Tuesday 2 May 2017

1545 Llewelyn Williams




Constituency : Carmarthen  Boroughs  1906-18

Llewelyn  took  over  from  Alfred  Davies  at  Carmarthen. The  local  Liberals  were  dissatisfied  with  Davies  and  deselected  him  in  Llewelyn's  favour.

Llewelyn  came  from  a  prosperous  Congregationalist  family. He  was  educated  at  Llandovery  College  and  Oxford. He  became  politically  involved  in  the  late  1880s  and  was  prominent  in  the  Cymru  Fydd  movement  , being  appointed  its  South  Wales  organiser  by  Lloyd  George. He  accompanied  the  latter  on  a  tour  of  Canada  in  1899.  after  a  short  stint  as  a  teacher,  he  became  a  journalist  on  Liberal  supporting  newspapers  in  South  Wales and  gave  evidence  to  the  Welsh  Land  Commission  in  1894. In  1895  he  became  sub-editor  of  tthe  London  Star  and   tried  to  secure  nomination  in  a  number  of  Welsh  constituencies. Two  years  later  he  switched  to  law  and  became  a  barrister.  He  was  a  strong  supporter  of  Welsh  Disestablishment  and  an  opponent  of  the  Boer  War . He  supported  tenant  purchase  over  land  courts  and  criticised  the  University  of  Wales  as  too  elitist.

Llewelyn  was  a  radical  but  strongly  opposed  to  socialism.

Llewelyn's  maiden  speech  was  in  favour  of  Free  Trade.

Llewelyn  had  to  re-win  his  seat  in  1912  when  he  was  appointed  Recorder  of  Swansea.

In  1914  Llewelyn  thanked  the  Irish  party  for  helping  them  get  Welsh  disestablishment  through.

Llewelyn  reluctantly  supported  the  decision  to  go  to  war  in  1914  but  was  fiercely  opposed  to  conscription  in  1916  which  put  him  at  odds  with  his  former  ally  Lloyd  George.

Llewelyn's  seat  was  abolished  by  boundary  changes  in  1918  and  he  did  not  stand  in  the  election.

By  1921  Llewelyn  was  so  incensed  by  Lloyd  George's  government  that  he  decided  to  stand  in  the  Cardiganshire  by-election. Lloyd  George  had  persuaded  the  long-serving  incumbent  Matthew  Vaughan-Davies  to  take  a peerage  and  create  an  opportunity  for  his  private  secretary  Ernest  Evans. Llewelyn  standing  as  an  anti-Calition  Liberal, with  the  backing  of  the  local  party  after  a  fraught  selection  process,  made  the  contest  something  of  a  referendum  on  the  Prime  Minister. Llewelyn  called  him  a  "dictator"  and  "little  devil  who  plagues  us  so ". Evans  saw  him  off  fairly  comfortably   with  Tory  support  but  the  contest  caused  lasting  bitterness  and  division  within  the  Liberals  in  one  of  their  safest  seats. He  described  himself  as  an  "old  fashioned  Gldstonian  Liberal"  who  had  rejected  overtures  from  Labour  to  join  them.

Llewelyn  wrote  a  number  of  minor  works  in  Welsh.

After  the  by-election,  Llewelyn  made  some  attempt  at  reconciliation  with  Lloyd  George. He  died  in  1922  aged  55.

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