Grave of David Lloyd George

Grave of David Lloyd George
“a hero’s burying-place” [1]
Type	Grave
Location	Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd
Coordinates	52°55′22″N4°16′08″W / 52.9229°N 4.269°W / 52.9229; -4.269
Area	North Wales
Built	1946
Architect	Clough Williams-Ellis
Architectural style(s)	Vernacular
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name	Grave of David Lloyd George
Designated	31 March 1999
Reference no.	21601
Location of Grave of David Lloyd George in Gwynedd

The Grave of David Lloyd George, stands on a bank of the Afon Dwyfor in the village of Llanystumdwy, Gwynedd, Wales. It commemorates Lloyd George who grew up in the village, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1916 and 1922, and died at Llanystumdwy in 1945. The grave and its setting were designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect of Portmerion and a lifelong friend of Lloyd George. The grave comprises a boulder set in an oval enclosure, the walls of which bear two slate plaques recording Lloyd George's name and the years of his birth and death. It is a Grade II* listed structure.

History

David Lloyd George was born in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester on 17 January 1863. ^[2] Within months of his birth, his father, William George, moved the family to Pembrokeshire. His father's death the next year saw the family move again, to his mother's home village of Llanystumdwy, in what was then the county of Caernarfonshire (now Gwynedd), where they lived with Lloyd George's uncle, Robert Lloyd. ^[3] Lloyd George qualified as a solicitor in 1884 and in 1890 was elected to Parliament as the Liberal M.P. for Carnarvon Boroughs. ^[4] Originally on the Radical wing of the Liberal Party, in 1916 Lloyd George became Prime Minister in a coalition with the Conservatives. ^[5] Although successful in his leadership of the country in World War I, ^[6] Lloyd George was ejected from office in 1922, and never returned to power. He died of cancer aged 82 on 26 March 1945 and was buried at Llanystumdwy. ^[2]

Lloyd George had long wanted to be buried beside the Dwyfor, telling his wife Margaret "I don't want to be buried anywhere else". ^[7] In 1922, shortly after the murder of Michael Collins, which had greatly depressed him, he took Thomas Jones, the Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, to Llanystumdwy and, on the banks of the Dwyfor told him "Bury me here. Don't put me in a cemetery. You'll have trouble with the relatives, and there would be controversy if the Abbey were suggested". He asked that John Morris-Jones write the epitaph and suggested the wording "Magwyd yn y pentref. Prif Weinidog Prydain yn y Rhyfel Mawr" (Bred in the village. Prime Minister of Britain in the Great War). ^[8]

Clough Williams-Ellis, a long-term friend of Lloyd George, ^[9] had been employed by Lloyd George's second wife, Frances Stevenson, to renovate their last home, Tŷ Newydd. ^{[lower-alpha 1] [11]} After Lloyd George's death, Stevenson, then Dowager Countess Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, commissioned Williams-Ellis to design his gravesite. ^[6] Work was undertaken quickly, despite post-war restrictions on construction, and was completed in March 1946. ^[12]

Architecture and description

Bedd David Lloyd George (Iarll Dwyfor),
Y maen garw, a maen ei goron, – yw bedd
Gŵr i’w bobl fu’n wron;
Dyfrliw hardd yw Dwyfor lon,
Anwesa’r bedd yn gyson.
The Grave of David Lloyd George (Earl Dwyfor),
The rough stone, and the stone of his crown – is the grave
Of a man who was a hero to his people;
Merry Dwyfor is a beautiful watercolour,
That continuously embraces the grave.

–Englyn by W. R. P. George, Lloyd George's nephew and Archdruid of Wales ^[13]

The centrepiece of the design is a large boulder from the Afon Dwyfor, on which Lloyd George used to sit, ^[1] and under which he is buried. ^[3] It rests on a plinth decorated with pebbles from the beach at Criccieth. The boulder stands within an oval enclosure, surrounded by a wall constructed of local stone rubble. Entry is through a decorative gate of wrought iron set into an arch; above the gate, carved onto a plaque of Welsh slate, is an englyn ^{[lower-alpha 2]} [see box] by Lloyd George's nephew, W. R. P. George, ^{[lower-alpha 3]} the lettering by Jonah Jones, ^{[lower-alpha 4] [18]} and a Oeil-de-boeuf opening with the initials DLG, again sculpted in wrought iron. The architectural historian Andrew Saint considers the style of the arch more "Dutch-Afrikaans" than Welsh vernacular but notes the use of local building materials. ^{[lower-alpha 5] [12]} On both internal sides of the gate wall are two further plaques carved with the name, David Lloyd George, and the years of his birth and death. ^[19] From the gate, the walls, 1m high, curve round to the river, while the encircling path descends 14 steps ending at the river bank, at eye level with the boulder. ^[19] Haslam, Orbach and Voelcker draw comparison with the "watery aesthetic of the Villa d'Este". ^[1] A Grade II* listed structure, the authors of the Gwynedd Pevsner, call the site "a hero's burying-place and a consummate work of landscape design". ^[1] The Cadw listing describes it as a "subtle and expressively designed memorial by a leading twentieth-century Welsh architect for one of the most important Prime Ministers of Britain". ^[19]

See also

• List of burial places of prime ministers of the United Kingdom

Notes

1. Frances Stevenson had met Lloyd George in 1911, became his secretary and mistress in 1913, and finally married him in 1943, after the death of his first wife Margaret in 1941. Stevenson faced unremitting hostility from Lloyd George's daughter Megan; in 1946, when the enclosure around the grave was completed, Stevenson sent her a key to the entrance gate. The gesture was not acknowledged. ^[10]
2. An englyn is a traditional form of short Welsh poem, intended to give "concise, intense, often pithy, expressions of an idea or an emotion". ^[14]
3. W. R. P. George, a solicitor like his father and uncle, was also a noted Welsh-language poet and the Archdruid of Wales 1990–1993. ^[15]
4. Jonah Jones, who learnt his craft in the workshop of Eric Gill, ^[16] also sculpted the memorial stone to Lloyd George in Westminster Abbey, again to a design by Clough Williams-Ellis. ^[17]
5. Saint considers that the plaque with englyn, a later addition, "mars the austerity of rubble and ironwork". ^[12]

References

1. Haslam, Orbach & Voelcker 2009, p. 463.
2. "History of David Lloyd George". History of Parliament. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
3. Jenkins 2008, p. 212.
4. Gilbert 1987, pp. 75–76.
5. Grigg 2003, p. 11.
6. Aslet 2005, pp. 421–422.
7. Carey Evans & Garner 1985, p. 155.
8. Jones 1969, pp. 206–207.
9. "Lloyd George's Grave (32599)". Coflein. RCAHMW . Retrieved 22 November 2020.
10. Hague 2009, pp. 540–541.
11. "David Lloyd George". Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
12. Saint, Andrew. "The Lloyd George Memorial, Llanystumdwy". The Twentieth Century Society. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
13. Rhys, Guto (20 June 2019). "Grave elegies: three and a half centuries of Welsh poetic tradition". Kelten.
14. "Metres of Medieval Welsh Poetry". Mapping Medieval Chester. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
15. "Lloyd George knew his father (and him)". The Law Society. 10 February 2006. Archived from the original on 4 February 2012.
16. Cameron, Euan (14 January 2005). "Obituary: Jonah Jones". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
17. "David Lloyd George". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
18. Stephens, Meic (2 December 2004). "Obituary: Jonah Jones". The Independent. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
19. Cadw. "Grave of David Lloyd George (Grade II*) (21601)". National Historic Assets of Wales .

Sources

• Aslet, Clive (2005). Landmarks of Britain. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN   978-0-340-73510-7.
• Carey Evans, Olwen; Garner, Mary (1985). Lloyd George Was My Father. Llandysul: Gomer Press. ISBN   978-0-863-83112-6. OCLC   1106804552.
• George, William (1958). My Brother and I. London, UK: Eyre & Spottiswoode. OCLC   4923426.
• Gilbert, Bentley Brinkerhoff (1987). David Lloyd George: A Political Life: The Architect of Change 1863–1912. London: Batsford. ISBN   978-0-713-45558-8. OCLC   929287024.
• Grigg, John (2003). Lloyd George: War Leader 1916-1918. London: Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0-140-28427-0. OCLC   464459719.
• Hague, Ffion (2009). The Pain and the Privilege: The Women Who Loved Lloyd George. London, UK: Harper Perennial. ISBN   978-0-007-21950-6. OCLC   751415721.
• Haslam, Richard; Orbach, Julian; Voelcker, Adam (2009). Gwynedd. The Buildings of Wales. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-14169-6. OCLC   1023292902.
• Jenkins, Simon (2008). Wales: Churches, Houses, Castles. London: Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0-713-99893-1.
• Jones, Thomas (1969). Keith Middlemas (ed.). Whitehall Diary: Volume I. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN   0192111930. OCLC   823680810.
• Toye, Richard (2007). Lloyd George & Churchill: Rivals for Greatness. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN   978-1-405-04896-5. OCLC   1169990594.

External links

• Pathé News footage of Lloyd George’s funeral in 1945
• A BBC TV recording of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis discussing his design for Lloyd George's grave
• Catalogue of materials relating to Lloyd George’s grave held at the National Library of Wales