Dan Snow uncovers the secrets of his great-great-grandfather, David Lloyd George

At the end of the First World War the solicitor from north Wales, who had become Prime Minister in 1916, was hailed as 'the man who won the war' and was hugely popular. But at the same time, with his wife Margaret living back home in Wales, and after a string of affairs, he was living a double life.

“He was also a notorious womaniser,” says Dan, “whose long-running relationship with his young secretary meant that he almost had two wives. I’m descended from one of Lloyd George’s daughters, so this other side of his life has always been a bit of a family secret, something we never talked about.”

Having spent many childhood holidays with his family in Criccieth, Dan returns to north Wales for Dan Snow On Lloyd George - My Great-Great-Grandfather (Wednesday, December 7, BBC One Wales, 9pm) before retracing his footsteps to Westminster and then on to the Palace of Versailles, where Lloyd George represented Great Britain and her empire at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 - the peak of a remarkable political career.

In one section of the programme Dan visits the Parliamentary Archives to read excerpts from the diary of Lloyd George’s secretary Frances Stevenson, as well as letters Lloyd George wrote to her.

“On one level, as a family member, it’s pretty distressing,” Dan admits on the programme. “Reading about your great-great-grandfather’s love affairs and his aborted love-child. And an incredible self-obsession and ambition that seems to have crowded out the feelings of anybody else.

“But on another level you do find yourself attracted to him - as a lover, as a human - and you almost feel yourself wishing him all the best in that relationship, because he clearly loved her very much. I feel a bit conflicted…”

Lloyd George would remain attached to Frances until they finally married after his wife’s death.

The MP for 'Carnarvon Boroughs', Lloyd George was known as a brilliant public speaker who connected directly with ordinary people. Despite initially being anti-war and from non-conformist, chapel-going Wales, he succeeded in galvanising an initially unprepared nation into a dynamic war machine. He headed a small, decisive war cabinet, brought leading industrialists into government and made the armaments industry vastly more efficient.

However, even at the height of his popularity the Welshman was seen by many establishment figures as an outsider and a threat, and his involvement in major financial scandals would today have ended his career.

Dan Snow says: “I think the most remarkable aspect of the Lloyd George story is that this was a guy without money, without connections, without an army background and without being educated in Oxford or Cambridge, who rose up to become one of the most powerful men in the world, becoming Prime Minister of Britain at a time when the British Empire extended right around the world.

“That single fact, to me, is one of the most remarkable aspects of 20th Century history.”

MCR