WHAT: David Lloyd George
WHERE: Parliament Square (map)
BY WHOM: Glynn Williams
WHEN: 2007
Back when I was involved with the London Society we ran a poll, along with London Historians, for London’s worst public sculpture.
It was generally assumed (by me at least) that the winner would be ‘The meeting place statue’, that enormous kitsch excrescence that pollutes the concourse at St Pancras station, but the winner turned out to be ‘William’, a shapeless form at Central St Giles.
At the time I almost nominated the banal statue of Laurence Olivier in front of the National Theatre, but the work that currently makes me wince each time I look at it is Glynn Williams’ “David Lloyd George” that stands next to Winston Churchill in Parliament Square.
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This is a 2.4m (8’) high bronze on a welsh slate plinth of the former prime minister in a declamatory pose, his cape swirling behind him as he gestures to the (implied) crowd he is addressing. I find the detailing on the statue basic (for some reason I’m reminded of Dick Bruna illustrations), the subject’s clothing done as if it has been simply sketched in.
The statue was unveiled by Charles (then Prince of Wales) in 2007, appropriate given the subject’s welshness; despite being born in Manchester his parents were Welsh and he was raised in Wales. He is the only native Welsh speaker to become Prime Minister.
Born to working class parents Lloyd George became a solicitor and was involved in Liberal politics from his early 20s, becoming an MP on the radical wing of the party in 1890. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in the pre-WW1 Liberal government his ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909 brought in new taxes on the rich, and increased income tax and death duties to finance better social provision and a greater spend on the Royal Navy. He was a prime mover behind, and passionate advocate for, the development of national insurance and old age pensions, laying the foundations of the post-WW2 welfare state.
He became Prime Minister in 1916 as head of the WW1 coalition government, staying in office until the 1922 General election when a divided Liberal Party was heavily defeated by the Conservatives. In the 1924 General Election the Liberals were pushed into third place behind the Labour Party and wouldn’t achieve office again until the 2010 Cameron-Clegg coalition.
On the other hand he was implicated in using government information to profit from share trading, and in the sale of honours to boost party funds (a knighthood would cost around £10,000 – about half a million in today’s money – and a peerage £50,000). And he was also – at best – an amoral womaniser and at worst he has been accused of being a sexual predator.
The statue’s sculptor, Glynn Williams, was Head of Sculpture then Head of the School of Fine Art at the Royal College of Art (a comment on my Facebook page says “I knew Glynn Williams when he as Head of Sculpture. Big biscuit eater.”) He is also responsible for the monument to the composer Henry Purcell that stands in Christchurch Gardens a few hundred metres along Victoria Street from Parliament Square. It’s called ‘the Flowering of English Baroque’ and I can’t say that this work does much for me either.
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