Group visits
Bring a group to the museum
Clubs, schools, historical societies and social groups are welcome by arrangement — £2 per head, up to 20 people, with two weeks' notice.
Book a group visitJohn Selwyn Brooke Lloyd, later Lord Selwyn-Lloyd, was one of the most senior figures in British politics through the 1950s, 60s and 70s, holding three of the great offices of state and government over a career spanning three decades on the Conservative front bench.
Chancellor and Foreign Secretary
Lloyd trained as a barrister before entering Parliament as MP for the Wirral in 1945, a seat he held for over thirty years. He served as Foreign Secretary from 1955 to 1960, a period that included the 1956 Suez Crisis, one of the defining foreign-policy episodes of postwar British history. He went on to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1960 to 1962, with responsibility for the government's economic policy during a difficult period for sterling.
Speaker of the House of Commons
After a period out of front-line government, Lloyd returned to prominence as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1971 to 1976, presiding over the Commons chamber in a role that sits above party politics — a mark of the cross-party respect he had earned over a long career. He was made a life peer, Lord Selwyn-Lloyd, on his retirement from the Speakership.
A Wirral connection
Lloyd's political career was built from a Wirral base, representing the peninsula in Parliament from 1945 until 1976 — a connection the museum is glad to note among West Kirby's notable figures, alongside its record of the town's Victorian and twentieth-century growth (see From Farming Village to Victorian Resort).
Related research
Sources & further reading
- Selwyn Lloyd — Wikipedia
- See also the full bibliography for this Research section
