220 Lloyd George, David J R R Tolkein’s The Hobbit (1937) becoming popular in the 1940s and C S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), leading, respectively, to further books on Middle Earth and Narnia Lewis was a prominent writer on theology, and Bertrand Russell wrote philosophy, as did other writers such as Romain Rolland There were also a few non-European writers who rose to prominence, the most famous probably being Rabindranath Tagore from India, who won the Nobel Prize in 1913 Further reading: Butcher, Phillip The Ethnic Image in Modern American Literature, 1900–1950 Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1977; Horsley, Lee Fictions of Power in English Literature: 1900–1950 New York: Longmans, 1995; Leary, Lewis Gaston, ed Articles on American Literature, 1900–1950 Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1970; Scott-James, R A Fifty Years of English Literature, 1900–1950 New York: Longmans, 1964 Bill Kte’pi Lloyd George, David (1863–1945) British politician David Lloyd George was the most dominant figure in British politics in the first quarter of the 20th century Although Welsh on both sides of his family, he was actually born in Manchester, England, in 1863 His father, William George, then a headmaster of an elementary school in Manchester, died 17 months later, leaving his pregnant widow to raise the children His mother, Elizabeth, took her family back to her home village of Llanystumdwy in north Wales to live with her bachelor brother, Richard Lloyd, a shoemaker and copastor of a little Baptist chapel A Welsh nationalist and deeply religious, Richard Lloyd played an active role in the upbringing of young David, imbuing him with many of his formative beliefs At the age of 14, David was apprenticed to one of the leading firms of solicitors in Portsmouth, passing his final examinations in 1884 During the early years of his practice, he met and married Margaret Owen, who bore him two sons and three daughters Bitten by the political bug while in his late teens, Lloyd George associated himself with the Liberal Party In 1890 he was elected to Parliament for the Caernarfon Boroughs, a seat that he would retain for the next 55 years A gifted speaker, audacious, and industrious, he soon became a leading spokesman for the radical wing of the party As a pacifist he inveighed against the immo- rality of the Boer War in South Africa and expressed sympathy for the Boer farmers When the Liberals returned to power in 1905, Lloyd George was appointed president of the Board of Trade, a position he held for three years, during which he sponsored much important legislation He took over as chancellor of the Exchequer at a time when the government needed to find new sources of revenue to pay for the cost of social programs and additional battleships to keep ahead of the ambitious German naval program Accordingly, his “peoples budget” in 1909 called for a heavy tax on unearned income such as inheritance, increased value of land, and investments The House of Lords, which was dominated by Conservatives, vetoed the budget, defying the House of Commons’ traditional control of taxation This provoked a constitutional crisis, forced two general elections, and ended in 1911 with the passage of the Parliament Act, which severely curtailed the powers of the House of Lords When the question of Britain’s entry into the war was debated in the cabinet in the opening days of August 1914, Lloyd George sat on the fence until Germany’s invasion of neutral Belgium provided him with a facesaving formula to join the ranks of the interventionists Just as he had preached pacifism prior to 1914, he pursued his new course with vigor and determination At the Exchequer he handled the financial problems posed by the war, and when a coalition government was established in May 1915, Asquith appointed Lloyd George to head the new Ministry of Munitions Here he applied the same energy to stimulate the production of munitions as well as push for the manufacture of bigger and more efficient guns In the summer of 1916, he became secretary for war, succeeding Horatio Herbert Kitchener, who drowned when the ship on which he was traveling to Russia struck a mine and sank As the year wore on, Lloyd George grew increasingly disenchanted with Asquith’s lack of drive, and on December 1, with the backing of the Conservatives, he proposed that a small committee should be created to run the war with himself in charge The king asked Bonar Law, the Conservative leader, to form a government, but he declined Lloyd George was left as the logical alternative, and, when invited to serve as prime minister, he willingly accepted the challenge He formed a coalition made up Conservatives and Liberals His intrigue against Asquith split the Liberal Party between a faction loyal to him and another loyal to the former prime minister The breach became permanent and finished the Liberal Party as a major political force Lloyd George made institutional changes at the outset, creating new ministries and substituting a small war