REviEWS will accept Emyr Price’s empha- Political Archive at the National tactful silence. After LG fell sis and arguments, but he has Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. from power in the autumn of certainly produced a volume 1922 (forever, as it happened), which is stimulating, thought- 1 Journal of the Merioneth Historical and he set up home with Frances at provoking and highly original. Record Society, Vol. XIII, no. IV a new house called Bron-y-de (2001), 407–08; Transactions of the It will be eagerly received. Caernarvonshire Historical Society near Churt in Surrey. There- 61 (2000), pp. 135–38. after Frances’s long-term role Dr J. Graham Jones is Senior 2 Welsh History Review, Vol. 21, no. 1 was ‘still in public LG’s devoted Archivist and Head of the Welsh (June 2002), p. 205. secretary, still in private sharing him with Maggie, the eternal mistress still subordinate to the wife and obliged to make herself scarce whenever Maggie came out of Wales – even when she came to Churt’ (pp. 254–55). David and Frances Eventually, after the death of his wife Dame Margaret in January John Campbell: If Love Were All … The Story of Frances 1941, he made an honest woman Stevenson and David Lloyd George (Jonathan Cape, of Frances by marrying her in October 1943. In January 1945 he 2006) accepted an earldom and she thus Reviewed by Dr J. Graham Jones became a countess. Less than three months later he was dead. Not long afterwards Frances left r John Campbell first a twenty-two year old recent north Wales to return to Surrey earned our eternal classics graduate, as a temporary where, as the Dowager Coun- Mgratitude and com- tutor for his youngest daughter tess Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, mendation almost thirty years Megan, who had received but she outlived him by more than ago with the publication of little formal schooling. Frances twenty-seven years, eventually the volume Lloyd George: The was intelligent, organised, dying in December 1972 at the Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 highly attractive, feminine and age of 84. (Cape, 1977), an authoritative, ambitious. She immediately The backbone of Mr Camp- pioneering study of LG’s so- caught the Chancellor’s roving bell’s sources is the private dia- called ‘wilderness years’, which eye, was appointed his private ries of some of the leading actors has stood the test of time and secretary in 1912 and the follow- involved in this bizarre saga: has never been superseded. ing year became his long-term those of Frances herself at the Since then he has published mistress. As A. J. Sylvester, LG’s Parliamentary Archive at the substantial, well-received biog- trusted ‘Principal Private Sec- House of Lords, together with raphies of a host of eminent retary’, noted in an interview This bizarre those of Lord Hankey at Cam- political figures, among them decades later, ‘No one would bridge, Lord Riddell at London F. E. Smith (Earl Birkenhead), suspect her of a sexual relation- situation and A. J. Sylvester at Aberyst- Roy Jenkins, Aneurin Bevan, ship with anybody. You’d take wyth. These are supplemented Edward Heath and Margaret her to be a prim schoolteacher.’1 continued by the voluminous correspond- Thatcher. The publication of John Campbell shows how for more ence between Lloyd George and If Love Were All reflects the the ‘restless schoolteacher, fol- Frances at the House of Lords recent upsurge of interest in lowing politics only through than thirty and the Lloyd George fam- Lloyd George. Previously the the newspapers’ was dramati- ily correspondence and papers Lloyd George industry seemed cally catapulted into a position years at Aberystwyth. In every case rather to have run out of steam where she enjoyed regularly ‘the there are existing published since its conspicuous heyday in company of Cabinet ministers, – while the volumes containing edited the late 1960s and 1970s when Prime Ministers, generals and press and and annotated selections from works seemed to pour from the foreign statesmen’ at No. 11 and each of these sources, but John presses. subsequently No. 10 Downing the media Campbell has in each case used The present offering is prob- Street (p. 15). From 1913 until the original source materials ably the most substantial. The 1922 she lived out her life at the unfailingly himself, meticulously transcrib- main theme of the book is, of hub of British politics. ing and re-interpreting with a course, familiar enough. In This bizarre situation con- observed fresh eye the mass of intricate 1911, David Lloyd George, then tinued for more than thirty a tactful information they contain. In so Chancellor of the Exchequer, years – while the press and the doing, he draws attention to the employed Frances Stevenson, media unfailingly observed a silence. many omissions, transcription errors, misinterpretations and 50 Journal of Liberal History 52 Autumn 2006 REviEWS lady to preside there’ (p. 193). surely very wide of the mark Other writers have argued, boldly to assert (p. 352) that convincingly, that by this time there were 11.3 million unem- Dame Margaret felt that her ployed in Britain in 1929. And youngest daughter was now old picture 26, captioned ‘LG and enough to be told the whole Megan in the 1930s’, was in truth and thus spilled the beans. fact taken during their North The author also sensitively American tour in 1923. describes the long relationship Throughout most of the vol- between Frances and Colonel ume the discussion is very full T. F. Tweed, a member of LG’s and extremely detailed. Only staff at Liberal Party HQ, and from 1941 onwards does the discusses openly the still vexed, pace noticeably quicken – the contentious question of Jennifer war years, the death of Dame Longford’s paternity. Perhaps Margaret, the second marriage the most striking revelation in to Frances, the final return to the book is the disclosure of the north Wales in September 1944, intimate, highly embarrassing the (? reluctant) acceptance of relationship between LG and an earldom in January 1945 and Roberta, the first wife of his LG’s final pathetic weeks. The eldest son Richard (pp. 374–75). last chapter – no. 38, ‘Occu- The author has made use of pation: Widow’ – deals with a wide range of primary and Frances’s life after her husband’s published source materials in death in rather less than seven researching and writing this pages and outlines only the monumental tome. He has, major turning points in her long however, shunned the use of story. The volume contains a journal articles and chapters large number of fascinating misjudgements of the exist- in published volumes – a deci- photographs, some well known ing published texts. Where the sion perhaps inevitable given and published many times sources are thin, Campbell uses the massive existing Lloyd before, some completely new considerable skill and imagina- George bibliography. Nor has and fresh. They add very much tion in piecing together the he conducted formal interviews to the appeal of the volume. complex, involved course of with surviving members of the Occasionally, one felt that events, occasionally even mak- Lloyd George family such as the very long quotations, ing use of an unpublished novel the present Earl Lloyd-George especially from Frances’s copi- penned by Frances. (b. 1924), Dr W. R. P. George ous diary entries, and from Adopting a strictly chrono- (b. 1912) and Viscount Tenby the voluminous correspond- logical approach and an unfail- (b. 1930), all of whom remem- ence between Lloyd George ingly lively, engaging writing ber well Lloyd George, Dame and Frances, could sometimes style (which immediately capti- Margaret and Frances Stevenson have been abbreviated a little vates the reader), Mr Campbell and have unique reminiscences – with advantage for the flow has arranged this mass of mate- of the events described in the of the narrative which runs rial into thirty-eight relatively latter part of the book. He to no fewer than 557 pages. short, easily digestible chapters. has, however, undertaken his As it is, Mr Campbell can rest While not refraining from research and writing with the assured that he has left no stone exposing the numerous, untold blessing and full collaboration unturned and that he has writ- skeletons in the Lloyd George of Jennifer Longford (Frances’s ten what is surely the last word family cupboard, he deals sensi- daughter, born in 1929) and on one of the greatest love sto- tively and tactfully with themes Ruth Nixon, Jennifer’s daugh- ries of the twentieth century. like the fraught relationship ter and a historian in her own between Lloyd George and right. He has also made full use Dr J. Graham Jones is Senior members of the Stevenson fam- of the private papers still in the Archivist and Head of the Welsh ily, or the shock discovery by family’s custody, referred to as Political Archive at the National Megan Lloyd George in 1920 ‘Ruth’s box’ in the footnote ref- Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. or 1921 that Frances was rather erences in the volume. more than her father’s secretary John Campbell’s detailed 1 In an interview with Mervyn and confidant. The latter revela- knowledge of the minutiae Jones, 1989: Jones, A Radical Life: tion he attributes to Frances’s the Biography of Megan Lloyd George, of the political history of the 1902–66 (London: Hutchinson, very prominent role at Cheq- period is impressive. Very 1991), p. 34. uers – ‘the first Prime Minister’s rarely does he slip up. But it is Journal of Liberal History 52 Autumn 2006 51 .