David Lloyd George

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE d1945. British statesman of the Liberal Party and the final Liberal to serve as Prime Minister between 1916-1922. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (1908–1915) during H H Asquith's tenure as Prime Minister, he was a key figure in the introduction of many reforms which laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. His most important role came as the highly energetic Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government (1916–22), during and immediately after the First World War. He was a major player at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that reordered Europe after the defeat of the Central Powers. Although he remained Prime Minister after the 1918 general election, the Conservatives were the largest party in the coalition, with the Liberals split between those loyal to Lloyd George and those still supporting Asquith. He became the leader of the Liberal Party in the late 1920s, but it grew even smaller and more divided. By the 1930s he was a marginalised and widely mistrusted figure. He gave weak support to the war effort during the Second World War amidst fears that he was favourable toward Germany. He died in Wales aged 82 on March 26th 1945. He was voted the third greatest British prime minister of the 20th century in a poll of 139 academics organised by MORI and in 2002 he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote