Selwyn Lloyd

Early life

Lloyd was born on 28 July 1904 at Red Bank in West Kirby, Cheshire. 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. In 1918, aged thirteen, he won a scholarship to Fettes College. 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.

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. Lloyd acquired the nickname "Peter" at this time. Lloyd played rugby and was disappointed not to get a Blue.

In October 1924, his sister Eileen sailed to India to marry and work as a doctor. She died there the following January, aged 25.

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. 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. 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.

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. 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. In 1926 he toyed, not entirely seriously, with the idea of joining the Labour Party.

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. 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.

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, although in that year he declined an invitation to join the Conservative Party candidates' list.

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, equivalent to £15,087,705 in 2025. 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. 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

Lloyd became a reserve officer in 1937. 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. 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. 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; 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.

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. 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).

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. 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. 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.

Early Parliamentary career

Lloyd was elected to the House of Commons to represent Wirral in the 1945 general election by a majority of 16,625.

His maiden speech on 12 February 1946 was not on an anodyne constituency matter as is usual for new MPs, but instead on the Trades Disputes and Trades Unions Bill, reflecting his interest in the subject going back to his student days. Lloyd's entry to Parliament gave him a headstart over other rising Conservative politicians who did not enter Parliament until 1950. He became a member of the "Young Turks" faction of the Conservative Party. He was able to stand out amongst the small contingent of Conservative MPs in the 1945–50 Parliament, and worked closely with both Anthony Eden and Rab Butler.

Lloyd continued his legal career, taking silk in 1947. He was the Recorder of Wigan between 1948 and 1951. In 1946-7 his annual earnings including his salary as an MP were £4,485, of which the bar made up £3,231 (around £150,000 and £110,000 at 2016 prices). In 1947-8 his earnings dropped to £3,140, of which £1,888 was at the bar (around £100,000 and £60,000 at 2016 prices). Thereafter his earnings continued to decline, as he was busy in Parliament and with his recordership, and he did not have time to carve out a new niche for himself as a King's Counsel either on the North-West Circuit or in London.

Lloyd expressed his opposition to capital punishment during the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 1948, and built relationships with other abolitionist MPs including Sidney Silverman. Lloyd gave a dissenting voice on the Beveridge Broadcasting Committee, and was sometimes known as "The Father of Commercial Television" after his minority report of 1949 helped inspire the setting-up of ITV in 1955. Lloyd believed that competition would help to raise standards, although in later life he came to be disappointed at how much of television time was given over to entertainment.

Ministerial offices

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

When the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill in 1951, Lloyd served under Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1951 to 1954. Lloyd later claimed (his biographer D.R. Thorpe writes that the story had clearly grown in the telling) that on his appointment he protested: 'But, sir, there must be some mistake. I do not speak any foreign language. Except in war, I have never visited any foreign country. I do not like foreigners. I have never spoken in any foreign-affairs debate in the House. I have never listened to one.' 'Young man, these all seem to me to be positive advantages,' growled Churchill in return. Churchill initially thought Selwyn Lloyd "that most dangerous of men, the clever fool" after he signed an agreement at the UN after misunderstanding his brief, when the order was to be noncommittal. Churchill later revised his opinion upwards.

In June 1952 Lloyd and Field Marshal Lord Alexander (Minister of Defence) visited Korea, first calling on Alexander's old subordinate General Mark Clark, now UN Supreme Commander in the Region, then the South Korean leader Syngman Rhee, then the Korean battlefield. They returned via Ottawa (where Alexander had recently been Governor-General) and Washington, where they visited President Truman.

While attending the United Nations and related international diplomatic gatherings, became closer to India's Krishna Menon, ultimately being accused by Dean Acheson of being a card-carrying member of the "Menon cabal'' alongside Canada's Lester Pearson and Australia's R. C. Casey.

In Egypt, which had been a British client state since 1883, the pro-British King Farouk was overthrown in July 1952. Lloyd helped to negotiate the treaty (12 February 1953) which gave Sudan (in theory jointly administered by Britain and Egypt) self-government for three years as a stepping-stone to a decision on full independence. Lloyd visited Cairo in March 1953, where he met the new Egyptian leader General Neguib, and his right-hand man Colonel Nasser. In February 1954 Lloyd met Neguib again in Khartoum. His visit to the Sudan saw riots in Khartoum and worries that he might meet the same fate as General Gordon in 1885. He wrote of the Sudan: "It is futile to try and outstay one's welcome". Later in February 1954 Neguib was ousted by Nasser. The Suez Base Agreement, whereby Britain agreed to withdraw her troops from Egypt by 1956, was on 27 July 1954. Lloyd would have preferred a slower withdrawal.

Minister of Supply and Minister of Defence

Lloyd was promoted to Minister of Supply, responsible for supplying the Armed Forces, in October 1954.

Lloyd entered the Cabinet as Minister of Defence on Eden's accession to the premiership in April 1955. Just after the 1955 election, along with Rab Butler, Lord Salisbury and Harold Macmillan, he was put on the committee to advise Eden about the upcoming summit, the first since the war.

He was Minister of Defence, a very prestigious post in Conservative eyes, for less than a year and the dates of his tenure meant that he was not in office during the annual defence white paper and defence debate; however, he made important innovations in long-term expenditure planning. The chiefs of staff of the three services still had direct right of access to the prime minister. Lloyd began a gradual process of consolidation of control of the Armed Forces which would finally come to fruition a decade or so later, with the three service ministries consolidated into a single Ministry of Defence and the three service chiefs reporting to a powerful Chief of Defence Staff.

Foreign secretary under Eden

Lloyd was promoted to Foreign Secretary in December 1955, in place of Harold Macmillan who was seen as too strong and independent a figure for Eden's tastes. In his early days at the Foreign Office Lloyd was known to irritate his subordinates with bad puns, such as "Good for Nutting" and "You're a deb, Sir Gladwyn Jebb". The Foreign Office mandarin Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh complained in his diary (9 December 1955) that they were to "be landed with that bloody Selwyn Lloyd".

Eden and Lloyd visited Washington for talks with his American counterpart, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, on 30 January 1956, and wondered how long Britain could continue to cooperate with Colonel Nasser. Dulles was only willing to offer Britain "moral" support against Nasser. On 31 January Lloyd and Dulles had a private meeting about SEATO. Dulles took the lead in private, but would not lead or support Britain in public, although the two men got on well when Dulles realised that Lloyd could not be browbeaten.

On 21 March Lloyd obtained Cabinet approval for a policy of hostility to Nasser, who was seen as a threat to British interests in the Middle East, and of building new British alliances with Jordan and Iraq. Part of this policy was the withdrawal of American and British financial aid for the Aswan High Dam, which would trigger Nasser's nationalisation of the Canal.

The Suez Crisis began in earnest on 26 July 1956 when Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. Eden straightaway included Lloyd on the Egypt Committee, which met for the first time on 27 July, and would meet 42 times between then and 9 November. Lloyd preferred negotiations to force and, with his experience of military logistics, was sceptical as to whether a successful invasion could even be mounted. British reservists were called up on 2 August, and on that day Macmillan raised with the Egypt Committee the prospect of Israel attacking Egypt. On 10 August Lloyd had a difficult meeting with the directors of the Suez Canal Company. On 14 August Eden and Lloyd met with the Labour leaders, who were opposed to the use of force without UN authorisation. On 14 August Lloyd broadcast about the crisis to the public, and his talk was published in The Listener.

The first London Conference of nations with an interest in using the canal met from 16 to 23 August, and Lloyd was elected chairman. Lloyd helped to negotiate a formula for a new convention, in which Egypt would receive increased canal revenues and would have a place on the board of a new operating company. On 5 September Lloyd flew to Paris for talks with Spaak about the NATO upcoming meeting. On 7 September Lloyd was warned by his Canadian counterpart Lester Pearson that neither the US nor Canada would allow the UN to be used as a cover for war. On 9 September Nasser rejected the proposals offered by the 18 powers at the London Conference. On 10 September the Cabinet agreed the Egypt Committee Plan to deprive Nasser of Suez Canal revenues, provided the US agreed. At Cabinet on 11 September 1956 (where Lloyd reported that the Menzies Mission had failed) Eden gave what Lloyd later called the "clearest possible indication of intention to use force".

Foreign Secretary under Macmillan

When Eden resigned in January 1957, Lord Salisbury interviewed the Cabinet one by one, asking each whether he preferred Butler (believed to be the favourite by most outsiders) or Macmillan (the overwhelming choice of the Cabinet) for the succession. Salisbury listed Lloyd as the only minister to abstain, shocking Lord Chancellor Kilmuir, who acted as official witness to the "soundings". Lloyd later confirmed to Butler in September 1962 that he had expressed no preference.

Macmillan retained Lloyd as foreign secretary, declaring that "one head on a charger is enough" (i.e. that Eden's resignation was enough of a sacrifice to appease the government's critics). Another reason was Macmillan's wish to keep Butler out of the Foreign Office. Lloyd was paradoxically a beneficiary of Suez, as Eden might well have reshuffled him away from the Foreign Office. Macmillan delegated a lot more than Eden, and allowed Lloyd to come into his own. Lloyd was allowed to use Chequers, normally the Prime Minister's country residence, although Macmillan did not formally renounce the use of the place as by law he would not have been allowed to claim it back in the space of that Parliament (Macmillan had a country home of his own, Birch Grove, and so had no need of the place). Although Lloyd was not particularly interested in the job, Macmillan tried to encourage him to think of himself as a potential prime minister, as a rival to Butler. Lloyd's reappointment was met, in the words of a contemporary observer, with a "long, cold arch of raised eyebrows", whilst Aneurin Bevan likened Lloyd to a monkey to Macmillan's organgrinder.

As foreign secretary, Lloyd had to accompany the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their State Visit to Portugal in February 1957.

Lloyd accompanied Macmillan to Bermuda (21-4 March), where Anglo-American relations were repaired, although private discussions were more frank than the press releases might have suggested. Over dinner Lloyd launched a strong attack on Nasser; Dulles replied that the USA would not defend Nasser's regime but were not actively going to try to overthrow him. Whilst in Bermuda Macmillan, after consultation with Lloyd, agreed to release Archbishop Makarios, who had been exiled to the Seychelles in March 1956, after being advised that this might calm EOKA down. This prompted the resignation of Lord Salisbury from the Cabinet.

Chancellor of the Exchequer

In July 1960 Macmillan moved Lloyd to the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was Macmillan's third chancellor and asked for, and was given, an assurance that he would remain in place until the next General Election. Lloyd was permitted to remain at Chequers and was also allowed to keep 1, Carlton Gardens, normally the Foreign Secretary's London residence (the chancellor's usual London residence of 11 Downing Street was not available, as Downing Street was being reconstructed at the time, requiring Macmillan to live at Admiralty House for most of his premiership).

Macmillan, with bitter memories of his time as MP for Stockton in the 1930s, wanted to be free of what he saw as the economic orthodoxy of the Treasury and Bank of England, and to generate economic growth, a view which he shared with many economic thinkers at the time. He also wanted growth to increase exports, so as to improve the balance of payments without deflation or devaluing the currency. He declined to appoint David Eccles, Iain Macleod or Reginald Maudling, any of whom might have been better qualified to be chancellor, as he wanted a loyal "staff officer". Lloyd, however, warned Macmillan that he wanted to be an orthodox chancellor.

The economy had been booming as a result of the expansionary measures taken in the run-up to the 1959 General Election, with consequent risk to inflation. Furthermore, the balance of payments was moving into deficit, with Britain's share of world manufacturing falling dramatically as continental Europe, now grouped into the EEC, recovered from the effects of the war. In 1960 Britain suffered the worst balance of payments crisis since 1950, masked a little by the inflow of foreign money into London. The Treasury was already somewhat discredited. Bank Rate had already been raised to 6% by Lloyd's predecessor Heathcote Amory in June. Soon after his appointment, Lloyd asked Treasury economic advisor Robert Hall (29 July 1960) "how soon we were going bust". On 16 March 1961 Lloyd wrote to Macmillan complaining that No 10 was briefing the press than Macmillan was in real charge of economic policy, and indeed policy in other areas. Also the German Deutschmark was revalued by 5% in March 1961, leading to worries that the pound sterling might crash in the summer of 1961.

Lloyd arranged government funding for the National Theatre on the South Bank. His first Budget (17 April 1961) began by saying that during the 1960-1 fiscal year there had been a deficit of £394m, £76m more than Amory had forecast in the 1960 budget. Lloyd was concerned at rising inflation and public spending. The Budget was intended to be deflationary, and to reduce the government borrowing requirement to £69m for 1961-2 (in the event it was £211m), but increased taxes by less than the Treasury wanted. The budget introduced "the Regulator", which allowed the Chancellor of the day to vary the rate of most indirect taxes by up to 10% of the existing rate (not ten percentage points) without the need for prior Parliamentary approval, although Parliament had to approve within three weeks. Another measure, effectively a second Regulator (brought in over the objections of John Boyd-Carpenter, Minister of Pensions and National Insurance) allowed the Chancellor to increase Employers' NICs by up to 4 shillings per week. Lloyd also raised the threshold for surtax on earned income, which had been unchanged since Lloyd George had introduced it in 1909, from £2,000 per annum to £5,000. This measure had actually been Macmillan's idea.

Out of office

Lloyd did not regard his political career as over, and declined the chairmanship of Martins Bank and other City posts, although became non-executive director at The Rank Organisation. Macmillan, shaken by the hostile reaction to his moves, arranged a meeting with Lloyd on 1 August. He told him that sacking him had been a mistake and that he was looking for a way to bring him back. Lloyd attributed this to Macmillan's ruthlessness and survival instinct.

Lloyd became a popular figure with Conservative Party members after travelling the country in the bitter winter of 1962–3 (the worst since 1946-7) to write his report on party organisation. Ferdinand Mount writes that northerners recognised Selwyn as "one of their own, someone who had gone to London but had not become in the least stuck up and who never pretended to be someone he wasn't". Macmillan later compared Lloyd to Augustine Birrell for his links to the nonconformist vote of North West England. At Huddersfield he had to give a non-committal reply when Andrew Alexander, then City Editor of The Yorkshire Post, attacked Macmillan's profligate economic policy. His report, urging the proper provision of paid agents in marginal seats, was published in June 1963 so was overshadowed by the Profumo scandal. Lloyd asked John Profumo whether he had had an affair with Christine Keeler, and passed on his denial to Macmillan, adding his own opinion that he did not see how "Jack" could have had the time.

After Macmillan's impending resignation was announced in October 1963, Lloyd was one of those who pressed Alec Douglas-Home to stand for the party leadership. He was a pivotal figure in whipping up support for Home as a potential successor at the Blackpool Conference. He was also an influential figure with the Chief Whip Martin Redmayne. On a walk on the seafront at Blackpool (11 October) Lloyd and Redmayne were accosted by a socialist old age pensioner who told them that Home would make the best prime minister. He helped to dissuade Hailsham, who was initially a candidate for the leadership, from openly opposing Home. "Home was just about the only front-line politician [Lloyd] spoke of without a tinge of contempt." Lloyd visited Macmillan in hospital on Wednesday 16 October, and advised against appointing Rab Butler, who, he said, was disliked in the constituency associations.

Return to the front bench

Lloyd was called back to the government in 1963 by Alec Douglas-Home. He refused the Home Office. He also refused the Chairmanship of the Party, as he felt he had done what he could and did not want to spend "another winter traipsing around the country". In the end he was appointed Leader of the House of Commons, a job which had already been promised to John Boyd-Carpenter. He was also appointed Lord Privy Seal. On returning to office he likened himself to a man who had won a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal. As Leader of the House he was popular and well-respected across parties, paving the way for his Speakership nearly a decade later. However, Lloyd's policies as chancellor were blamed to some extent for Conservative defeat in the general election of 1964.

Lloyd helped to discourage Thorneycroft from standing for the Conservative leadership in 1965. He supported Maudling, who was defeated by Edward Heath. As Shadow Commonwealth Secretary under Heath, Lloyd visited Australia and New Zealand in late 1965. He also visited Rhodesia, whose white minority regime had recently declared unilateral independence from the UK, in February 1966. There he met 300 people, including 60 Africans, and impressed on Prime Minister Ian Smith that white minority rule could not last. On his return to the UK (in time for the general election campaign in March), Lloyd was attacked both by the left for having seemed to condone the Smith regime and from the right for not having supported it. He returned to the backbenches in 1966, at his own request.

Speaker of the House of Commons

In 1969 Lloyd was captain of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in its centenary year.

Lloyd continued to serve on many committees and to campaign for the Conservative Party in North-West England. In the 1970 General Election organisational reforms made in response to Lloyd's report of 1963 bore fruit, especially in the North-West, and specifically the provision of more paid agents. The reforms were thought to have resulted in the gain of 10 seats, contributing to Heath's narrow victory. Lloyd was sounded out for, but declined, the Washington Embassy.

In 1971, after the Conservatives had returned to power, Lloyd became Speaker. He was elected Speaker by 294 votes to 55, the opposition coming from those who thought the election was a stitch-up between the leadership of the two main parties. Mindful that the long hours required as Speaker had broken the health of several of his predecessors, he increased the number of deputy speakers to three to ease the burden. His preference was to let as many members as possible be heard, rather than err on the side of firmness, and he also practised what Thorpe describes as "selective deafness" rather than punish every unparliamentary outburst. During tedious debates he would keep alert by constructing mental anagrams of the names of those speaking.

In the Parliamentary debate on Bloody Sunday, Lloyd refused to allow the MP for Mid-Ulster Bernadette Devlin to give her account or to ask questions of the secretary of state, despite Devlin having been an eyewitness to events.

While he was Speaker, he became Deputy High Steward of Cambridge University in 1971, and was appointed to be a Deputy Lieutenant of Merseyside in 1974. In a break with convention, both the Labour and Liberal Parties contested his seat in both the February 1974 and October 1974 general elections, but he retained it. He retired as Speaker on 3 February 1976, when he was raised to the peerage and appointed to be the Steward of the Manor of Northstead.

Peerage and later life

On 8 March 1976 Lloyd was created a life peer as Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, of Wirral in the County of Merseyside, with a corresponding change of his surname to Selwyn-Lloyd. He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.

He became an honorary fellow of his old college, Magdalene. In retirement he lived at Preston Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire. He did a great deal of charity work and was an active patron and generous host to the nearby Oxford University Conservative Association. He died at home of a brain tumour on 17 May 1978. His will was valued at £154,169 for probate (around £750,000 at 2016 prices).

Books

Lloyd remained on very friendly terms with Eden, and the two men cooperated throughout the 1960s and 1970s, over Eden's memoirs and information which they gave, often anonymously, to historians about Suez. In public they maintained the pretence that there had been no collusion with Israel.

Lloyd cooperated in secret with Terence Robinson's 1965 book on Suez and with Hugh Thomas' The Suez Affair (1967). Lloyd insisted to Hugh Thomas (1967) that Britain's priority had always been a peaceful resolution, especially as Britain had only just pulled out of Egypt prior to Suez. Richard Crossman told Hugh Thomas that any attempt to impeach Lloyd would come to nothing because Lloyd was personally popular. Thomas, who was married to Gladwyn Jebb's daughter, began with little sympathy for Eden and Lloyd and came to feel more so, especially as Lloyd told him that Suez was an issue that was simply not black and white.

Nutting (No End of a Lesson: 1967) and Harold Macmillan (whose relevant volume came out in 1971) were also publishing memoirs. Nutting accused Lloyd not of lying but of not telling the whole truth to the House of Commons. Lloyd insisted that this was perfectly legitimate and that this had been the view of Edward Grey and Ernest Bevin. Nutting's book made Lloyd more determined to release his own memoirs in due course.

Lloyd wrote two books, "Mr Speaker, sir" (1976) and "Suez 1956: a Personal View" (1978). Suez 1956 was the first British admission that the Sevres meeting had taken place (it had already been disclosed by Dayan and Pineau). Sir Donald Logan had to help finish the research as Lloyd by then was ill and could not concentrate for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. He insisted that there had been no "collusion" as Britain had acted in good faith, and had not instigated the Israeli attack. Nigel Nicolson thought the book "pathetic".

Lloyd did not live to complete his memoirs, which he had planned to call "A Middle-Class Lawyer from Liverpool" after a famous sneer of Harold Macmillan's at his expense.

Personal life

Lloyd was respected for his cool and shrewd judgement. In public he was "a stiff-necked, prickly, rather off-putting figure" and even in private, after his dismissal from the Exchequer "he had a ruffled, sad look as though bad news had only just reached him." However, he could sometimes be a much more gregarious and charismatic man in private than his reserved public image would have suggested.

Sir Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Bt., wrote that he possessed "an exact appreciation of himself". "He was proud of the things he was patronised for" (being called "the Little Attorney" by Macmillan, or "Mr Hoylake UDC" by Bernard Levin). In politics, he was loyal to his (self-proclaimed) social superiors who often did not display loyalty in return.

Lloyd married his secretary Elizabeth Marshall, known as Bae, daughter of Roland Marshall of West Kirby, a family friend. Lloyd, who still lived with his parents when in the Wirral, and who had never had a serious girlfriend, was uneasy with women. Pamela Berry claimed that Selwyn had told her that he did not much care for sex. He wrote to his parents (November 1950) that "the fatal announcement" of their engagement had been made and that he felt like somebody shivering before getting into a cold bath. The marriage took place on the Wirral on 29 March 1951. Lloyd was 46 whilst Bae, a solicitor by profession, was born in 1928, making her 24 years his junior. At the reception somebody told him that he had a beautiful bride, and he responded that he had a beautiful wedding cake too. Lloyd's younger sister Rachel, and Bae's mother, both had misgivings about the marriage.

Selwyn and Bae had a daughter, Joanna, but divorced in 1957. At the time of Suez, Bae had been in a bad car crash with her lover, whom she later married. Lloyd was awarded custody of his daughter. He remained on friendly terms with his wife after his divorce, but seldom spoke of her to others, so much so that Ferdinand Mount records that he had no idea how her name was pronounced. Rab Butler quipped that Selwyn's wife had left him "because he got into bed with his sweater on".

Following his divorce he was a lonely man and was sometimes known to try to persuade less than keen civil servants to accompany him to the cinema on Saturday afternoons when the week's work was done.

Homosexuality

After his divorce, rumour sometimes circulated that Lloyd had homosexual inclinations. He entertained young servicemen at Chequers. Sir Ferdinand Mount writes that he was clearly attracted to the young Jonathan Aitken (his godson, who also worked for him in the early 1960s) but showed no interest in Diana Leishman, an attractive young woman who also worked for him. Michael Bloch writes that he was "infatuated with" Aitken who "had some difficulty parrying his advances" and with the young Peter Walker.

The actor Anthony Booth (in his 1989 book Stroll On) claimed that he had been accosted on the Mall by a clearly drunk Selwyn Lloyd, who made a pass at him under the pretext of asking for a light for his cigarette, a recognised courtship ritual among gay men at the time, inviting him back to Admiralty House (which was Lloyd's official residence in 1963-4). Ferdinand Mount comments that such behaviour as alleged by Booth would have been out of character, but adds carefully that "It is not clear whether [Lloyd] was ever gay in the active sense". Charles Williams writes that Lloyd "had a dubious private life" and that his "private life was the subject of much gossip" but offers no further details.

Assessment

Lloyd's obituaries concentrated on his role in Suez. He would have preferred to have been remembered for his minority report on the Beveridge Report on broadcasting, and for setting up the NEDC.

Nigel Nicolson thought him "weak and mendacious" over Suez and recorded that Dag Hammarskjöld regarded him with contempt. However, he acquired a higher reputation as Macmillan's foreign secretary. Sir William Hayter, who worked with Lloyd in Ankara during the Baghdad Pact conference in January 1958, commented on how he had a higher regard for Lloyd after the latter had ceased to be Eden's assistant. "I liked him and even respected him and ... he was really a very able Minister". Thorpe argues that he was not quite in the same league as Bevin or Eden but very much in the next rung. He was happy to listen to expert advice in a way that Eden would not have been.

Edmund Dell describes Lloyd as "not up to the job" of chancellor. He was "a man with limited intellectual horizons ... fortunate to occupy two of the highest offices in the state. He was less fortunate in the timing [Foreign Secretary during Suez then Chancellor at a time of relative economic decline] … there is no evidence that he understood economic arguments … he was a man tied to his brief, lacking the conviction or understanding to make an independent contribution".

However, the real problems with the British economy at this time were, in Dell's view, short-termism (longer time was needed to get results) and an overvalued exchange rate. The immediate cause for Lloyd's dismissal was that Macmillan saw the Treasury as obstructive in drawing up a workable incomes policy, but Dell argues that the real problem was lack of political will, by Macmillan and other ministers, to enforce compulsory wage control. Macmillan wanted the "open air cure" (i.e. public moral pressure to discourage inflationary wage rises), so it is hard to see how Lloyd could have urged anything stronger. A National Incomes Commission ("Nicky") was eventually set up 26 July 1962, after Lloyd's dismissal. It was boycotted by the TUC, who claimed to have been inadequately consulted. It had no compulsory powers, but only powers to demand papers and interview people, and make criticisms of wage settlements which were deemed not in the national interest. Only three cases were ever referred to it.

Ferdinand Mount argues that Lloyd's obituary in The Times was wrong to call him unimaginative and that Lloyd was in fact an innovative chancellor. Macmillan, obsessed with economic expansion, constantly belittled Lloyd in his memoirs. In Mount's view, just as Suez was a watershed in foreign policy, so Macmillan's sacking of Lloyd was a watershed in economic policy, opening the way to the inflation of the 1970s.