Lady Megan Arfon Lloyd George

The History of Wales

Yesterday in 1929 Lady Megan Arfon Lloyd George (1902-1966) became Wales' first female MP when she won Anglesey for the Liberals.

Megan Lloyd George was not only the first female MP in Wales, she also remains the longest serving. As the daughter of the former Prime Minister and the dominant figure in Welsh politics, her selection to fight the then safe Liberal seat of Anglesey in 1929 was a matter of some controversy. Megan’s brother Gwilym was already an M.P and it seemed to some that David Lloyd George was intent on creating his own dynastic power base. Suggestions of nepotism faded as Megan began a parliamentary career that, despite a lengthy interruption in the 1950’s, would span thirty years. Although the declining fortunes of the Liberals would keep her out of high office- the last Liberal government was that of her father- she nevertheless became Deputy Leader of the party and a prominent political personality in her own right.

Welsh issues were never far from the top of her agenda. She was the founding president of the ‘Parliament for Wales’ campaign – an early attempt to secure devolved government. Later she was prominent in the Treweryn Defence Committee – the body formed to resist the controversial flooding of a village near Bala to provide water for English consumers. Such campaigns led to significant concessions to Welsh interests both in parliament and in the apparatus of government. In 1944, Megan Lloyd George opened the first ever ‘Welsh Day’ debate at Westminster. Later she was also prominent among those who pushed for the creation of the Welsh Office and the post of Secretary of State for Wales in the early 1960’s. By then however, she had changed political parties. Defeated on Anglesey by Cledwyn Hughes in 1951, she defected to the Labour cause soon afterwards – one of the several prominent figures to do so. She returned to parliament in 1957 after winning Carmarthen for Labour and remained an MP until her death nine years later.