He was the eldest son of William Butler Lloyd (1825-1874), a banker, of Monkmoor Hall, Shrewsbury, and Preston Montford, Shropshire, and his wife Jane Amelia, who was fifth daughter of the Reverend George Hunt of Wadenhoe, Northamptonshire,[1] and sister of George Ward Hunt, who became a cabinet minister under Benjamin Disraeli.
[3] He was also director of the Birmingham branch of the Northern Assurance Company Ltd and deputy chairman of the Sentinel Waggon Works Ltd of Shrewsbury.
[2] Butler Lloyd was a magistrate for the county of Shropshire and Borough of Shrewsbury and held posts in a number of other bodies including: Chairman of Shrewsbury Borough Education Committee in 1907,[4] governor of Shrewsbury School, Deputy Treasurer of the Royal Salop Infirmary, Treasurer of the Atcham Poor Law Union, Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society and Secretary of the South Shropshire Hunt.
[2] He was elected as Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury, then a borough constituency in a by-election in 1913, following the death of the previous incumbent, Sir Clement Lloyd Hill.
He had intended to only stay until the next general election, due no later than the end of 1915, and in February 1914 the parliamentary candidacy of his party had been accepted by (unrelated) George Ambrose Lloyd, at the time Member of Parliament for West Staffordshire.