Wednesday, 21 November 2018
2096 Megan Lloyd George
Constituency : Anglesey 1929-51, Carmarthen 1957-66 ( Labour )
Megan took over from Robert Thomas at Anglesey after her father pulled a few strings to get her elected. She had an easy victory in a three-cornered contest.She was the first Liberal MP who was born n the twentieth century.
Megan was Lloyd George's third daughter. She was educated at King's College, University of London. She accompanied her father to public events from an early age. She went to the Paris Peace Conference with him and on his tour of America in 1923. She spent 1924-25 as a guest of Lord Reading, the Viceroy for India.
Megan's maiden speech was on rural housing and praised Labour for addressing the issue.
Megan was loyal to her father and was re-elected as an Independent Liberal in 1931 in a straight fight with the Tories. Labour's intervention in 1935 made little difference to her majority. She was a fierce opponent of appeasement after accompanying her father on his visit to Hitler in 1936..
During the war Megan was a leading figure in Radical Action , a group calling for more radical policies and for the party to pull out of the wartime electoral truce. She was also part of the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Reform in 1944. She was also active on the Woman Power Committee.
Despite being partly educated by her , Megan hated her father's mistress, Frances Stevenson and opposed their late marriage in 1943.
Megan held on in 1945 in a straight fight with Labour.After her father's death, Megan felt isolated as the only left-leaning MP in the party led by the right wing Clement Davies. He tried to keep her on board by making her Deputy Leader. She campaigned for Welsh devolution and a Secretary of State for Wales. She was President of the Parliament for Wales campaign and presented a petition to her brother Gwilym as Conservative Minister for Wales in 1956. She became Lady Megan on her father's elevation to the peerage in 1945.
Megan held on again in 1950 when the Tories stood again but was narrowly defeated by Labour in 1951. Megan had long been on friendly terms with leading labour figures including Attlee and eventually defected to them in 1955.
In 1957, Megan was selected to fight Carmarthen on the death of Rhys Hopkin-Morris and won the by-election by 3,069 votes in a three-cornered contest with Plaid Cymru. She generally spoke on Welsh issues and agriculture.
Megan had a poor relationship with Harold Wilson. She remained on the backbenches when Labour came to power in 1964. In any case her health was in decline.
Megan inherited her father's gift for oratory and was often heard on the radio,
Megan never married but she was the longtime mistress of Labour peer Lord Noel-Baker.
She died of breast cancer shortly after being re-elected in 1966. She was 64.
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