Megan Lloyd George
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Lady Megan Arfon Lloyd George CH (22 April 1902–14 May 1966) was a British politician, the first female Member of Parliament for a Welsh constituency, and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. She later became a Labour MP.
The youngest child of David Lloyd George and his wife, Margaret, she was born in Criccieth, Caernarfonshire, in what is now Gwynedd. After her father was raised to the Peerage as Earl Lloyd George of Dwyfor, she was known as Lady Megan Lloyd George.
Like her brother, Gwilym Lloyd George, she followed her father into politics. She became the first female MP in Wales when she won Anglesey for the Liberals in 1929. She refused to support Ramsay MacDonald's National Government in 1931 and successfully held Anglesey as an Independent Liberal until 1935. She held the seat again as a Liberal from 1935 to 1951.
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Lloyd George campaigned for a Welsh Assembly and the creation of a Secretary of State for Wales. Prominent among the radicals in the Liberal Party, she opposed what she saw as the party's drift away from her father's brand of liberalism. In 1949 she was named Deputy Leader of the party in a bid to create unity, but after losing her seat she stood down in 1952 and in 1955 defected to Labour. In 1957 she stood against the Liberals as the Labour Party candidate in a by-election in Carmarthen and won the seat from them, which she held until her death from breast cancer in 1966. She was the mistress of Philip Noel-Baker from 1936 to 1956.
In an ironic move her brother Gwilym also moved away from the Liberals but in the opposite direction, becoming a Conservative Cabinet Minister in the 1950s. Many have taken the different careers of the Lloyd George siblings as symbolic of the decline of the Liberal Party from their father's day.
[edit] For further reading
- Jones, J Graham. entry in Dictionary of Liberal Biography Brack et al (eds.) Politico's Publishing, 1998
- Jones, Mervyn. A Radical Life: The Biography of Megan Lloyd George, 1902-66. London: Hutchinson, 1991. ISBN 0-09-174829-1
- 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
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Robert Thomas |
Member of Parliament for Anglesey 1929–1951 |
Succeeded by Cledwyn Hughes |
| Preceded by Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris |
Member of Parliament for Carmarthen 1957–1966 |
Succeeded by Gwynfor Evans |
