New Accessions: Papers of Sir David Treharne Llewellyn
Collections / New Accessions - Posted 03-08-2020
In January this year a small collection of letters and ephemera relating to the political career of Sir David Treharne Llewellyn, a former Conservative MP, came up for sale at auction. Llewellyn served as MP for Cardiff North from 1950 to 1959 and was appointed as Under Secretary of State at the Home Office following the Conservative victory in the General Election of 1951. Llewellyn had only a year in office in the Home Office, before he had to resign because of his health but it was a very significant appointment.
In their manifesto for the 1951 General Election, the Conservatives had promised to create a ministerial post to deal with Welsh affairs and when he was appointed to the cabinet, David Maxwell-Fyfe was given the title of Home Secretary and Minister for Welsh Affairs. To prove that this was more than just a job title, a minister was appointed who was specifically responsible for Welsh affairs in his department; David Treharne Llewellyn was the first politician in that role.
The Welsh Political Archive collects the papers of the Secretaries of State for Wales, so we felt this small archive was worth buying. There is not a great deal of material from his time in the Home Office but one letter from Winston Churchill thanking him for his service to Wales as a minister and much correspondence with other ministers during his parliamentary career including James Callaghan, Edward Heath, David Maxwell-Fyfe and Gwilym Lloyd George. There is an interesting collection of letters from Philip Noel-Baker, Minister for Fuel and Power for support for victims of colliery accidents and their dependents, and another group that shows the relationship between Llewellyn and George Thomas and discusses the Aberfan disaster and the Investiture of 1969.
Llewellyn had played a brief but significant role in the development of Welsh politics, so it is fitting that his small archive came to the National Library with the papers of Secretaries of State for Wales and Welsh politicians of the same period.
The papers are now available via our online catalogue.
Rob Phillips
Welsh Political Archive
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