📍Highgate, Llanystumdwy, Criccieth LL52 0SH, UK
1864 – 1880“I was born in Manchester to Welsh parents, but when I was a year old my father, a schoolmaster, died, and my mother brought us home to her brother in Llanystumdwy, a small village on the River Dwyfor near Criccieth. Highgate, his cottage by the road, became my home, and my uncle, Richard Lloyd, became the father I had lost. He was the village shoemaker and an unpaid preacher in the Baptist chapel, and his workshop next door was where the village Liberals gathered to argue about tithes, landlords and Welsh rights. Uncle Lloyd gave up everything for my brother William and me. He taught himself French so he could teach it to me, he bought law books he could not afford, and he believed I was meant for great things. My brother and I did our homework at two small desks in the parlour. At the church school I led the other children in refusing to recite the Anglican catechism at an inspection, a small rebellion that the village never forgot. I fished and roamed along the Dwyfor and the woods around it, and I learned Welsh, scripture and oratory from the chapel pulpit. In 1880 we moved to Criccieth, and I was articled to solicitors in Porthmadog. I went on to become Chancellor, bringing in old-age pensions and national insurance, and Prime Minister through the First World War. I always called Llanystumdwy home and came back to the banks of the Dwyfor at the end. Highgate and my uncle's workshop are now part of the Lloyd George Museum, and those two desks still stand in the parlour.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today