ABSTRACT
THE election of a youthful Welsh solicitor, David Lloyd George, as Member of Parliament for the Caernarvon Boroughs in April 1890 attracted scant interest from observers of the political scene. The by-election, it is true, marked a Liberal gain, the seat being wrested from the Conservatives by the narrow margin of eighteen votes. But Liberal successes had been common enough during the past three years as the ‘flowing tide’ of popular support surged steadily towards the Gladstonians. Their allies, the Irish nationalists, were gaining a new respectability, especially after the triumphant vindication of their leader, Parnell, in a recent libel action against The Times newspaper. This latest electoral victory in a remote Welsh constituency, inevitably a difficult terrain for any Conservative to defend, seemed to provide merely further confirmation of a well-established political trend. Even in Wales itself, where Lloyd George’s triumph to Westminster naturally aroused much keener interest, there were many, even in the Liberal camp, who questioned its significance. Lloyd George was dismissed by one Welsh critic as ‘a second-rate county attorney’; another thought him ‘irreconcilable and unpractical’. 1 Even many of his admirers, mindful of his tiny majority, aware of demands imposed upon him during the election campaign that he should declare his independence of the Liberal whips if the party did not immediately sponsor Welsh disestablishment, feared for his future. Caernarvon Boroughs, in fact, was never a safe Liberal seat. Bangor, with a powerful Anglican interest associated with the cathedral, maintained a solid Conservative vote, while the political allegiance of Caernarvon and Conway was unpredictable. Only the three smallest components of the 18constituency, Criccieth, Pwllheli and Nevin, were considered to be safe for Liberalism. During the next two years, the Conservatives, reinforced by a powerful new candidate (‘hypocrite and fraud’ in Lloyd George’s view) 2 were widely expected to regain the seat.
