GREAT BRITAIN: Elder Statesman Marries

In 1911, when David Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer and the coming man of British politics, his young daughters came home for a holiday and brought along their favorite schoolteacher, Miss Frances Louise Stevenson. The entire family was charmed with the 23-year-old girl, thought her a paragon of intelligence, efficiency and wholesome good looks.

Two years later Lloyd George needed a private secretary. Miss Stevenson accepted the job, for the next 30 years never held another. She worked with her boss during his great days as wartime Prime Minister, accompanied him to the Peace Conference. Other Allied statesmen gallantly dubbed her “the blonde bewilderment” and could not understand why such an attractive young woman would choose the silent, self-effacing role of a secretary.

After the war, with the political changes which disrupted his Liberal Party, Lloyd George receded to a position without exact parallel in U.S. political life. Still a great figure, he was nevertheless without tangible power or political organization. His only political role was that of M.P. for Caernarvon, Wales, the district he had represented since 1890. Now 80, Lloyd George can still speak with authority, though he speaks for himself and not for a powerful party or bloc.

Dame Margaret Lloyd George, whom he had married in 1888, and who had often campaigned for him, died in January 1941.

Through the quiet years Secretary Stevenson had faithfully stuck to her job. Not until last week did she take a new one: in a private ceremony at the register’s office in Guildford, David Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson were married.