Meet Wales’ first lady of the House

LAST month saw more Welsh female MPs elected to Westminster than ever before.

By contrast, at the start of 1929 the number of Welsh women in the UK Parliament remained stubbornly at zero. That was all to change on May 30, 1929, however, when Megan Arfon Lloyd George was elected Liberal MP for Anglesey.

Daughter of a former Prime Minister, Megan Lloyd George’s election saw her become the first woman in Wales to enter Parliament as a Member of the House.

A 37-year political career, across two Welsh constituencies, would see her go on to become the longest-serving woman MP of the 20th Century.

Lloyd George was born April 22, 1902 in Criccieth, Caemarfonshire, the youngest daughter of Margaret and David Lloyd George.

Until the age of four, she spoke only Welsh, the legacy of her mother’s upbringing, and it was not until she began to attend public engagements with her father that she would bilingually pick up English.

Writing in 1909, Irish journalist and politician Thomas Power O’Connor referred to the young Megan as being “the brightest, the prettiest, most fascinating figure” of the Lloyd George household.

“Megan lives in a strange, imaginative world of her own, in which her personality becomes almost as much a puzzle to herself as others” he wrote. As MP for Angelsey, Lloyd George proved a popular figure and distinguished orator.

Indeed, by 1931 her majority had risen to 58.3 per cent over Conservative opponent Albert Hughes, in spite of her refusal to support the then National Government of Ramsay MacDonald.

A backbencher, Lloyd George spoke regularly to the Commons of Welsh affairs, agriculture and, increasingly, women’s rights.

Four re-elections by Angelsey constituents saw her develop into a fervent and outspoken campaigner against Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement to Hitler, and for the creation of a Welsh Assembly.

In a passionate speech to Parliament on March 21 1951, Lloyd George declared that: “What Wales needs, what she wants – and she will be satisfied with nothing less – is government of the Welsh people by the Welsh people for the Welsh people”.

However, that year saw the politician, now Lady Lloyd George by virtue of her father’s peerage, narrowly beaten in her Parliamentary seat by Cledwyn Hughes of the Labour Party.

Though many believed her career now to be over, by 1955 Lady Lloyd George had switched allegiances to the very party who had ousted her just four years earlier. As a new member of the Labour Party, that year she fought and won a by-election in Carmathen, a seat that she would hold until her death on May 4, 1966.

An important year for Lady Lloyd George, 1955 also saw her elected President of a committee petitioning for the formation of a Parliament of Wales.

She oversaw the collection of more than a quarter of a million signatures and was among the Welsh MPs who delivered it, ironically, to her older brother Gwilym Lloyd George, the Conservative Home Secretary and Minister for Wales.

Founding figure of the concept of a “National Region,” Lady Lloyd George’s impact on Welsh and UK politics resonates still. Her enduring popularity as both an MP and belligerent supporter of local politics is evident in the huge crowd, including political rivals, attendant at a memorial ceremony held on the day of her funeral. She was buried in 1966 at Criccieth in the Lloyd George family vault, having been posthumously appointed a Companion of Honour in the Dissolution List just five days after her death.