England Objects to the Treaty of Versailles, June 1, 1919

Journal of Liberal History

1929-1956

  • Clement Davies Liberal Party Saviour?

    Clement Davies led the Liberal Party from 1945 to 1956. During that time, the party came very close to dying out but it survived. He turned down Churchills offer of a government position and in so doing preserved the partys integrity. His tenure was as long as that of Jo Grimond, the hero of modern…

  • Clement Davies, 1884-1962

    […]rom his boyhood Clement Davies had been fascinated by political life. He was approached as a possible Liberal candidate as early as 1910, but did not consent to stand for Parliament until 1927 when he was chosen as the Liberal candidate for his native Montgomeryshire. Seen initially as an avid radical and a stalwart supporter…

  • David Lloyd-George (Earl Lloyd-George and Viscount Gwynedd), 1863-1945

    […]The pinnacle of Lloyd George’s career was the peace-making at Paris in the first half of 1919, leading to the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919. While rightly criticised in many aspects (such as the war guilt clause, the scale of reparations and many boundaries), Lloyd George tilted the settlement in a more…

  • Herbert Samuel (Viscount Samuel), 1870-1963

    Herbert Samuel was a leading figure in the Liberal Party for over fifty years, from its zenith before the First World War to the nadir of its fortunes in the mid-1950s. With Sinclair, he was the last independent Liberal to serve in the Cabinet. A respected statesman, formidable mediator and administrator, and notable political thinker,…

  • Sir Archibald Sinclair (Viscount Thurso), 1890-1970

    Archibald Sinclair was the Liberal leader from 1935 to 1945. He was a leading figure in British politics in that period, first as an outspoken critic of appeasement, and then as a minister during the war. For Liberals, his importance lay in his belief in the possibility of a Liberal revival, which was crucial in…

  • William Beveridge (Lord Beveridge), 1879-1963

    William Henry Beveridge was born in Rangpur, an Indian station in Bengal, on 5 March 1879. He was the second child and first son of Henry Beveridge, a district sessions judge in the Indian Civil Service, by his second wife, Annette Susannah Ackroyd, who had travelled to India, originally in response to a call to…