In order to pass his law exam, Lloyd George needed to study Latin as well as a second language (Welsh, needless to say, did not count). Mr Evans could teach him some rudimentary Latin, but there was no one in the village who knew French. Uncle Lloyd was not to be deterred: a French primer had been among the first David Lloyd’s possessions, together with a copy of Aesop’s fables in French, and every evening, after a hard day’s labour in the workshop, Uncle Lloyd bent his head over a candle to teach himself French before passing on his knowledge to his nephew. In this way, often staying only one lesson ahead of his pupil, he succeeded in getting Lloyd George up to the required standard. He also painstakingly worked alongside the boy as they tackled the first volume of Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico and Sallust’s Catiline. The cost to his health and strength must have been enormous. Not only did he work hard into the evening, but also long into the night when the rest of the family was in bed, reading texts and preparing the sermons he delivered every Sunday to his congregation. But nothing was too much trouble for the boy he regarded as a son.
In October 1877 Uncle Lloyd accompanied his nephew to Liverpool, the longest journey of his life, to sit the preliminary examination, and on 8 December Lloyd George heard that he had passed. He was to look back on the day the postman bore the good news to Highgate as the most memorable day of his life. ‘On that day,’ recorded his mistress many years later, ‘he was treading on air, the future was heaven, everything seemed possible.’16
Lloyd George was now ready to serve his articles with a law firm, if one could be persuaded to take him on. Through dogged enquiries and a lot of string-pulling by friends of the family, Randall Casson, of the firm Breese, Jones & Casson in Porthmadoc, agreed to give the boy a place as an articled clerk, with an initial six-month trial period. Betsy’s precious capital was raided to find the £100 (£8,000 at today’s values) needed to pay for his indenture, and a further £80 in stamp duty was found from the family’s barely adequate funds. David Lloyd George, aged fifteen, was finally on his way. Ahead lay fame, if not fortune, and the glittering career his family confidently expected. More immediate was the heady freedom of living away from his family for the first time in his life, and the opportunity it afforded to explore the worlds of politics—and girls.
IN JULY 1878 DAVID LLOYD GEORGE packed his scant belongings and left Highgate for the wider world beyond Llanystumdwy. At fifteen, he was too young to be fully independent, and it was arranged that he should lodge in Porthmadoc during the week, returning home on Sundays. But his ambition was limitless, and his family urged him on, despite the daunting cost of his training and the sacrifices they would have to make to support him. Lloyd George’s success was their dearest ambition, their collective life’s work, and he could count on receiving the lion’s share of the family’s resources.
While he headed for Porthmadoc and all the stimulation that the world of work could offer, his sister Polly had returned home to Highgate and a life without prospects. She accepted her fate calmly, but a recurring illness over the next few years suggests that all was not well with her. In Richard Lloyd’s diary he records her poor health with deep sympathy. On one occasion, after she had been confined to bed for three weeks, he voiced his frustration at not being able to help her as he had helped her brother: ‘Would feel greatly relieved in mind were it in my power to put her in a respectable position in life, in a way of business, or some other occupation to suit her disposition and abilities. But for the present we must both in her and Wil Bach’s [Little William’s] case try and learn to labour and to wait.’1
There is an intriguing suggestion here that Polly, unlike Betsy, was no home-bird, and would have been better suited to an occupation other than looking after the family in Highgate. She was quite different from her mother—the family thought she had inherited some of her traits from the formidable Rebecca. But she was needed at home, and even the limited career options that were possible for a young Victorian woman were closed to her. Any potential that lay in her for other achievements was unfulfilled, since unlike her younger brother William, who was to follow David into the law, Uncle Lloyd never did succeed in getting a better deal in life for Polly.
Polly did not complain. She seemed to channel any frustration she felt into promoting her brother’s ambitions. Her role was mainly domestic, caring for Betsy and Uncle Lloyd, and later becoming a second mother to her nieces and nephews. Her oldest nephew, Dick, remembers her as ‘a strong character, definitely uncompromising’. She might have been ‘narrow-minded in religious matters’, but she was open-hearted when it came to her nieces and nephews: ‘Everything we wanted her lavish, generous hand gave us.’2 Polly looked after the family well. She kept an eye on Richard Lloyd’s diet, and was capable of launching a ‘devastating counter-attack’ if he dared help himself to a second slice of apple tart.
After a few sleepless nights, the young Lloyd George began to settle down. He lodged with Mrs Owen and her husband in a house on Porthmadoc High Street, paying ten shillings a week for his bed and board out of the small cash allowance that Betsy gave him. He would get up early, between six and seven, and make himself useful at the office of Breese, Jones & Casson all day, carrying messages, copying documents and taking dictation. He worked hard, keen to persuade Mr Casson to take him on permanently. If he was lucky he could supplement his allowance with commission earned by collecting insurance premiums from Porthmadoc householders. At the same time, he did not neglect his studies. He had further law exams to take if he was to be successful, and he continued the habit that Uncle Lloyd had instilled in him of setting a daily reading target, taking notes as he went. He was spurred on by ambition, and also by competitiveness: ‘I feel I must stick to reading,’ he wrote in his diary on 17 September 1879, ‘or my time will be wasted and I shall be no better than the clerks and I am determined to surpass (DV).’3 This kept him out of trouble on the whole, although Mrs Owen had occasional cause to show him the rough side of her tongue for staying out late.
Lloyd George was bursting with ambition and youthful ideals. Primed by both temperament and upbringing to believe that he was capable of great things, he could not wait to make his mark on the world. His diary is striking in its similarity to that of his late father at the same age. But the son shows more steel. Perhaps because of the innate selfbelief which was one of his strongest characteristics, or because of the firm guidance he received from Uncle Lloyd, Lloyd George never doubted his ability to ‘get on’. His diary records his advice to himself and sets out his goals as he entered his articles:
Q. Your chief ambition? A. To promote myself by honest endeavour to benefit others.
Q. The noblest aim in life. A. (1) To develop our manhood. (2) To do good. (3) To seek truth. (4) To bring truth to benefit our fellows.
Q. Your idea of Happiness. A. To perceive my own efforts succeed.
To ‘perceive his own efforts succeed’ was to be the driving factor of Lloyd George’s life. He put success in his work above all else, and never allowed love, illness or even bereavement to distract him for long. That said, leaving Highgate meant an end, temporarily at least, to his family’s close scrutiny of his leisure time. At sixteen years old he was experiencing the usual hormonal turmoil, and in essence Lloyd George had a country boy’s attitude to sex, no matter how hard his mother tried to restrain him with chapel decorum.
The practice among