Eitem G1/45. - A. J. Sylvester: the Principal Private Secretary,

Albert James Sylvester (1889-1989) served as Principal Private Secretary to David Lloyd George from 1923 until his death in March 1945. A native of Staffordshire, Sylvester served as private secretary to the Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence, 1914-1921, to the Secretary of the War Cabinet and the Cabinet, 1916-1921, to the Secretary of the Imperial War Cabinet, 1917, to the British Secretary of the Peace Conference, 1919, and to three successive Prime Ministers, 1921-3: D. Lloyd George, Andrew Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin. He ran Lloyd George's private office in London. After Lloyd George's death, A. J. Sylvester earned his living as a member of Lord Beaverbrook's staff from 1945 until 1948, and spent a further year as unpaid assistant to Liberal Party leader, E. Clement Davies. In 1947, he published The Real Lloyd George, based on his diaries. In 1949, he retired from political life, and moved to a farm at Corsham, Wiltshire, England. His ambition to publish a full-scale autobiography, upon which he was actively engaged in extreme old age, never came to fruition. His papers provide an insight into the life of Lloyd George after his fall from power in 1922.