National Library of Wales Buys ‘Lost’ Lloyd George Diary – Found by Society Secretary
David Lloyd George was the Prime Minister who ‘Won the War,’ started the Welfare State and championed radical policies that are the bedrock of Liberalism and our society. Yet, there is another aspect of Lloyd George’s life that is just as celebrated – his political writing. Just as his speeches were poetic, full of power and urgency, his books followed a similar pattern. Now we have another insight into his world, through a newly discovered personal diary.
The committee of the Lloyd George Society is always on the lookout for artefacts and little titbits of information about the man himself. Our WhatsApp group can go down an enjoyable rabbit hole of who has what item, where we got it from and how big our collections are. So, you can imagine the excitement we all felt when our esteemed Secretary, Duncan Hill, announced that he had just found a lost diary on eBay.
“Was it legit? Where has it been all these years? What period in Lloyd George’s life did it cover? Quick! Get in touch with the National Library of Wales, this needs to be bought for the nation!”
As Duncan explains:
As a keen student of David Lloyd George’s life and works I keep an eye on auction websites like eBay to see if any memorabilia comes up to add to my collection. On the 24th of June I saw a personal notebook of his advertised. The price asked was out of my reach, but I thought it would be of interest to the Lloyd George Society committee, so I shared it in our group chat. Our chairman, Professor Russell Deacon, suggested contacting the Welsh Political Archive at the National Library of Wales. I rang them and spoke to Rob Phillips, who was very interested in the notebook, and said he would speak to his colleagues about buying it. Within a few hours he rang back to say they had bought the notebook. I was highly impressed by both the enthusiasm and the speed of action of the Welsh Political Archive.
Rob Phillips, Archivist at the Welsh Political Archive, was very excited to receive the news. As Duncan pointed out, Rob made sure that the item was authentic and purchased the diary. Rob also consulted Lloyd George’s biographer, the historian J. Graham Jones, on the find.
Rob kindly provided a note on the diary:
LG’s handwriting is appalling but there are some interesting bits. There is a note about a “period of reactionary or sluggish and sloppy [or sleepy?] govt by the right”, notes on the price of vegetables, “food for Spain” and page dated 2 January 1940 with a list of things to do including writing to the Sunday Pictorial and The Times.
It’s certainly an interesting find and shows Lloyd George moving between thoughts about the state of the world and more mundane matters to do with management of his farm as the world descended into war. The book itself seems to have had an interesting history, having been in the possession of a resident of New York in the 1970s, who corresponded with the then Earl Lloyd George about its contents and provenance before being sold in 2007 to a resident of Nashville, TN from whom we purchased it. We’re delighted to add this to the archive collection at the National Library of Wales and I’m really grateful to the Lloyd George Society for the tip off. Every time I think there can’t be any more Lloyd George archives out there, something seems to turn up.
As we in the Lloyd George Society know all to well, eighty years after his death the great man still has the power to amaze.
The Lloyd George Society would like to congratulate Duncan on his eagle eye and quick thinking and Rob Phillips for grabbing a bargain for the nation.
Looks like the rest of us will be on a similar treasure hunt!
To view the diary at the National Library of Wales, the catalogue reference is NLWMS24277.
