John Selwyn Brooke Selwyn-Lloyd, Baron Selwyn-Lloyd (28 July 1904 – 17 May 1978) was a British politician who served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1971 to 1976, having previously held various ministerial positions under Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home between 1954 and 1964. A member of the Conservative Party, Lloyd served as Foreign Secretary from 1955 to 1960 and as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1960 to 1962. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wirral from 1945 to 1976.
Born and raised in Cheshire, Lloyd was an active Liberal as a young man in the 1920s. In the following decade, he practised as a barrister and served on Hoylake Urban District Council, by which time he had become a Conservative Party sympathiser. During the Second World War he rose to be Deputy Chief of Staff of Second Army, playing an important role in planning sea transport to the Normandy beachhead and reaching the acting rank of brigadier.
Elected to Parliament in 1945 as a Conservative, he held ministerial office from 1951, eventually rising to be Foreign Secretary under Prime Minister Anthony Eden from April 1955. His tenure coincided with the Suez Crisis, for which he at first attempted to negotiate a peaceful settlement, before reluctantly assisting with Eden's wish to negotiate collusion with France and Israel as a prelude to military action. He continued as foreign secretary under the premiership of Harold Macmillan until July 1960, when he was moved to the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this job he set up the NEDC, but became an increasingly unpopular figure because of the contractionary measures which he felt compelled to take, including the "Pay Pause" of July 1961, culminating in the sensational Liberal victory at the Orpington by-election in March 1962. In July 1962 Macmillan dismissed him from the Cabinet, making him the highest-profile casualty in the reshuffle known as the "Night of the Long Knives".
He returned to office under Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home as Leader of the House of Commons (1963–64), and was elected Speaker of the House of Commons from 1971 until his retirement in 1976.
Early life Lloyd was born on 28 July 1904 at Red Bank in West Kirby, Cheshire.Matthew 2004, p. 157. His father, John Wesley Lloyd (1865–1954), was a dental surgeon and Methodist lay preacher of Welsh descent; his mother, Mary Rachel Warhurst (1872–1959), was distantly related to Field Marshal Sir John French. He had three sisters.
Lloyd was educated at the Leas School and as a boy was particularly interested in military history, to which he later attributed his successful military career.Thorpe 1989, p. 65. In 1918, aged thirteen, he won a scholarship to Fettes College.Matthew 2004, p. 158. As a junior boy there, where he was nicknamed "Jezebel", after his initials JSBL, he became embroiled in a homosexual scandal, but was deemed to be the innocent party, escaping punishment, while three older boys were expelled.Bloch 2015, pp. 202–4.Thorpe 1989, p. 17.
Cambridge In October 1923, he went up, as a scholar, to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where A. C. Benson was Master. There he was a friend of the future Archbishop Michael Ramsey.Thorpe 1989, p. 25. Lloyd acquired the nickname "Peter" at this time.Thorpe 1989, p. 30. Lloyd played rugby and was disappointed not to get a Blue.Thorpe 1989, p. 26.
In October 1924, his sister Eileen sailed to India to marry and work as a doctor. She died there the following January, aged 25.Thorpe 1989, p. 31.
Lloyd was an active Liberal as a young man, and in March 1925 he entertained H. H. Asquith at Magdalene after a Liberal Party meeting at the Cambridge Guildhall.Thorpe 1989, p. 28. He became President of the Cambridge University Liberal Club. Lloyd was also an active debater in the Cambridge Union Society, where his sparring-partners included Rab Butler, Patrick Devlin, Hugh Foot, Alan King-Hamilton and Geoffrey Lloyd.Thorpe 1989, p. 27. Lloyd lost his scholarship in June 1925, after obtaining a Second in Classics. He then switched to study History, in which he also obtained a Second.Thorpe 1989, p. 26. The book does not specify exactly when he switched from History to Law or whether his history result was in June 1926 or June 1927 (the date when he should have graduated, had it not been for the general strike).
During the General Strike of May 1926, Lloyd, who earlier that year had begun eating dinners at Gray's Inn with a view to qualifying as a barrister, volunteered as a Special Constable. He later became critical of the Conservative Government's clampdown on trade unions, e.g. the Trades Disputes Act of 1927.Thorpe 1989, p. 35. The university authorities encouraged students who had worked for the government so close to their exams to extend their studies for an extra year, which meant that Lloyd was able to spend a very rare fifth year as an undergraduate. Lloyd George had become Liberal leader and was injecting money and ideas into the Liberal Party, and was keen to attract promising young candidates. Selwyn Lloyd was a frequent speaker for the Liberal Party from 1926 onwards.Thorpe 1989, pp. 38–40. In 1926 he toyed, not entirely seriously, with the idea of joining the Labour Party.Thorpe 1989, pp. 56–7.
In Michaelmas Term 1926, Lloyd and Devlin (then president of the Cambridge Union) persuaded Walter Citrine to join Lloyd in opposing the motion that "The power of trade unions has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished" (an echo of Dunning's famous motion on the power of the Crown in 1780). They had invited the miners' leader A. J. Cook, to the consternation of the town authorities, but in the event he was unable to attend. Lloyd won the debate by 378 votes to 237 and was elected secretary for Lent Term 1927, putting him on track to be vice-president for Easter (summer) Term 1927, then president in Michaelmas 1927.Thorpe 1989, pp. 36–7. He took office as president in June 1927. At his retiring debate in November 1927, Samuel Hoare and Rab Butler (then being selected as Tory candidate for Saffron Walden) spoke.Thorpe 1989, p. 36.
Lloyd finally graduated with a third-class in Part II of the Law Tripos in June 1928.Matthew 2004, p. 158.
Early career Bar and local government Lloyd was a Liberal Parliamentary candidate at Macclesfield in the 1929 general election, coming third. After this he concentrated on his legal career. He was called to the bar in 1930. As a barrister, he was an opponent of capital punishment and was not always deferential to the bench: when a judge suggested holding a special sitting on the morning of Good Friday, he withdrew his suggestion after Lloyd pointed out that the last judge to do so had been Pontius Pilate.
Like many young politicians, in 1930–1931 Lloyd was sympathetic to Oswald Mosley's New Party and was disappointed that it made so little headway. He declined to stand again for Macclesfield as a Liberal in 1931 over tariffs, and thought the rump National Liberal Party not worth joining. Lloyd voted Conservative for the first time at the 1931 election,Thorpe 1989, p. 89. although in that year he declined an invitation to join the Conservative Party candidates' list.Thorpe 1989, p. 59.
He joined Hoylake Urban District Council on 19 April 1932, as a councillor for Grange Ward. For three years he was chairman of the Estates Finance Committee, managing a budget in excess of £250,000, .Compute the Relative Value of a U.K. Pound At the age of 32 he became the youngest-ever chairman of the council. As chairman, in 1937, he was in charge of the local Coronation festivities, an event which he used to strengthen his links with the Territorial Army.Thorpe 1989, p. 61. He continued to serve on the council until 1940. In the early 1960s he was often mocked as "Mr Hoylake UDC", implying him to be a small-town lawyer and local councillor who had been promoted onto the national stage above his abilities.
Lloyd considered himself a Conservative from the mid-1930s, but did not formally join the Conservative Party until he was selected as a Parliamentary candidate in 1945; he later wrote that he would have taken a more active role in Conservative politics had it not been for the war.
Army service
Early Second World War service Lloyd became a reserve officer in 1937.Thorpe 1989, p. 76. In January 1939 he helped to raise a second line unit of the Royal Horse Artillery in the North-West. He was commissioned as a regular second lieutenant on 27 June 1939, and by August, with war seeming ever more likely, he was an acting captain and acting brigade major to Brigadier Cherry, CRA (Commander, Royal Artillery) of the 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division, a first-line Territorial Army formation.Thorpe 1989, p. 67. His obituary in The Times later stated wrongly that he had begun the war as a private.
On the outbreak of war Lloyd's patron Brigadier Cherry sponsored him for the Staff College, Camberley.Thorpe 1989, p. 71. Many of those sent to the Staff College in 1939 were barristers, businessmen, school and university teachers thought likely to have an aptitude for staff work;Thorpe 1989, p. 69. Brian Horrocks was one of his instructors. Out of 110 officers in his intake, he was one of 22 passed as fit for immediate staff duty. He was appointed BMRA (Brigade major, Royal Artillery) to Brigadier Cherry, despite "not knowing anything about guns etc". By the spring of 1940 the 55th Division was on duty defending the Suffolk Coast against possible invasion.Thorpe 1989, p. 72.
In February 1941, by now an acting major, he was a General Staff Officer Grade 2 (GSO2) at the headquarters of Major General Charles Allfrey's 43rd (Wessex) Infantry Division, another first-line TA formation. The division was part of XII Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Andrew Thorne, but he was replaced in April 1941 by Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery, who soon noted Lloyd as a promising officer. Montgomery was promoted to command South-Eastern Command at Reigate (he soon renamed it "South Eastern Army") and on 18 December 1941 Lloyd was posted to join him.Thorpe 1989, pp. 73–5. By 1942, Lloyd was a lieutenant colonel (GSO1) on the staff. He wanted to see fighting, and was disappointed not to be posted to Egypt with Montgomery when the latter took command of the Eighth Army in August 1942. Montgomery told him that temporary officers lacked the aptitude of regulars for fighting, but were often better at staff work. On 6 November, Lloyd was promoted to temporary lieutenant-colonel (war-substantive major).
Second Army In the spring of 1943 Lloyd was posted to the staff of the Second Army, whose General Officer Commanding (GOC) was Lieutenant General Sir Kenneth Anderson, which was then being formed for participation in Operation Overlord. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in June 1943. Between June and August 1943 Lloyd was sent on a fact-finding trip to Algiers, Malta and Sicily, to examine German beach defences and to learn lessons from the recent Operation Torch and Operation Husky landings, and on his return had to make presentations to senior officers.Thorpe 1989, p. 79. On 14 December 1943, he was promoted to acting colonel, and by February 1944 was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Second Army, now commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Miles Dempsey. He later recalled that the work preparing for the Normandy landings was more intense than at any other time in his life.Thorpe 1989, p. 81. By March 1944 Montgomery, who, after commanding the Eighth Army in North Africa, Sicily and Italy, had returned to England in late December 1943 to take command of the 21st Army Group, knew him well enough to call him "Selwyn". Lloyd grew particularly close to Dempsey, with whom he crossed over to Normandy on D-Day and who remained a personal friend for the rest for their lives.Thorpe 1989, p. 94.