This may seem extraordinarily permissive given the stern view of premarital sex taken by the nonconformists, but sex was not meant to be part of the deal. It was expected that the young lad would behave himself and not get his sweetheart in trouble. She, for her part, was not the innocent creature that her upper-class contemporary was raised to be, and not only knew the facts of life from an early age (living on or near farms meant that these mysteries were easily unravelled), but knew only too well the consequences of allowing things to go too far. If a girl became pregnant she would be drummed out of society, lose her chance of catching a good husband, and unless her family took her in, would have to fend for herself and her baby. This knowledge, it seemed, was quite an effective contraceptive.
Bed-courtship was normally confined to the labouring classes, and not to devout intellectuals like the George family, but Lloyd George, never one to let class considerations stand in the way of an exciting encounter, extended his experience of the world in this way at least once. In company with a Porthmadoc friend, Moses Roberts, he attended a Pentecostal dance at which they were ‘sorely tempted by two Irish girls’.4 Caru gwely followed, and his studies were forgotten for one night at least.
Betsy, Polly and Uncle Lloyd would have been aghast at such behaviour. Lloyd George kept them firmly in the dark, but they were still concerned at the degree of freedom he was enjoying. He had begun to forget the strict ways of home, and one Sunday was enjoying himself digging in the garden when his mother gave him a sound telling-off, shocked at the sight of him breaking the Sabbath. She had good reason to be worried: her son was not growing up to be a faithful Disciple of Christ at all.
Taking pains to avoid Uncle Lloyd’s disapproval was something of a George family habit. Lloyd George and William had to find plausible excuses even to go and hear a good sermon in another chapel, and no grumbling at the three walks to Capel Ucha on a Sunday was tolerated, even after a hard week’s work. Uncle Lloyd’s reprimands were mild, and he never forced his family to conform to his views, but they never forgot how much they owed him, and were loath to disappoint him. But now Lloyd George was free for six days a week to ignore the rules and indulge his fancy. Away from the moral influence of Uncle Lloyd he explored his new environment to the utmost. In Porthmadoc he found a heady combination of work, politics and sex.
Lloyd George’s first priority, even as a sixteen-year-old, was his work. His uncle had hung a portrait of Abraham Lincoln above the fireplace in Highgate to inspire the young boy, who never forgot the story of the self-taught lawyer who had by his own endeavours become President of the United States. It took rare confidence for a village boy in Llanystumdwy to believe that he too was capable of such a feat. Having decided that the law was to be the starting point for his career, he worked diligently, and after persuading Randall Casson to take him on as an articled clerk, the next hurdle was to pass his intermediate law examination. He received little support for his studies from the firm, apart from access to law books and periodicals, but Uncle Lloyd devised a rigorous programme for both him and William, who had passed his preliminary examination in 1880. With typical thoroughness, Lloyd George rejected the easy option of cramming just enough information to scrape through from a primer in favour of reading texts from cover to cover. Every book, every chapter, even note-texts and footnotes were read, and notes taken.
Uncle Lloyd was able to supervise his nephew’s studies more closely after the family left Highgate and took up residence in Criccieth in 1880. Even though the move brought them only a mile closer to Porthmadoc, it was no longer deemed necessary for Lloyd George to lodge near the office, and he began to walk the ten-mile daily round trip from Criccieth. He undoubtedly benefited from the extra discipline that Uncle Lloyd imposed on his studies. By 1881 he felt ready to take his next examination, and travelled to London where it was held. He felt the weight of expectation on his shoulders as he recorded his feelings after the exam: ‘There has been a mixture of hope and fear—hope predominating. I must now abide the result. If the verdict be adverse, I scarcely know what to do—to face friends and others who are so sanguine and seem to have no doubt about the result will be terrible. I can scarcely conceive really the consequences of an adverse verdict. I will be disgraced—lowered in the estimation of my friends and gloated over by mine enemies.’5
While he waited anxiously in London for the result he took the opportunity to see the sights, visiting Madame Tussaud’s and the Law Courts. With great excitement he went to Charing Cross station to see for himself the new phenomenon of electric light, noting that it was ‘a sort of pale blue—melancholy—but unquestionably stronger than gas’. Later, he was contemplating the statue of Demosthenes in the British Museum when to his surprise he was hailed by Mr Lloyd, the Tremadoc parson. But the highlight of the trip was to be his first visit to the House of Commons:
Sat 12 Nov. Went to the Houses of Parliament—very much disappointed with them. Grand buildings outside but inside they are crabbed, small and suffocating, especially House of Commons. I will not say but that I eyed the assembly in a spirit similar to that in which William the Conqueror eyed England on his visit to Edward the Confessor as the region of his future domain. Oh, vanity.6
Even as he took the next step towards a career in law, the young David Lloyd George was regarding the House of Commons as his ‘region of future domain’.
There was no inherent contradiction between Lloyd George’s pursuit of a law qualification and his desire, ultimately, to make his name in politics. MPs were not paid a salary until 1911, so it was very difficult for someone without money to enter Parliament. An aspiring politician needed either a private income or a profession that was flexible enough to combine with a parliamentary career. Law was ideal, and men like Herbert Asquith, Edward Carson and Rufus Isaacs had all used it as a stepping-stone to a career in public life.
It was necessary to have an ongoing source of income when in fulltime politics, and it seems that Lloyd George had a plan from the very beginning. He needed training within an established law firm, and Breese, Jones & Casson fitted the bill perfectly, but he never seriously considered staying with the firm beyond the initial five years of his articles. After he had passed his final examinations as well, to become a fully-qualified solicitor in 1884, Randall Casson would ask him to supervise the firm’s new Dolgellau office. It was a good offer, but Lloyd George was impatient to be his own master.7 He left the firm and set up on his own, working from the back room of the family home in Criccieth. His plan was neat and unashamedly self-serving. Randall Casson had taken William George on as an articled clerk, and Lloyd George only had to wait until William too was qualified before his brother could join his own firm and take over the donkeywork. In the meantime, while he built up the practice, he concentrated on the real love of his life, and the only mistress to whom he was completely faithful: politics.
David Lloyd George came to believe very early in life that he was destined for a career in politics. There was no sudden moment of realisation: politics was in his nature, and he was raised to believe that public life was the highest possible calling for a man of talent—apart from religion, which for him was never a serious option. Richard Lloyd encouraged his ambition, and introduced him at an early age to political debate to encourage his confidence and independence of mind. There was always plenty of debate around the workshop in Llanystumdwy, and there was also scope for extending Lloyd George’s education at the ‘Village Parliament’, a debating society that met in the smithy to discuss religious and philosophical topics, providing an intellectual outlet for the working men of Llanystumdwy. Highgate too was not a typical village cottage, in that practically every periodical published in Wales, some twenty-eight