Lloyd-George (David)

A fine autograph letter signed ('D Lloyd-George'), to James Louis Garvin (‘My dear Garvin’), on the blind embossed stationery of the Prime Minister. Lloyd-George writes a warm letter of sympathy following the death of his correspondent’s first wife, commencing ‘I wish I could express to you how much I feel for you in your dark sorrow. Fate has indeed dealt cruelly by you these last years & to have thus stricken you in the hours of national rejoicing is double bitterness’, and continuing to reflect ‘I was once called upon to pass through the valley of grief when I lost a little girl that was most dear to me. The real sympathy of friends helped me. That I know you can command abundantly. I have heard it expressed in many quarters. What saved me however from distraction & despair was hard work’, further adding ‘I know you are a brave & high souled man with a real mission in life & I know you will find comfort’ before concluding ‘My wife wishes to join me in profoundest sympathy with you & your motherless children’. Accompanied by the original envelope partially addressed in Lloyd-George’s hand and marked ‘Private’, four pages, in very good condition, 8vo, 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 29 December 1918.

James Louis Garvin (1868-1947) British Journalist & Author, editor of The Observer 1908-42. Garvin had married Christina Ellen Wilson in 1894 and his first wife bore him a son and four daughters. Their son Roland, known to the family as Ged, died in a night assault on German lines in 1916. Garvin was heartbroken at his loss and never fully recovered from his son’s death which also shaped many of his attitudes to subsequent events.

David Lloyd-George’s daughter, Mair (1890-1907) died at a tragically young age during an appendectomy.