Born in 1779 at "Wye House", Talbot County, Maryland, he was a member of a prominent Eastern Shore family, "the Lloyds of Wye," which had lived in Talbot County since the mid-17th century. His father Edward Lloyd IV was a member of the Continental Congress. He received early education from private tutors. Lloyd served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1800 to 1805. He was elected to the Ninth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph H. Nicholson and was reelected to the Tenth Congress, serving from December 3, 1806 to March 3, 1809. In 1808, Lloyd was elected as Governor of Maryland, a position he served in from 1809 to 1811. During this period Lloyd traded a Merino ram for "Sailor," a male Newfoundland that had a reputation for spectacularly enthusiastic water dog retrieving of ducks. The dog was bred with other retrievers at Lloyd's estate on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Sailor is now considered the "father" of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever line. Lloyd was commissioned a lieutenant colonel of the Ninth Regiment of Maryland Militia and also served as a member of the Maryland State Senate from 1811 to 1815. He was elected as a Democratic Republican to the United States Senate in 1819, was reelected in 1825, and served from March 4, 1819 until his resignation on January 14, 1826. In the Senate, Lloyd served as chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia. Later in life, Lloyd served as member of the Maryland State Senate from 1826 to 1831, and as President of the Senate in 1826. He died in Annapolis, Maryland, and is interred in the family burying ground at Wye House near Easton, Maryland. Lloyd was an important slaveholder and vocal defender of the institution of slavery throughout his political career. The African-American abolitionistFrederick Douglass, who had grown up as a slave on one of Lloyd's plantations, discussed Lloyd in his 1845 autobiography The Narrative of Frederick Douglass. The book describes the acts of cruelty committed by Lloyd's overseers, and dwells at length on Lloyd's own despotic treatment, including whippings of two slaves caring for his horses:
To all these complaints no matter how unjust, the slave must answer never a word. Colonel Lloyd could not brook any contradiction from a slave. When he spoke, a slave must stand, listen, and tremble; and such was literally the case. I have seen Colonel Lloyd make old Barney, a man between fifty and sixty years of age, uncover his bald head, kneel down upon the cold, damp ground, and receive upon his naked and toil-worn shoulders more than thirty lashes at the time.
