1258 Herbert Lewis

Constituency : Flint  Boroughs  1892-1906, Flintshire  1906-18,  University  of  Wales  1918-22

Herbert  took  over  from  John  Roberts  at  Flint  Boroughs.

Herbert  was  born  at  Mostyn  Quay to  a  successful  shipping  magnate and  was  educated  at  McGill  University  ( Montreal )  and  Oxford.  He  became  a  solicitor . He  was  the  first  chairman  of  Flintshire  County  Council  where  he  worked  hard  to  improve  education  in  the  county. He  was  a  Calvinistic  Methodist.  He  was a  teetotaller.  In  1886  he  was  narrowly  beaten  by  Samuel  Smith  for  the  Flintshire  nomination. He  was  not  a  fluent  Welsh  speaker  though  improved  over  the  years.

In  1894  Herbert  was  part  of  the  "Welsh  Revolt "  on  disestablishment  alongside   lifelong  friend   Lloyd  George  and  Frank  Edwards.  Lloyd  George  wrote  to  his  brother  "Herbert's  presence  amongst  us  will  in  itself  be  a  source  of  great  strength ". He  wrote  to  Thomas  Ellis  "I  will  never  again  fight  a  constituency  as  an  official  Liberal"  although  he  later  changed  his  mind. He  was  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of  Cymru  Fydd. He  was  opposed  to  the  Boer  War.  He  was  a  prominent  champion  of  intermediate  and  higher  education  in  Wales.

In  1896  Herbert  was  suspended  alongside  Lloyd  George  for  his  protests  against  the  Agricultural  Ratings  Bill.

In  1897  Herbert  too  married  a  daughter  of  William  Caine. Ruth  Lewis  became  very  prominent  in  the  Welsh  Folk-Song  Society.

In  1905  Herbert  was  made  a  Whip.

Herbert  switched  to  Flintshire  for  the  1906  election  and  had  an  easy  victory.

In  1909  Herbert  became  parliamentary  secretary  to  the  Local  Government  Board.

Herbert's  majority  was  barely  dented  in  January  1910  and  the  Tories  did  not  bother  to  put  up  a  candidate  in  December.

In  the  reshuffle  on  the  formation  of  the  Coalition  government  in  1915  Herbert  was  shifted  to Parliamentary  Secretary  to  the  Board  of  Education,  a  post  he  held  right  through  to 1922.


In  1918  Herbert  shifted  seats  again, this  time  to  the  new  University  Of  Wales  seat  which  he won  easily  over  a  Labour  candidate  as  a  Coalition  Liberal.  He  said  that  coalition  "embodied  the  spirit  of  accommodation".

The  only  time  when  Herbert  seriously  opposed  Lloyd  George  was  in  1920  when  he  rejected  the  proposal  for  fusion  with  the  Coalition  Unionists. He  said  that  "In  Wales  it  would  be  practically  impossible  to  get  anything  in  the  shape  of  fusion  between  the  local  Associations."

Herbert  retired  in  1922. He  was  knighted  but  refused  a  peerage.

Herbert  was  a  great  supporter  of  the  National  Library  of  Wales  in  Aberystwyth, which  was  set  up  after  he  persistently  argued  for  Wales  to  have  a  share  of  the  museum  grants  and  in  1909 became  a  Vice  President. In  1925  he  was  walking  above  the  town  before  a  meeting  of  the  library  council  and  suffered  a  fall  which  left  him  permanently  paralysed. He  was  made  President  of  the Library  the  following  year.

Herbert  was  a  humourless  hpochondriac. Lloyd  George  said  he  would  live  to  see  all  his  contemporaries  die  and  write  a  letter  of condolence  to  their  relatives.

He  died  in  1933  aged  74.