Selwyn Lloyd - Definition

John Selwyn Brooke Lloyd, Baron Selwyn-Lloyd (28 July 1904 - 18 May 1978) was a British Conservative politician.

Lloyd was elected to the House of Commons in 1945, and became a member of the "Young Turks" faction of the Conservative Party. When the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill in 1951, Lloyd served under Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1951 to 1954. He then served as Minister of Supply (1954-1955) and Minister of Defence (1955), before becoming himself Foreign Secretary in the same year. His tenure saw the Suez Crisis, which led to the fall of the Eden government, but he continued to serve as Foreign Secretary under Harold Macmillan until 1960, then becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer (1960-1962). Unable to cope with Britain's economic problems in the early 60s, he was sacked from the government and returned to the backbenches, but was called back to the government in 1963 by Alec Douglas-Home, who made him Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons until the Conservative defeat in the General Election of 1964. In 1971, after the Conservatives had returned to power, Lloyd became Speaker, a position in which he continued to serve until 1976, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, of Wirral in the County of Merseyside. He died two years later.