‘The Woman who Helped Win the War’ tells the story of the multiple welfare campaigns conducted in 1914-1918 by Margaret Lloyd George, wife of Prime Minister David Lloyd George, “the Man who Won the War”.

In addition to her campaign to supply comforts for troops, she campaigned for safe havens for sailors, healthcare for the wounded as well as for mothers and children, for food and economy campaigns to support a country living on short rations, for temperance, and in recruiting men and women to volunteer to “do their bit”.

The book shines a light on the country’s unprecedented upsurge in voluntary work, alongside state support and compulsion in a time of crisis, in an era where Britain welfare state was being shaped. People gave generously even though charity fatigue set in as the war dragged on. She worked tirelessly to exploit her privileged position in Downing Street to support the work of others.

The prequel to the author Richard Rhys O’Brien’s 2022 book, ‘The Campaigns of Margaret Lloyd George’, on Margaret’s unprecedented peacetime political campaigns, this book draws on correspondence, archived campaign minutes, contemporary press reports, and recent researchers’ analyses of wartime volunteering and welfare, bringing to life not just the great efforts made across the country, but also the contentious debates that inevitably marked a time of difficult political, economic and social choices in a time of great crisis. A time of food rationing, of conscription, of relentless slaughter on the battlefields, and of the urgency to support thousands of returning wounded soldiers and sailors, in so many cases, handicapped for life.

From the kitchens of the East End to the drawing rooms of Downing Street, on speaking platforms, and on London streets selling flags to raise money for the comforts of the troops, in the hospital wards, on the silver screen, and in the press, Margaret Lloyd George cajoled, provoked, encouraged, comforted, and worked for her causes, all with humour and firmness.

Of course, thousands of women across the country more than did their bit too, demonstrating by example at a time when women’s suffrage was edging close to its goal. Margaret Lloyd George was just one of those many women, but, alongside her husband, David Lloyd George, “the Man Who Won the War”, she exploited her unique opportunities to the full.

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