46cm (18in) x 30cm (12in) x 15cm (6in)
Provenance: Gwilym Lloyd George, 1st Viscount Tenby (1894-1967)
Thence by descent to William Lloyd George, 3rd Viscount Tenby (1927-2023), grandson of David Lloyd George, 1st Earl of Dwyfor (1863-1945) the British Prime Minister from 1916-22.
Red leather over wood, the hinged lid embossed with the crowned cypher of George VI, the chamfered leading edge inscribed ‘MINISTER OF FOOD’, the back fitted brass swivel carrying handle, the front fitted with lozenged shaped key plate. The interior stamped with the maker’s details of ‘Barrow Hepburn & Gale Ltd / Grange Mills, SE1’.
The present box was used by the Rt Hon Major Gwilym Lloyd-George from 1951 to 1954 when Minister of Food and a member of Winston Churchill’s Second World War coalition cabinet.
Gwilym Lloyd-George, 1st Viscount Tenby, TD, PC (1894-1967) was the younger son of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and his first wife Margaret, daughter of Richard Owen. Educated at Eastbourne College and Jesus College, Cambridge, Gwilym Lloyd George was commissioned into the 6th Battalion The Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1914, and became aide-de-camp to the first GOC of the 38th (Welsh) Division on the Western Front. He entered politics as a liberal of various stripes but drifted over time to the Conservatives, and was known for most of his political career as Major Lloyd George. In 1939, he joined Neville Chamberlain's government, and, in 1941, was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food and then Minister of Fuel and Power in 1942. Lloyd George stayed in the post until the 1945 general election in which he stood as a 'Liberal and Conservative’. Churchill offered him a position in the Conservative Party's Shadow cabinet and allowed him to remain as a ‘Liberal' - a position that irritated both Liberals and Conservatives. Returning to office in 1951, Churchill appointed him Minister of Food, 1951-1954, and Home Secretary from 1954 until his retirement in 1957. During his time as Home Secretary, he refused to commute the death sentence imposed on Ruth Ellis - the last woman to be executed in Britain. He later defended his position with the declaration, ‘We cannot have people shooting off firearms in the street! As long as I was Home Secretary I was determined to ensure that people could use the streets without fear of a bullet.’