Editing David Lloyd George (section)

== Early life ==
David George was born on 17 January 1863 in [[Chorlton-on-Medlock]], Manchester, to [[Welsh people|Welsh]] parents William George and Elizabeth Lloyd George. William died in June 1864 of pneumonia, aged 44. David was just over one year old. Elizabeth George moved with her children to her native [[Llanystumdwy]] in Caernarfonshire, where she lived in a cottage known as Highgate with her brother Richard, a shoemaker, lay minister and a strong Liberal. Richard Lloyd was a towering influence on his nephew and David adopted his uncle's surname to become "Lloyd George".{{when|date=December 2022}} Lloyd George was educated at the local [[Anglican]] school, Llanystumdwy [[National school (England and Wales)|National School]], and later under tutors.

He was brought up with [[Welsh language|Welsh]] as his first language;<ref name="CrosbyEducation"/> [[Roy Jenkins]], another Welsh politician, notes that, "Lloyd George was Welsh, that his whole culture, his whole outlook, his language was Welsh."<ref>{{YouTube|title=Roy Jenkins: A Very Social Democrat|id=iJC-fMzBzVs}} {{retrieved|access-date=5 March 2022}}</ref>

Though brought up a devout evangelical, Lloyd George privately lost his religious faith as a young man. Biographer Don Cregier says he became "a Deist and perhaps an agnostic, though he remained a chapel-goer and connoisseur of good preaching all his life." He was nevertheless, according to [[Frank Owen (politician)|Frank Owen]], "one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|Nonconformity]]" for a quarter of a century.<ref name="CrosbyEducation"/>{{rp|6}}<ref name="Cregier 1976">{{harvnb|Cregier|1976|p=13}}</ref>{{sfn|Owen|1954|p=31}}

===Legal practice and early politics===
[[File:David Lloyd George NLW3362532 cropped.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Lloyd George {{circa|1890}}]]
Lloyd George qualified as a solicitor in 1884 after being [[Articled clerk|articled]] to a firm in [[Porthmadog]] and taking Honours in his final law examination. He set up his own practice in the back parlour of his uncle's house in 1885.<ref name="Bourns2016">{{cite web |url=http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/news/speeches/lloyd-george-the-parliamentarian-speech-by-robert-bourns/ |title=Lloyd George the parliamentarian |last=Bourns |first=Robert |date=14 December 2016 |publisher=The Law Society |access-date=11 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180511081350/http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/news/speeches/lloyd-george-the-parliamentarian-speech-by-robert-bourns/ |archive-date=11 May 2018 }}</ref> Although many prime ministers have been [[barrister]]s, Lloyd George is, as of {{currentyear}}, the only solicitor to have held that office.<ref name="Bourns2016"/>

As a solicitor, Lloyd George was politically active from the start, campaigning for his uncle's [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] in the [[1885 United Kingdom general election|1885 election]]. He was attracted by [[Joseph Chamberlain]]'s "unauthorised programme" of [[Radicals (UK)|Radical]] reform.<ref name="RowlandBackParlour"/>{{rp|43}} After the election, Chamberlain split with Gladstone in opposition to Irish [[Home Rule]], and Lloyd George moved to join the [[Liberal Unionists]]. Uncertain of which wing to follow, he moved a resolution in support of Chamberlain at a local Liberal club and travelled to [[Birmingham]] to attend the first meeting of Chamberlain's new National Radical Union, but arrived a week too early.<ref name="RowlandBackParlour"/>{{rp|53}} In 1907 Lloyd George would tell [[Herbert Lewis (politician)|Herbert Lewis]] that he had thought Chamberlain's plan for a federal solution to the Home Rule Question correct in 1886 and still thought so, and that "If Henry Richmond, Osborne Morgan and the Welsh members had stood by Chamberlain on an agreement as regards the [Welsh] disestablishment, they would have carried Wales with them"<ref name="RowlandBackParlour"/>{{rp|53}}

His legal practice quickly flourished; he established branch offices in surrounding towns and took his brother [[William George (solicitor)|William]] into partnership in 1887.<ref name="Bourns2016"/> Lloyd George's legal and political triumph came in the [[Llanfrothen]] burial case, which established the right of [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|Nonconformists]] to be buried according to denominational rites in parish burial grounds, as given by the [[Burial Laws Amendment Act 1880]] but theretofore ignored by the [[Anglican]] clergy. On Lloyd George's advice, a Baptist burial party broke open a gate to a cemetery that had been locked against them by the vicar. The vicar sued them for trespass and although the jury returned a verdict for the party, the local judge misrecorded the jury's verdict and found in the vicar's favour. Suspecting bias, Lloyd George's clients won on appeal to the Divisional Court of Queen's Bench in London, where Lord Chief Justice [[John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge|Coleridge]] found in their favour.<ref name="CrosbyEducation"/>{{rp|14–15}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Stevens |first=Catrin |title=The 'Burial Question': Controversy and Conflict c. 1860–1890 |journal=[[The Welsh History Review]] |publisher=[[University of Wales Press]] |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=328–356 |date=1 December 2002 |doi=10.16922/whr.21.2.5}}</ref> The case was hailed as a great victory throughout Wales and led to Lloyd George's adoption as the Liberal candidate for [[Carnarvon Boroughs]] on 27 December 1888.<ref name="HatterNotAGent">{{harvnb|Hattersley|2010|loc=ch. "Not a Gentleman..."}}</ref>{{rp|46}} The same year, he and other young Welsh Liberals founded a monthly paper, ''Udgorn Rhyddid'' (Bugle of Freedom).<ref name="CrosbyEducation">{{harvnb|Crosby|2014|loc=ch. The Education of a Statesman}}</ref>{{rp|14–15}}

In 1889, Lloyd George became an [[alderman]] on [[Carnarvonshire]] [[County Council]] (a new body which had been created by the [[Local Government Act 1888]]) and would remain so for the rest of his life.<ref name="CrosbyEducation"/>{{rp|15}}<ref name="RowlandBackParlour">{{cite book |last=Rowland |first=Peter |title=Lloyd George |publisher=Barrie & Jenkins |location=London |year=1975 |isbn=0-214-20049-3 |chapter=From Back Parlour to Back Bench, 1885–1890}}</ref>{{rp|65–66}} Lloyd George would also serve the county as a [[Justice of the Peace]] (1910), chairman of [[Quarter Sessions]] (1929–38), and [[Deputy Lieutenant]] in 1921.<ref name="kellys">{{harvnb|Kelly's|1945|p=1185}}</ref><ref name=bpeerage>{{harvnb|Burke's|1949|p=1241}}</ref>

===Marriage===
Lloyd George married [[Margaret Lloyd George|Margaret Owen]], the daughter of a well-to-do local farming family, on 24 January 1888.<ref name="CrosbyEducation"/>{{rp|15–16}}  They had five children, see later.