Talk:David Lloyd George/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

His pre-peerage surname

Was it simply George, or was it the unhyphenated double-barrel surname Lloyd George? I’ve never been entirely sure.

  • Case A (George): His mother’s maiden surname was Lloyd, so it may be that he was given the middle name Lloyd in her honour, and generally used his middle name rather than his first name David. Also, his daughter Megan was named “Megan Arvon George” (although she was later referred to as "Lady Megan Lloyd George"). These suggest his surname was George, although I’ve never heard him referred to as simply "George" (cf. Blair, Thatcher, Churchill et al).
  • Case B (Lloyd George): His first wife was not just Dame Margaret George but Dame Margaret Lloyd George. His son Gwilym Lloyd George is referred to as "Lloyd George" in our article on him ("Lloyd George was MP for Pembrokeshire …."). These suggests his surname was Lloyd George.

We read about relations between "Lloyd George and Winston Churchill", and also between "Lloyd George and Churchill". The former supports case A, but the latter supports case B.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s ever been confused about this. Can some kind soul come to my aid? JackofOz 06:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Lloyd George was his surname(s). He is listed as David Lloyd George in the Law Society Finals successful candidates list published in The Times, on 26 Nov 1881. He'd have been about 25 then. Mind you, things were more flexible then about what you called yourelf. The full name of this chap for instance was Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudati Filius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache.
Roger 08:34, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Roger. So, how does this explain his daughter Megan being named "Megan Arvon George", not "Megan Arvon Lloyd George"? -- JackofOz 13:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe she wasn't officially called that ... The Times report of probate of Lloyd George's estate (Friday, Nov 09, 1945; pg. 2; Issue 50295; col G, Law Report, Nov. 8 High Court Of Justice, Probate, Divorce) calls her "Lady Megan Lloyd-George" and hyphenates it. Roger 13:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Ah yes, but see our article on her, which tells us that she started out as plain "Megan Arvon George", and only later became Lady Megan Lloyd George. I’ve done a bit of googling (here and here), and it seems that his family name was just George. His father and brother were both called William George. However, DLG himself preferred to use the unhyphenated double-barrelled surname Lloyd George, and hated being referred to as “Mr George”. His wife also took his surname Lloyd George, as did some of their children, but their daughter Megan seems to have been an exception, being simply Megan George (initially anyway). Talk about confusing! JackofOz 13:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. Thing is in those days you could call yourself pretty much what you liked. L-G had been calling himself Lloyd-George since at least 1881 (see Law Society above). It would surprise me if she turned out to be George and not Lloyd George. Have you seen the birth certificate? If not, for a few quid, you can get a copy here Roger 14:42, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
A glance at the article suggests Lloyd George is a relatively typical case of a man whose primary male relative (his uncle) was on his mother's side. Most double barrelled surnames arose out of a desire to acknowledge and preserve the mother's family name.
Double barrelled surnames are also often inaccurately taken to be a sign of being amongst the upper classes and some people have not used their full surname or changed it - for instance Anthony Wedgwood Benn started using the moniker Tony Benn when he started moving to the left of the Labour Party. Often the double barrelled form appears and disappears depending on the context - every reference I've seen to Megan's political career calls her "Megan Lloyd George" (sometimes "Lady Megan Lloyd George" after 1945) right from her first entry into parliament. Why she was just apparently just called "Megan Arvon George" at birth is a mystery - it's not mentioned in her DNB article (which uses the spelling "Arfon") and I've removed it from her article as unsourced. Timrollpickering 19:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

In Edwardian times he was often called "George" by the Tories as a sign of contempt, presumbaly to infer that his double-barrelled name was an affectation. I also once read a charming story (?in the Grigg biog?) about how on foreign holidays his name was mistaken for "Lord George" and he was addressed by the waiter as "Milord". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.192.0.10 (talk) 13:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In those days, and in these days, you can call yourself anything you damn well please in English (which includes Welsh) law - just so long as you don't do it to deceive. DuncanHill (talk) 05:57, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Germany and Her Allies Revision

I noticed what might be a error in the third paragraph of the introduction. The first sentence of the paragraph says...

"He is best known as the highly energetic Prime Minister (1916–22) who guided the Empire through the First World War to victory over Germany and her allies."

Shouldn't it be "victory over Germany and his allies" since Germany is known as "The Fatherland." Just a thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.180.177.17 (talk) 20:52, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Germany may be the Fatherland, but in British English she is still a she, like all other countries. DuncanHill (talk) 05:25, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Welsh Church Act 1914

I think the wording in parentheses -- (though on the outbreak of War, postponed until 1920) -- is ambiguous. Is there someone who knows this history who could clarify this? What, exactly, was postponed until 1920? -- The introduction of the Welsh Church Act? The passage of the Act? Also, the phrase though on the outbreak of War is not completely clear. I would add a comma after though and form a complete clause with postponed until 1920 by adding a subject before postponed that indicates what was postponed.CorinneSD (talk) 22:31, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

After reading the Wikepedia article on the Welsh Church Act 1914, I understood enough that I was able to fix this ambiguity myself. I added a comma after though and I added the actual putting in force of the Act was before postponed until 1920. I also changed War to war in upon the outbreak of war. There is no need to capitalize war unless it says the War, which it doesn't. (It's interesting that a special act called the Suspensory Act was enacted to postpone the putting in force of the Welsh Church Act and another act until after the war.)CorinneSD (talk) 23:05, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
I've added a link to the Suspensory Act 1914 to the text. DuncanHill (talk) 05:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Poland

I have reverted a partial delete from Kdebem ‎who states "I have never heard that LG saved Poland from the Bolsheviks. Could the author give examples just how exactly he did that?" retaining the part that was critical of Lloyd George. It seems to me as if the author has provided properly sourced content. Either that content should be retained in whole or deleted in whole. To delete part or all should not be determined by the extent of knowledge of one particular user. I admit that the author uses a strange wording to present the issues surrounding Poland in 1919 but this may be true to the source that the author was using.Graemp (talk) 08:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Post-war social reforms

I've done a little work tidying and expanding this section, but it could do with more work. We could do with articles for all the acts mentioned, and it might make sense to group the reforms, e.g. constitutional, employment, rent, education, and so on. Some of them were of course not actually post war - coming in the last months of the war, but it seems to make sense to keep them here rather than split them out into the war stuff. Thoughts and improvements welcome! DuncanHill (talk) 19:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

For those who have time, K.O.Morgan "Consensus and Disunity" continues to be the best account of the 1918-22 government, but is a dry read. The recent Travis Crosby biog covers it as well. Grigg and Brinkerhoff Gilbert both died before getting that far.Paulturtle (talk) 03:05, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
The book had quite an effect. CorinneSD (talk) 03:17, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
I have broken up the large paragraphs into more digestible chunks so that respective sentences about particular legislations read on separate lines.Cloptonson (talk) 22:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk page archiving

I have boldly archived a lot of old threads - my target was end 2012, as I feel that was long enough ago for threads to be regarded as stale. The archive is at Talk:David Lloyd George/Archive 1. If anyone feels that I have archived anything I shouldn't have then please do say so. DuncanHill (talk) 19:40, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

  • I've added an "Archive search box" at the top of this page (should shew opposite to Table of Contents) - this includes both a direct link to the archive, and a search function to help you find things. DuncanHill (talk) 19:48, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Harald Spender

When reading Stephen Spender's World within world, in a Dutch translation, my attention was drawn to Lloyd George. Stephen tells about his father Harold Spender, who wrote a biography (according to some critics a hagiography) on Lloyd George in 1920. Stephen also mentions his uncle John Alfred Spender, but in this lemma something is wrong; J.A. Spender has different parents and they seem not related. Could someone take a look at this? J.A. Spender has strong opinions on Lloyd George; his lack of knowledge in geography, history and economy. This is why I got interested. Taksen (talk) 06:52, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@Taksen: According to our articles both Harold and J. A. have the same parents - Dr and Mrs J. K. Spender (Mrs J. K. Spender is Lillian Spender, the traditional way of referring to a married woman is to use her husband's intials or first name in formal speech). The Dictionary of Liberal Biography, by Duncan Brack, confirms J. A. and Harold were brothers. DuncanHill (talk) 07:37, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Upbringing and early life

I have a concern about the fourth and fifth sentences of the first paragraph in the section David Lloyd George#Upbringing and early life. I will copy the first few sentences of the first paragraph here. I've numbered the sentences for ease of discussion.

  • (1) Lloyd George was born to Welsh parents on 17 January 1863. (2) He was raised as a Welsh-speaker and was to become the first (and thus far only) Welsh politician to hold the office of Prime Minister. (3) His birthplace, however, was in England, at Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. (4) His father, William George, had been a teacher in both London and Liverpool. (5) He also taught in the Hope Street Sunday Schools, which were administered by the Unitarians, where he made the acquaintance of Unitarian minister Dr James Martineau.

The first three sentences are about David Lloyd George. The fourth sentence is clearly about David Lloyd George's father, William George. The fifth sentence starts "He". I have several questions about this sentence:

1) Is it perfectly clear that "He" at the beginning of the fifth sentence refers to William George? If there is any ambiguity at all, either the name should be used instead of the pronoun or this sentence should be combined with the fourth sentence.

2) Let's assume that it is the father who taught in the Hope Street Sunday Schools. I can understand briefly mentioning the occupation or occupations of the father, but

(a) putting his Sunday school teaching job in a separate sentence like this focuses attention on it, and I'm not sure Sunday school teaching should be treated with as much emphasis as his regular teaching job, unless there is a particular reason for that; and

(b) I do not understand the reason for providing so much information about the Hope Street Sunday Schools, including the fact that that is where he (assuming "he" is William George) "made the acquaintance of Unitarian minister Dr James Martineau", unless this has a direct bearing on David Lloyd George's upbringing. Perhaps it does, but the article does not say this. It does not even say that David Lloyd George met Dr James Martineau or any Unitarians. Also, neither Dr James Martineau nor Unitarians are mentioned anywhere else in the article. If Dr. Martineau and/or the Unitarians had an influence on David Lloyd George, I think this should be mentioned and made clear. Otherwise, I don't see why they are mentioned regarding the father. CorinneSD (talk) 20:12, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Agnostic?

Is it correct to label him an agnostic? I think nonconformist is adequate enough to describe his religious fate as archive footage of his religious funeral would seem to suggest he was leaning more towards the belief God did exist by the time of his passing. Tomh903 (talk) 20:31, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Voters assumed he was religious & nonconformist (he attended a lot of religious services ) but biographers agree he lost his religion in his teens & never regained it. Rjensen (talk) 22:56, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Involvement in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)

D.L. George was heavily involved in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) in favor of the Kingdom of Greece, and even suggested that Constantinople be emptied of Ottoman citizens at the conclusion of the Great War (this was rejected). He is known to have been an instigator in encouraging Greece/Venizelos to invade Asia Minor (which proved to be folly). In the section of reshaping Europe I believe that these historic events deserve mentioning. --Nikoz78 (talk) 16:52, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I think these issues relating to the Greco-Turkish War should be covered in the article about the war, not in this particular article. It seems to me as if these issues are in fact already in the war article and done so providing the reader with a link to the DLG article. I would be against the unnecessary duplication of content across articles. Graemp (talk) 17:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Some duplication of information across articles is unavoidable, the same as with books. The emphasis needs to be a bit different though. Friendliness to Greece and hostility to Turkey were certainly major preoccupations of Lloyd George, so much so that biographers have flagged up the Great Eastern Crisis of 1876-8 as an intellectually formative experience of his mid teens. From the point of view of a biography the relevant matters are the endless intrigues around Salonika during the war, and then the Chanak Crisis which precipitated his fall. Not going to do it at this instant though.Paulturtle (talk) 20:08, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to one external link on David Lloyd George. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

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  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool. --- The old link was broken, looks like the site search engine seems to have reorganized its link structure. I replaced the original link with a better one on The National Library of Wales official website. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 08:12, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 06:38, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate hatnote

Lloyd George's peerage title was hyphenated even though his family name was not.

This should probably belong as a reference note somewhere, backed up with some sound sources, of course. hbdragon88 (talk) 08:26, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Not sure why you feel it's inappropriate - or at any rate any more so than flagging that his name wasn't "George" - and whether or not to hyphenate his name is a very common confusion. It probably doesn't help that his hyphenated peerage title is so prominently displayed as the photo caption. It's mentioned lower deep in the article amongst the events of 1945. Still, I've no interest in arguing about it. Life is too short.Paulturtle (talk) 20:44, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
Hatnotes are for disambiguation, to avoid confusion ("Not to be confused with..." or "For other uses..."), not to make other notes about the subject. That's it. If it's for editors, we can use a page notice or something so that it's obvious what to do when you're editing the page. hbdragon88 (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Citation Style issues

This article currently uses a large mix of multiple citation styles.

Of particular issue are the long commentary footnotes contained between unnamed <REF> tags, placed inline with the main article text. This makes editing the article text awkward and prone to breakage of references.

The article also has:

  • (1) an unused NOTELIST tag.
  • (2) two different REFERENCES sections:
  • one that is auto-populated by a REFLIST tag.
  • another that is manually populated between a set of REFBEGIN/REFEND tags.
  • (3) a FURTHER READING section and a PRIMARY SOURCES section, both manually populated, which duplicate some (but not all) of the other references. Also, the PRIMARY SOURCES section ends with a REFEND tag but there is no matching REFBEGIN tag.

Consensus needs to be established on one style to use for this article and then a major cleanup effort will be required. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 08:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Non-discussed changes to the page broke many references and destroyed many footnotes.

Jgrantduff, I am sure your intentions were good but the results were not. I am not trying to be hostile, just honest. In fact I very much need your help (and the help of Jonesey95 and Paul2520 to fix what is broken...

On 06-FEB-2016 you edited the article David Lloyd George creating this diff. Your edit (which appears to have possibly used either a semi-automated editing tool and/or an offline copy of a version of the article that was at least 2 days old and possibly older) caused significant problems with the article.

You implemented a huge edit, including removing important notice templates, without consensus, with no edit summary and without discussion on the talk page despite there being an specific Section established on the talk page to discuss those notices. Then, because the other two editors mentioned above came along after you and made further good-faith changes the ability to fix this with an undo became very problematic. The issues your edit created either have to be manually undone (which may require a number of HOURS of work to sort through the edit, keep the good you guys did, and remove/correct the problems your edit created) or else it will require a bulk undo of all the edits done by the three of you back to 04-FEB-2016.

In particular the biggest problem is that your edit removed and/or broke a large number of <REF> citations that -- while a poor choice in style -- were perfectly valid per Wikipedia guidelines (see MOS:REFSPACE). Text that was inline footnotes suddenly became in-article text content that was non-sequitur with the text around it.

So what can the three of you do to help?

First, please don't edit this article any more until we sort out this mess.

Second, hopefully you will understand that the easiest route will be for us to do a single bulk undo of the past 2 days (by clicking this link if no further edits are made) and then we can start again, but this time doing it right.

"Doing it right" begins with compliance on WP:CITEVAR which prohibits the wholesale changing of an article's citation style without consensus. This article has such a patchwork of reference styles that we need to think before we jump in and start editing. Which style is right for this article? After the damage is undone I would then like to post a notice on Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom to determine what is the style preferred by the community that focuses on such articles.

If this undo is acceptable please indicate in reply below. If not please discuss alternatives on how we can restore the dozens of lost footnotes and fix the other problems before making more edits that compound these problems. Thank you. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 22:46, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Just to let you know that Jgrantduff does not do discussing. Take a look at his talk page and see how many cite problems he has created on assorted articles – often by adding the "efn" template but not the "notelist" template – as well things like as adding the "noinclude" markup. He never cleans up after himself, he never heeds requests to stop, and he never responds to messages on article talk pages or his user talk page. I strongly recommend reverting to the edit before his. Scolaire (talk) 23:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Scolaire, this is very good information to know. After this mess is resolved I will try and find some time to review his work to see if there is anything else that still needs cleanup. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 02:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm fine if the page is reverted to before the edits in question. My edit was made because the page showed up in Category:Pages with missing references list when the reference was "broken," and I apologize for not looking at the previous edit. I understand that undo sounds like the best option, and am more than happy to help with any cleanup if help is required. - Paul2520 (talk) 23:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Paul2520. I very much appreciate your clear response. Based on Scolaire's comments above I will wait until I get home tomorrow night for a response by Jonesey95 and then proceed with the undo unless he has concerns. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 02:40, 8 February 2016 (UTC) and after reading Jonesey95's About Me section on his userpage I am proceeding immediately to the undo. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 02:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The UNDO is done. I also went ahead and fixed the HTML BReak tags. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 04:03, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The undo is OK with me. I thought about undoing it myself after looking at the changes, but I figured that the editor had a bigger plan, so I just cleaned up a few errors and left it for that editor to continue working on.
There is clearly a mix of citation styles, e.g. "Grigg 2002" and "Woodward, 1998" (comma or no comma?); Firstname Lastname or Lastname, Firstname (and worse, F.Lastname!). And dates are often a mess in long, well-sourced articles like this one, and this article is no exception: "25 April 2007", "Sep. 2007", "March 1975". If you decide on a consistent style, feel free to ping me and I will help implement it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:39, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Jonesey95. I put a ping out on the WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom talk page to see which citation style is the preferred style for these articles by that community. Once we have some sort of consensus then the process of identifying which references to change will begin. The new college semester starts this week but I look forward to working with you as time allows. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 06:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
One way to find a good style is to look at featured articles in this subject area. I couldn't find many British politicians with FA status, but there is William Wilberforce, and those references seem to be in the "Grigg 2002" style. Happy to help too. Poltair (talk) 07:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Jgrantduff has now done another raft of edits. I won't do a knee-jerk revert. I'll leave it to Koala Tea Of Mercy to decide if they're good or harmful. However, my incination would be, if in doubt, to revert the lot. Scolaire (talk) 18:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Apologies, I just made a few edits before checking the talk page. I did comb through JGrantDuff's recent edits and the content seems mostly OK. I've added a lot of material to this article over the years and one day will add a lot more, but it's nowhere near the top of my to-do pile at the moment (I seem to find myself writing up French generals of the era at the moment). I don't really have an opinion about which citation style is preferable.Paulturtle (talk) 02:13, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Citation style

I have begun the work of adopting a consistent citation style for the article. At this time I will follow the example at William Wilberforce which is a featured article of a British politician. If anyone objects, let me know, otherwise I'll just get on with it. I don't intend to change any of the content in this process, unless I come across any glaring errors. Poltair (talk) 15:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I have completed the initial task in adopting a consistent citation style. I have put all citations into cite templates. Where the source is a book or journal I have put the citation details into a {{citation}} template and placed this in the bibliography, and put the inline reference in a {{harvnb}} template. This ensures that when the reference is clicked in the Notes section, it links to the details in the bibliography.
I came across some issues. Many of the sources in the bibliography are not referred to directly in the text anywhere. Where I have found inline references to a source I have placed a space between the bullet * and the {{citation... - no doubt that will get tidied up, but it's there just to give an indication to anyone that is interested now. I don't know how much was once referenced but has been lost through time, but it seems to me that many of these would be useful, if not fundamental sources as much of the content does not have inline citations and the structure and prose of the article could be greatly improved. I hope I have been of some help. Happy to get involved in a joint and concerted effort to improve the article if anyone else is keen. Poltair (talk) 17:01, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I noticed that some of User:Jgrantduff's undiscussed edits included changes of existing inline references to different sources so I suspect that may be where many of the "orphaned" citation details came from. I have no doubt that the source changes are probably good, but the hodgepodge of reference styles from the past leads to exactly these kinds of problems. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 09:57, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Grigg 2002c

There are a number of links to "Grigg 2002c", but there is no such source. There are a, b, and d, but no c. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:28, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95, if you look in the Additional Reading section you'll find an 2-line entry for Grigg consisting of 4 volumes with individual titles. In the Secondary Sources section there are 4 separate "Grigg" entries, but for some reason one of them is dated "(1978)". Looking at the 4 titles in the former section these all match the 4 titles in the latter section, but they seem to be out of sequence. My guess is that (2002c) = (1978) but you would have to vet the sources to be sure. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 21:59, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
This sort of thing is always a problem with this citation style. It is far too easy to lose a source. DuncanHill (talk) 22:04, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
On further review it looks like the citation names were incorrectly named:
  • "Grigg 2002a" should be "Grigg 1973" ... volume 1 :The Young Llyod George -- (apparently) covers before 1902
  • "Grigg 2002c" should be "Grigg 1978" ... volume 2 :The People's Champion -- covers 1902-1911
  • "Grigg 2002b" should be "Grigg 1985" ... volume 3 :From Peace to War -- covers 1912-1916
  • "Grigg 2002d" should be "Grigg 2002" ... volume 4 :War Leader -- covers 1916-1918
To make things more complicated, some of the 2002c refs seem to be with text talking about events after 1916 which should be in the vol.4 book (currently 2002d). What a mess! Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 23:03, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
So, I messed up. Well, fix it. Or revert the lot. Just do something. Poltair (talk) 00:53, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry Poltair, I didn't realize those edits were yours. I figured the mess was just a side effect of all the old citation styles. I'm sure what edits you did make are still better than the original hodgepodge of styles. The big problem as I see it is being able to ensure the sources match each claim in the content. Unfortunately these sources are offline and none of the local libraries in my area seem to have copies. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was this article. We will get this all straightened out eventually if we just take it one step at a time. This cleanup is a big job and better to take a bit more time and get it right. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 08:12, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
You're right. I was a bit tired when I posted above. The four volume Grigg source seemed so fundamental that I split the loose description of it as - 2002 four volumes - into the four 2002a, 2002b, 2002c, 2002d citations. I assumed that whoever added content supported by this text to have had all four volumes of the 2002 edition to hand. It soon became evident that other editions had been used as well which caused the mess. Because page numbers are cited it gets complicated because two editions of the same book might differ in their page content. Once I had made all the citation style changes I thought perhaps it may have been preferable to revert to a better revision of the article, say Feb 4, and start from there. It might still be simpler to do that and I won't object if that is the consensus, I'm not precious about my edits! Poltair (talk) 08:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
The Precious! We musts haves our Precious! LOL!
On a more serious note the issue of which edition is very problematic because we do not know what edition the original editor was using, including if it was hardbound or paperback which also affects page numbers sometimes. Without an ISBN we are shooting in the dark. My suggestion is to (A) try and identify the editor who added the citations so we can ask them for additional information on their sources, and then (B) make sure the content aligns with the right volume of the set (which theoretically should be easy for everything except events in 1916 where two volumes overlap). Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 17:12, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Grigg on Lloyd George is indeed one of the all-time great political biographies: highly-recommended, up there with Ehrman on Pitt the Younger or Robert Caro on Lyndon Johnson, and a great pity he didn't live to finish it. Maybe somebody else will, like Garvin & Amery on Joseph Chamberlain. And in answer to the question above, the cut-off point is the very end of Dec 1916: the final chapter of Vol3 covers the byzantine intrigues of that month by which Asquith fell from power, whilst the first chapter of Vol4 says a bit about his new War Cabinet and Hankey's new role. And as I said above, there's a vast amount to still to be said about Lloyd George, but I doubt I'm going to get round to it this year.
Should the volumes not be numbered a (1863-1902), b (1903-11, c(1912-16) and d(1916-18)? If that is agreed then all the stuff from 1917 (most of it added by me - that's why I just put "2002" as it was the fourth volume) can be renumbered as Grigg (d) or whatever.Paulturtle (talk) 12:53, 14 February 2016 (UTC) I don't think the previous 3 volumes have been used for references yet - for what it's worth I own the 1985 hardback of Vol3 and paperback editions of similar vintage of the previous two volumes.Paulturtle (talk) 13:07, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
My gut is that indeed the best would be for the volumes to be easily identified as a/b/c/d. By Wikipedia rules the only way we can do that is if we use an edition of the 4-volume set from the same year as the actual source. Since we are going to be going through and cleaning/vetting the references anyways that is theoretically possible. It is a shame there is not an unified online library copy someone could reference for this work, it would make everything so much easier. Hathi Trust (subscription required) has copies of the Eyre Methuen editions for vols 1-3 but as those are the original publications we are back to separate years again. And then we still would not have vol 4. Sigh. Koala Tea Of Mercy (KTOM's Articulations & Invigilations) 18:04, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Carlton Club Meeting

Just to add further confusion, Travis Crosby in his recent biog of Lloyd George lists the result as 188-87 with one abstention. (The article on the Carlton Club meeting states that there were "many abstentions"). I seem to recall reading in a book of Robert Blake's many years ago (probably his history of the Tory Party from Peel to Thatcher) that the result had been erroneously published, but I can't remember what his numbers were. Roy Hattersley lists it as 187-87 but gives no source, whilst Richard Toye in his book on Lloyd George & Churchill does not give a figure.

Amongst the obvious possibilities are either that one of the first people to write about this (OTOH Beaverbrook?) published an incorrect figure which came to be widely quoted, or else that different counts actually were taken on the night.

What we really need is not a writer who is quoting somebody else, even a constitutional expert like Vernon Bogdanor, but somebody who is actually an authority for this specific topic, e.g. the Blake or Adams biog of Bonar Law, or the Dutton biog of Austen Chamberlain. As my copies of all of these are in storage it will have to wait until my next visit to London or to my local university library.Paulturtle (talk) 18:42, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Each of the four Balfour biogs I have to hand (Egremont, Zebel, Ruddock Mackay and R.J.Q.Adams) gives a different result for this vote, which is rather annoying. The most authoritative appears to be Adams, who gives it as 187-88, with 1 abstention. He says that the actual result was reported incorrectly in Volume 56 of "Gleanings & Memoranda", a source of which I have no knowledge, but that the actual voting cards from the night are preserved amongst the papers of J.C.C.Davidson. He then refers to page 328 of his own 1999 biog of Bonar Law, which I dare say may shed further light when I get to a copy.Paulturtle (talk) 22:03, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

David Dutton does not offer a specific figure in his 1985 biography of Austen Chamberlain. The most commonly-quoted figure is 187-87, as published in classic works such as Beaverbrook's "Decline and Fall of Lloyd George", AJP Taylor's "English History 1914-45" and Blake's 1958 Bonar Law biog "The Unknown Prime Minister". This was the official number published in Volume 56 of "Gleanings & Memoranda", which Blake says was the official Conservative Central Office record at that time. In his 1999 biog of Bonar Law (p.328, detailed footnote on p.428), RTQ Adams says that the true figure is 187-88 with one abstention (Sir Robert Clough, MP for Keighley 1918-22 who does not appear to have made any other mark on history and does not even have a wiki article) and that the voting cards are, as discussed above, in the papers of J.C.C. Davidson. I assume Adams counted them carefully although he does not specifically say so. He also says that the result is incorrectly listed as 186-87 on the wrapping paper in which they are held. I think that's probably as authoritative as we are going to get.Paulturtle (talk) 05:00, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for all your research DuncanHill (talk) 21:57, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

poison

Did not someone try to poison him in 1917? A reference, if true, would be useful. 2.31.36.103 (talk) 10:05, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Alice Wheeldon has information. DuncanHill (talk) 14:39, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

When did service as MP end?

Is it correct that his period as MP in the House of Commons ended with his death? This may look highly questionable in view of the fact his peerage was granted 1 January 1945, qualifying him for the House of Lords. Was it the case that he had not put in his resignation from the constituency? Despite this technical question, Lloyd George still stands out among Prime Ministers as having enjoyed the longest unbroken career in the Commons representing the same constituency, 54 years. The peerage creation was unusual in that the peerage was granted while he was still MP - usually ex MPs are ennobled after resignation, retirement or defeat at their last general election. Cloptonson (talk) 08:19, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Polling day in the Caernarvon by-election was not until April for a reason, as there was with about 6 other by-elections that were due. The reason for the delay was so that these by-elections would be fought on new registers. There had been no updating of the electoral registers since 1940 I think. So in effect the seat lay vacant for much of this time. It was not unusual for seats to remain vacant for 4 or 5 months. DLG's peerage was formally confirmed on 12 Feb. The date for the by-election was set around 6 March. So DLG had resigned his seat before his death. Graemp (talk) 08:38, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
And as a peer, even one who had never lived to attend the House of Lords, he would simply not have been allowed to sit in the Commons, unless the Commons - which decides whom it will or will not permit to take up their seats - had permitted it.Paulturtle (talk) 22:19, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
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