. The spiritual gulf between Church and Chapel, and the cultural barrier between English—and Welsh-speakers, made any politician who challenged the Tory establishment a natural friend to the nonconformist.
1885 and 1886 were turbulent years politically. In 1885 the Liberal Prime Minister, William Gladstone, resigned after losing a crucial vote in the House of Commons. The Tory Lord Salisbury took over as caretaker PM, but after Parliament rose in August, electioneering began in earnest, and went on until an election was eventually called at the end of November. By then Lloyd George had stepped up his political activities, was becoming a regular speaker at political meetings, was even being hailed by some activists as a future MP. The election in November/December, which resulted in a minority Tory administration led by Salisbury, was followed by a split in the Liberal Party between supporters of Gladstone’s ‘Home Rule’ policy in Ireland and those of Joseph Chamberlain’s New Radical Union with its ‘unauthorised programme’ of federalism as the solution to the Irish problem. Wales remained staunchly behind Gladstone, who with his Welsh wife and family base in Hawarden in North Wales rightly considered the Principality to be a stronghold. Following the defeat of Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill in Parliament in June 1886, a second election followed in July, in which Gladstone won thirty out of the thirtyfour Welsh seats, although elsewhere he did not do so well. With the Liberal Party divided, Salisbury held on to office, shored up by an alliance with Chamberlain and the Irish national MPs. It was to be the beginning of a rift in the Liberal Party between the moderate mainstream and the radicals.
In Wales, moderate men like Richard Owen wanted religious freedom and the right to earn a fair living on the land. He was a mainstream Liberal, naturally conservative, and with no time for those on the more radical fringes of his party who talked of social reform, the separation of the Church in Wales from the state, and even of Home Rule for Wales. David Lloyd George was a natural radical who had expressed admiration for Chamberlain, but the prevailing political wind in Wales carried him into the Gladstonian camp.
Richard and Mary Owen wanted Maggie to marry a Calvinistic Methodist, preferably a Liberal with conventional views, who was well established in life and able to offer her a comfortable future. From the elevated perspective of Mynydd Ednyfed, Lloyd George’s prospects did not look good. Before he had even begun to court Maggie, Mr and Mrs Owen regarded him as socially inferior and wholly unsuitable: he was a Baptist, and a political radical who was not yet firmly established in his profession. Worse still, Mrs Owen had her ears pressed well to the ground and regarded him as ‘fast’, a flirt who ‘walked out’ with too many local girls. To the Owens, Lloyd George seemed neither reliable nor respectable. Maggie could not have chosen anyone from her limited circle of acquaintance more likely to raise objections from her parents, and in the summer of 1885 these seemed insuperable. Nevertheless, with the time-honoured inevitability of such situations, the attraction between Lloyd George and Maggie grew with each meeting.
During the weeks following the Bardsey Island trip, Lloyd George took every opportunity to put himself in front of Maggie and her family. He had few excuses to visit Mynydd Ednyfed, but he made use of what little connection he had with Richard Owen’s political activities. At first, Mr Owen accepted Lloyd George’s sudden interest in establishing a Liberal club in Criccieth at face value, but he was no fool and he soon realised that the young man’s visits had more to do with Maggie than with politics. Lloyd George was promptly banned from Mynydd Ednyfed and told, firmly, to leave Miss Owen alone. This served only to increase his interest, but, temporarily defeated, he retired from the field to consider his tactics.
Mr Owen was seriously alarmed: not only did he and his wife disapprove of Lloyd George, they also had the ideal husband for their beloved child already picked out. His name was John Thomas Jones, and he was a deacon at Capel Mawr. To add to his qualifications the thirty-four-year-old Jones was financially well-off, having made a small fortune in Australian goldmines before returning to his native North Wales. He lived in a newly-built, substantial house overlooking Criccieth, and he was the very opposite of ‘fast’. He was rather uncouth and brusque of manner, but that was a minor disadvantage compared to the facts that he was the right denomination and had excellent prospects. The Owens were delighted when he started courting their daughter, but Maggie was not impressed. She resisted all attempts by her parents to persuade her to accept his proposals, and did not even mention his existence to his younger rival until well into their relationship.
Meanwhile, Lloyd George decided that if he could not court Maggie openly, he would take every opportunity of doing so covertly instead. He wrote to her frequently, and they conspired to meet at local social events. The first note from Lloyd George that Maggie kept is dated 30 December 1885, and was addressed respectfully to ‘Dear Miss Owen’:
I enclose tickets for our Societys entertainment. The meeting commences at 7.30 p.m. punctual.
Young ladies need not arrange for any escort home after the meeting, as the Society provides efficient protection for them in that respect!
Kindly recollect this so as to avoid troubling anyone to wait for you from the meeting.
Yours sincerely
D. Lloyd George5
The formal tone of the note was perhaps intended to be proof against prying eyes, and belies the clear understanding between them that security on the way home would be provided by one D. Lloyd George, personally.
A week later, Lloyd George’s diary records that he lay in wait for Maggie, hoping for a private meeting: ‘Very glad I waylaid Maggie Owen; induced her to abstain from going to the Seiat [evening service] by showing her by my erratic watch that she was too late, then for a stroll with her up LÔn Fêl.’6
Maggie fell for these none-too-subtle tactics several times over the next few weeks, and in turn her quiet charms grew steadily on him:
4 Feb. At 6 p.m. met Maggie Owen by appointment on the Marine Parade. With her until 7. I am getting to be very fond of the girl. There is a combination of good nature, humour and affection about her.7
Three days later, Lloyd George confessed to his brother his growing interest in Maggie, with an acknowledgement of the difficulty of courting a Calvinistic Methodist against the wishes of her parents: ‘After dinner with W.G. along Abereistedd and thence to chapel. Mentioned my predicament with regard to love affairs. He does not disapprove.’8
With characteristic speed, Lloyd George was falling in love:
9 Feb. At 5.45 attended Burial Board meeting, thence to an appointed rendezvous by 6.30 at Bryn Hir gate to meet Maggie Owen; took her home by round-about way, enjoyed the stroll immensely and made another appointment. It looks as if I were rapidly placing myself in an irretrievable position. Doesn’t matter. I don’t see that any harm will ensue. Left her at 7.45.9
He paused to throw a backward glance at the memory of Lizzie Jones only to reassure himself of the superior qualities of his new love:
15 Feb. (After concert) I then waylaid Maggie Owen to take her home. Never felt more acutely than to-night that I am really in deep love with girl. Felt sorry to have to leave her. I have I know gradually got to like her more and more. There’s another thing I have observed in connection with this, that my intercourse with L. rather tended to demoralize my taste; my fresh acquaintance has an entirely different influence. She firmly checks all ribaldry or tendency thereto on my part.10
Lloyd George was getting serious. Maggie Owen was in a different class to the girls he had flirted with in the past. It was not only her background—Lizzie, for example, was the daughter of the local fishmonger—but also her character. From the outset Maggie set high standards of behaviour, and without making herself a killjoy, seemed to make him behave better in return. She was not a girl to be toyed with or treated badly. Her natural dignity and fixed moral compass demanded respect. In the young Maggie Owen’s ‘checking’ effect on the flirtatious Lloyd George we see the essence of their mature relationship. It was her strength of character too that was in due course to inspire admiration and love throughout Wales and beyond.