Mr. Lloyd George, then minister of munitions, to go to the United States on the business of the ministry. For his brilliant services on that occasion he was created Baron Rhondda, of Llanwern, in 1916, being promoted viscount, with special remainder to his daughter, in 1918. Mr. Lloyd George said of him: ‘He organized a supply of munitions from the States and from Canada. He got the right men round him. He chose the right men, and he set things going. There were all sorts of quarrels and difficulties, but in every case he simply said, “I know only one thing: our need of guns and shells.” From that hour the supply of munitions never wavered. It was Rhondda who gave to America and the Allies a breathing space and a chance. That service of his cannot be overestimated.’ A few months before undertaking this mission he had been on board the Lusitania when it was sunk by the Germans.
Rhondda's next promotion was to be president of the Local Government Board, but it was not until 1917, when he succeeded Lord Devonport as food minister, that he became a popular figure. His success was almost entirely of a personal nature. He was accessible to the press and made many speeches up and down the country. Schemes of rationing were easily carried out under his influence. He had real genius in choosing the right man for a particular purpose, and communicated to the persons of his choice an enthusiasm akin to his own. He was a man of vision, not an organizer. He would sit up to all hours of the night covering sheets of paper with the small, scribbled figures of his calculations, but he left to others the difficult work of giving structure to his ideas. His grasp of a problem was complete, but the builder's work was too slow for his patience. However, the builder always worked the better for the inspiration of Rhondda's charm and boyish eagerness to score a success. He was accepted by the nation as a man of scrupulous honour and impartial justice. Every hardship which he called upon the people to bear was recognized as necessary and was seen to press equally on all classes. He enjoyed his popularity, spared himself no labour to carry the nation with him, and died at his home, Llanwern, under the strain of hard work, on 3 July 1918.
Lord Rhondda was a lovable man to those in whom he felt any interest. The centre of his character was an egotism without guile—the egotism of a schoolboy who loves success and is not ashamed to show it. He never lost his affection for field and hedgerow. His heart to the last was with his notable herd of white-faced Herefords at Llanwern. To the end of his days he was given to mild practical joking and to a jesting persiflage. He had no clear faith, but said his prayers every day. He surrounded himself with youthful people, calling them his ‘young germs’, and avoided close intimacy with the aged, believing that they were bad for his health. Clear-headed, far-sighted, ambitious, daring, and superstitious, he regarded life as a game to be played entirely for its own sake, and truly believed that money was merely the symbol of the real prize, which was success.
[D. A. Thomas: Viscount Rhondda, by his Daughter and others, 1921; personal knowledge. Portrait, Royal Academy Pictures, 1917.]
THOMAS, PHILIP EDWARD (1878–1917), critic and poet, born in Lambeth 3 March 1878, the eldest son of Philip Henry Thomas, staff clerk for light railways and tramways at the Board of Trade, by his wife, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Thomas Townsend, of Newport, Monmouthshire, was of pure Welsh descent on the paternal, and of Welsh and Spanish blood on the maternal side. He was educated at St. Paul's School, and matriculated at Oxford as a non-collegiate student in 1897, but in the following year was elected to a scholarship in modern history at Lincoln College. He gained a second class in that subject in 1900, and graduated B.A. in the same year. Thomas early showed a passion both for nature and for literature, his favourite authors being Richard Jefferies, Izaak Walton, and Malory. His first book, The Woodland Life, appeared in 1897. Two years later he married Helen, daughter of James Ashcroft Noble, the critic, who had encouraged him to write. Thomas settled at Bearsted, Kent, in 1901, moving to The Weald, Sevenoaks, in 1903, and to Petersfield in 1908, maintaining himself by reviewing, and by critical essays and studies of country life. Frequent excursions through the southern counties gave him intimate knowledge and love of rural life and scenery, and his book Richard Jefferies, His Life and Work (1909) is racy of the soil of Wiltshire, its character, history, and farm life. The little group of imaginative masterpieces, such as ‘Home’, ‘July’, ‘The Flower Gatherer’, ‘Olwen’, ‘A Group of Statuary’, in Rest and Unrest (1910) and Light and Twilight (1911), excel by clear beauty of imagery, grace of con--
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