The emergence of the welsh bounder: David Lloyd George's oratorical attacks during the Anglo‐Boer war

Abstract

This essay focuses on an episode in David Lloyd George's early political career, long before he held even a minor cabinet post, when he brilliantly used deliberative oratorical techniques to challenge governmental war policy during the last imperial war of Victoria's long reign. Despite the popularity of the 1899–1902 Anglo‐Boer war among British patriots, Lloyd George was able to attack verbally the government's war stance, gain popularity with his Welsh constituents, and earn enough national reputation to rise in the estimation of his own opposition party. The beginning of his national career can thus be traced to many smoky, noisy Welsh speaking platforms where Lloyd George began his climb as a major politician of reckoning.