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As Liberal minister

• During World War I
• In and out of office, 1922–29
• Exclusion from office, 1929–39
• As prime minister
• Formation of the “grand alliance”
• Military successes and political problems
• Electoral defeat
• As opposition leader and world statesman
• As prime minister again
• Retirement and death

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• Historic UK - Winston Churchill
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• Table Of Contents

As prime minister (1940–45) during most of World War II , Winston Churchill rallied the British people and led the country from the brink of defeat to victory. He shaped Allied strategy in the war, and in the war’s later stages he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the Soviet Union . 

Through his father,  Lord Randolph Churchill , a Tory politician, Winston was directly descended from John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, the hero of the wars against  Louis XIV  of France in the early 18th century. His mother,  Jennie Jerome , was the daughter of a New York financier and horse racing enthusiast, Leonard W. Jerome.

At Harrow School , Winston Churchill’s conspicuously poor academic record provoked his father’s decision to enter him into an army career. On his third attempt he managed to pass the entrance examination to the Royal Military College (now Academy), Sandhurst , but, once there, he applied himself seriously and graduated 20th in a class of 130.

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Winston Churchill (born November 30, 1874, Blenheim Palace , Oxfordshire, England—died January 24, 1965, London) was a British statesman, orator, and author who as prime minister (1940–45, 1951–55) rallied the British people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.

After a sensational rise to prominence in national politics before World War I , Churchill acquired a reputation for erratic judgment in the war itself and in the decade that followed. Politically suspect in consequence, he was a lonely figure until his response to Adolf Hitler’s challenge brought him to leadership of a national coalition in 1940. With Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin he then shaped Allied strategy in World War II, and after the breakdown of the alliance he alerted the West to the expansionist threat of the Soviet Union . He led the Conservative Party back to office in 1951 and remained prime minister until 1955, when ill health forced his resignation.

In Churchill’s veins ran the blood of both of the English-speaking peoples whose unity, in peace and war, it was to be a constant purpose of his to promote. Through his father, Lord Randolph Churchill , the meteoric Tory politician, he was directly descended from John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough , the hero of the wars against Louis XIV of France in the early 18th century. His mother, Jennie Jerome , a noted beauty, was the daughter of a New York financier and horse racing enthusiast, Leonard W. Jerome.

The young Churchill passed an unhappy and sadly neglected childhood, redeemed only by the affection of Mrs. Everest, his devoted nurse. At Harrow his conspicuously poor academic record seemingly justified his father’s decision to enter him into an army career. It was only at the third attempt that he managed to pass the entrance examination to the Royal Military College, now Academy, Sandhurst, but, once there, he applied himself seriously and passed out (graduated) 20th in a class of 130. In 1895, the year of his father’s tragic death, he entered the 4th Hussars. Initially the only prospect of action was in Cuba, where he spent a couple of months of leave reporting the Cuban war of independence from Spain for the Daily Graphic (London). In 1896 his regiment went to India, where he saw service as both soldier and journalist on the North-West Frontier (1897). Expanded as The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), his dispatches attracted such wide attention as to launch him on the career of authorship that he intermittently pursued throughout his life. In 1897–98 he wrote Savrola (1900), a Ruritanian romance , and got himself attached to Lord Kitchener’s Nile expeditionary force in the same dual role of soldier and correspondent. The River War (1899) brilliantly describes the campaign.

Political career before 1939

The five years after Sandhurst saw Churchill’s interests expand and mature. He relieved the tedium of army life in India by a program of reading designed to repair the deficiencies of Harrow and Sandhurst, and in 1899 he resigned his commission to enter politics and make a living by his pen. He first stood as a Conservative at Oldham, where he lost a by-election by a narrow margin, but found quick solace in reporting the South African War for The Morning Post ( London ). Within a month after his arrival in South Africa he had won fame for his part in rescuing an armoured train ambushed by Boers, though at the price of himself being taken prisoner. But this fame was redoubled when less than a month later he escaped from military prison. Returning to Britain a military hero, he laid siege again to Oldham in the election of 1900. Churchill succeeded in winning by a margin as narrow as that of his previous failure. But he was now in Parliament and, fortified by the £10,000 his writings and lecture tours had earned for him, was in a position to make his own way in politics.

A self-assurance redeemed from arrogance only by a kind of boyish charm made Churchill from the first a notable House of Commons figure, but a speech defect, which he never wholly lost, combined with a certain psychological inhibition to prevent him from immediately becoming a master of debate. He excelled in the set speech, on which he always spent enormous pains, rather than in the impromptu; Lord Balfour, the Conservative leader, said of him that he carried “heavy but not very mobile guns.” In matter as in style he modeled himself on his father, as his admirable biography , Lord Randolph Churchill (1906; revised edition 1952), makes evident, and from the first he wore his Toryism with a difference, advocating a fair, negotiated peace for the Boers and deploring military mismanagement and extravagance.

In 1904 the Conservative government found itself impaled on a dilemma by Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain’s open advocacy of a tariff. Churchill, a convinced free trader , helped to found the Free Food League. He was disavowed by his constituents and became increasingly alienated from his party. In 1904 he joined the Liberals and won renown for the audacity of his attacks on Chamberlain and Balfour. The radical elements in his political makeup came to the surface under the influence of two colleagues in particular, John Morley, a political legatee of W.E. Gladstone, and David Lloyd George , the rising Welsh orator and firebrand. In the ensuing general election in 1906 he secured a notable victory in Manchester and began his ministerial career in the new Liberal government as undersecretary of state for the colonies. He soon gained credit for his able defense of the policy of conciliation and self-government in South Africa. When the ministry was reconstructed under Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith in 1908, Churchill was promoted to president of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the cabinet. Defeated at the ensuing by-election in Manchester , he won an election at Dundee . In the same year he married the beautiful Clementine Hozier; it was a marriage of unbroken affection that provided a secure and happy background for his turbulent career.

At the Board of Trade, Churchill emerged as a leader in the movement of Liberalism away from laissez-faire toward social reform. He completed the work begun by his predecessor, Lloyd George, on the bill imposing an eight-hour maximum day for miners. He himself was responsible for attacking the evils of “sweated” labour by setting up trade boards with power to fix minimum wages and for combating unemployment by instituting state-run labour exchanges.

When this Liberal program necessitated high taxation, which in turn provoked the House of Lords to the revolutionary step of rejecting the budget of 1909, Churchill was Lloyd George’s closest ally in developing the provocative strategy designed to clip the wings of the upper chamber. Churchill became president of the Budget League, and his oratorical broadsides at the House of Lords were as lively and devastating as Lloyd George’s own. Indeed Churchill, as an alleged traitor to his class, earned the lion’s share of Tory animosity . His campaigning in the two general elections of 1910 and in the House of Commons during the passage of the Parliament Act of 1911 , which curbed the House of Lords’ powers, won him wide popular acclaim. In the cabinet his reward was promotion to the office of home secretary. Here, despite substantial achievements in prison reform, he had to devote himself principally to coping with a sweeping wave of industrial unrest and violent strikes. Upon occasion his relish for dramatic action led him beyond the limits of his proper role as the guarantor of public order. For this he paid a heavy price in incurring the long-standing suspicion of organized labour .

In 1911 the provocative German action in sending a gunboat to Agadir , the Moroccan port to which France had claims, convinced Churchill that in any major Franco-German conflict Britain would have to be at France’s side. When transferred to the Admiralty in October 1911, he went to work with a conviction of the need to bring the navy to a pitch of instant readiness. His first task was the creation of a naval war staff. To help Britain’s lead over steadily mounting German naval power, Churchill successfully campaigned in the cabinet for the largest naval expenditure in British history . Despite his inherited Tory views on Ireland, he wholeheartedly embraced the Liberal policy of Home Rule , moving the second reading of the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1912 and campaigning for it in the teeth of Unionist opposition. Although, through his friendship with F.E. Smith (later 1st earl of Birkenhead ) and Austen Chamberlain, he did much to arrange the compromise by which Ulster was to be excluded from the immediate effect of the bill, no member of the government was more bitterly abused—by Tories as a renegade and by extreme Home Rulers as a defector.

Winston Churchill

Winston churchill was chosen as one of the most influential leaders of all time. he was the prime minister of britain during world war ii and was also involved in the government during world war i. churchill was a leader, a historian, a writer and a painter. he even won the nobel prize for literature in 1953., early years.

It was in Sandhurst that Churchill began to write and he would often write about the battles he was involved in. His first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, covered his time in India. He also wrote book about his time in Sudan as well as South Africa.

In 1911, Churchill was made the First Lord of the Admiralty and he did his best to ensure that the navy would be ready for the outbreak of World War I. He ordered the development of new ships and submarines as well as the development of a naval air service.

World War I

Gallipoli (the dardanelles).

Churchill was the main designer of the Gallipoli campaign which was designed to take control of the Dardanelle Straits which were currently controlled by Turkey. This would open up a supply route for Russia and take Turkey out of the war. The campaign, which took place in early 1915, was a disaster and over 73,000 Allied soldiers were either wounded or killed.

World War II

Battle of britain, attack in french algiers, the search for allies.

Churchill recognized that he needed allies if England was to defeat Germany. He approached the United States, which was officially neutral. The American government refused to join the war at this time but did agree to sell supplies. The United States entered the war after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour and they became an important ally for Churchill’s fight.

Bombing Campaign

Churchill had ordered the bombing of German cities during the Battle of Britain and this bombing continued throughout the war. Some of the cities that Churchill ordered bombed included Lubeck, Hamburg, and Dresden. In Dresden, between 25,000 and 40,000 people died.

Normandy Invasion

Churchill helped organize Operation Fortitude which was designed to confuse the Germans about where the invasion was going to take place. This operation caused the Germans to waste resources in order to hold off possible attacks in different places.

The End of the War

An election shortly after the war resulted in Churchill losing as prime minister and while he was out of power, he continued to warn people about against the threat posed by the Soviet Union but few people were willing to take the necessary steps to push back the Soviet Union.

Churchill became prime minister again in 1951 when the Conservatives won the election. Unfortunately, he had suffered a stroke in 1953 and, although, he continued to rule for a few more years, he decided that his health would not allow him to continue as prime minister. He resigned in 1955 and the queen offered to make him a duke but he refused. He remained in parliament until 1964 although he rarely attended parliamentary sessions.

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Introduction

(1874–1965). Once called “a genius without judgment,” Sir Winston Churchill rose through a stormy career to become an internationally respected statesman during World War II . He was one of Britain ’s greatest prime ministers.

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born in England on November 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace , in the 21,000-acre estate of the dukes of Marlborough. His father was Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of the seventh duke. His mother, Jennie Jerome, had been a New York society beauty. When Winston was born, his father was chancellor of the exchequer for Queen Victoria . As Winston grew to boyhood, his grandfather became viceroy of Ireland, and his father served as viceregal secretary. Winston spent his early years in Dublin, Ireland, and then attended two private schools in England.

When he was 12, his father sent Winston to Harrow, a prestigious school in London, England. A chunky explosive redhead, he stayed in the lowest grades “three times longer than any one else.” In later life he said, “By being so long in the lowest form [grades] I gained an immense advantage over the clever boys. They all went on to learn Latin and Greek and splendid things like that. But I was taught English. Thus I got into my bones the structure of the ordinary English sentence—which is a noble thing.” When he was 16, he entered Sandhurst, a historic British military college. There he excelled in studies of tactics and fortifications and graduated 20th in a class of 130.

In March 1895 Churchill became a sublieutenant in the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars, a distinguished cavalry regiment. He also began to write. He spent his first leave of three months as correspondent in Cuba for the London Daily Graphic , meanwhile serving as military observer with the Spanish forces.

Churchill joined a Punjab Infantry regiment in India in 1897. Between duties he read the works of Edward Gibbon , Charles Darwin , Plato , Aristotle , Arthur Schopenhauer , and Thomas Macaulay . From Gibbon especially, Churchill learned much of the sonorous, rich style that was to make him the outstanding orator of his day. In 1898 he joined the British Army in the Sudan in time for the Battle of Khartoum. After being decorated for bravery, he wrote two lively books, The Malakand Field Force (1898) and The River War (1899).

Churchill’s return to England in 1899 changed his career. Disliking his low army salary, he determined to enter politics. But when he “stood” for Parliament, he was defeated. Churchill was undaunted.

At the outbreak of the Boer War in South Africa in 1899, he obtained an assignment from the Morning Post as war correspondent. The rules of war forbidding correspondents to carry arms or to take part in combat had not yet been established. So Churchill rode into the thick of firing at Spion Kop, Vaal Krantz, and other ensuing battles. In one engagement he was captured by Louis Botha and imprisoned, along with other captured officers, in a school building in Pretoria. He made his escape in an extraordinarily bold manner and eventually reached the British lines, some 300 miles (485 kilometers) away.

Upon his return to England, Churchill made up for an old defeat, as he was to do so often in his life. The same workingmen who had rejected him in 1899 now, in 1900, elected him to Parliament as a hero. Before he took office he toured Canada and the United States, lecturing on his Boer War experiences.

Churchill Enters Politics

In his first term in Parliament, Churchill soon showed that he was to be a highly individual politician. Though elected as a Conservative, he showed little awe of any party leader. His friends said his politics varied with his convictions. His enemies countered that his politics varied with the trends in votes. He soon changed from Conservative to Liberal, leading the chief of the Conservatives to call him “once a young man of promise; now a young man of promises.” In 1906 he was returned to Parliament as a Liberal member from Manchester.

Even Churchill’s foes could not deny that he was a hard worker. His enormous energy carried him through a succession of offices. At 32 he became undersecretary of state for the colonies (1906–08). Two years later he entered the Cabinet as president of the board of trade (1908–10). He also served as secretary of state for home affairs (1910–11).

Prepares the Navy for World War I

England feared war with Germany after the Agadir Incident, in which Germany sent a gunboat to Morocco in July 1911 to challenge French rights there. Churchill was made first lord of the admiralty and ordered to put the fleet into a state of instant readiness. From that moment, Churchill worked hard to reorganize the navy. He built a fine staff, obtained 15-inch guns and fast battleships, and developed the Royal Naval Air Service, which was the forerunner of the Royal Air Force. When World War I broke out three years later, Churchill’s efficient navy became England’s first powerful weapon against Germany.

In 1915, however, Churchill again met failure. As a war adviser, he led a small group in advocating an attack on the Gallipoli peninsula. The campaign, which was designed to eliminate Turkey from the war, proved a disastrous failure.

Churchill resigned his post under sharp criticism. He then went to France as a lieutenant colonel. His ability to get things done, however, was badly needed, and in 1917 he was made minister of munitions in wartime England.

“The Wilderness Years”

The years between the first and second World Wars found Churchill gradually slipping from power. True, he remained in Parliament and held several posts—secretary of war and air minister, 1918–21; undersecretary for the colonies, 1921–22; chancellor of the exchequer, 1924–29; and lord rector of the University of Edinburgh, 1929–32. During these years, however, no momentous crisis arose to stimulate his enthusiasm or his talents.

Churchill filled his time with travel, painting under the name of “Charles Marin,” and lecturing in the United States. He finished his six-volume Life of Marlborough . His writing earned him as much as $100,000 a year.

England, exhausted by war, only called him a warmonger when he raised his voice in Parliament after the Lausanne Disarmament Conference in 1932, crying “Britain’s hour of weakness is Europe’s hour of danger.” Political rivals dismissed it as “another of Winston’s epigrams.” But from the moment that Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany in 1933, Churchill, again a Conservative, saw the challenge. He gathered data on German rearmament, trying to waken England. In 1938, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sacrificed Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler, Churchill declared, “You chose dishonor, and you will have war!”

Prime Minister and Wartime Leader

On September 3, 1939, war came. Chamberlain at once appointed Churchill to his former post as first lord of the admiralty. Eight months later, on May 10, 1940, Chamberlain was forced to resign as prime minister. Churchill succeeded him.

At the moment Churchill took office, the armed might of Germany was sweeping Europe. Yet Churchill stood firm before the British people and declared, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” He promised “to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.” His thundering defiance and courage heartened Britain, and his two fingers raised in the “V for Victory” sign became an international symbol for determination and hope.

Before the United States entered the war, Churchill obtained American destroyers and lend-lease aid and met with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 to draw up the Atlantic Charter. Later he helped plan overall Allied strategy. Although Churchill held that international communism was a threat to peace, during World War II he worked with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin for the defeat of the common enemy— Nazi Germany.

Britain’s Labour-Conservative coalition government dissolved soon after the war ended in Europe. The Labour Party won the general election of 1945, forcing Churchill’s resignation as prime minister. He then entered the House of Commons as “leader of His Majesty’s loyal opposition.”

Churchill’s flair for colorful speech endured. At Fulton, Missouri, on March 5, 1946, he declared: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended over the Continent.” “Iron curtain” soon became the term for the barrier between the West and areas under Soviet control.

In 1951 Churchill was again chosen prime minister of Britain; he resigned in 1955. In 1953 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and received the Nobel Prize for Literature. By an act of Congress, Churchill was made an honorary citizen of the United States in 1963.

Since 1908 Churchill had been married to the former Clementine Ogilvy Hozier. They had one son, Randolph, and three daughters: Diana, Sarah, and Mary. Churchill died in London on January 24, 1965. He received a state funeral, the first for a British commoner since 1898. He was buried next to his parents at Bladon, near Blenheim Palace.

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Winston Churchill

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 7, 2019 | Original: October 27, 2009

Winston Churchill was one of the best-known, and some say one of the greatest, statesmen of the 20th century. Though he was born into a life of privilege, he dedicated himself to public service. His legacy is a complicated one: He was an idealist and a pragmatist; an orator and a soldier; an advocate of progressive social reforms and an unapologetic elitist; a defender of democracy – especially during World War II – as well as of Britain’s fading empire. But for many people in Great Britain and elsewhere, Winston Churchill is simply a hero.

Winston Churchill came from a long line of English aristocrat-politicians. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was descended from the First Duke of Marlborough and was himself a well-known figure in Tory politics in the 1870s and 1880s.

His mother, born Jennie Jerome, was an American heiress whose father was a stock speculator and part-owner of The New York Times. (Rich American girls like Jerome who married European noblemen were known as “dollar princesses.”)

Did you know? Sir Winston Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for his six-volume history of World War II.

Churchill was born at the family’s estate near Oxford on November 30, 1874. He was educated at the Harrow prep school, where he performed so poorly that he did not even bother to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. Instead, in 1893 young Winston Churchill headed off to military school at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

Battles and Books

After he left Sandhurst, Churchill traveled all around the British Empire as a soldier and as a journalist. In 1896, he went to India; his first book, published in 1898, was an account of his experiences in India’s Northwest Frontier Province.

In 1899, the London Morning Post sent him to cover the Boer War in South Africa, but he was captured by enemy soldiers almost as soon as he arrived. (News of Churchill’s daring escape through a bathroom window made him a minor celebrity back home in Britain.)

By the time he returned to England in 1900, the 26-year-old Churchill had published five books.

Churchill: “Crossing the Chamber”

That same year, Winston Churchill joined the House of Commons as a Conservative. Four years later, he “crossed the chamber” and became a Liberal.

His work on behalf of progressive social reforms such as an eight-hour workday, a government-mandated minimum wage, a state-run labor exchange for unemployed workers and a system of public health insurance infuriated his Conservative colleagues, who complained that this new Churchill was a traitor to his class.

Churchill and Gallipoli

In 1911, Churchill turned his attention away from domestic politics when he became the First Lord of the Admiralty (akin to the Secretary of the Navy in the U.S.). Noting that Germany was growing more and more bellicose, Churchill began to prepare Great Britain for war: He established the Royal Naval Air Service, modernized the British fleet and helped invent one of the earliest tanks.

Despite Churchill’s prescience and preparation, World War I was a stalemate from the start. In an attempt to shake things up, Churchill proposed a military campaign that soon dissolved into disaster: the 1915 invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.

Churchill hoped that this offensive would drive Turkey out of the war and encourage the Balkan states to join the Allies, but Turkish resistance was much stiffer than he had anticipated. After nine months and 250,000 casualties, the Allies withdrew in disgrace.

After the debacle at Gallipoli, Churchill left the Admiralty.

Churchill Between the Wars

During the 1920s and 1930s, Churchill bounced from government job to government job, and in 1924 he rejoined the Conservatives. Especially after the Nazis came to power in 1933, Churchill spent a great deal of time warning his countrymen about the perils of German nationalism, but Britons were weary of war and reluctant to get involved in international affairs again.

Likewise, the British government ignored Churchill’s warnings and did all it could to stay out of Hitler’s way. In 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain even signed an agreement giving Germany a chunk of Czechoslovakia – “throwing a small state to the wolves,” Churchill scolded – in exchange for a promise of peace.

A year later, however, Hitler broke his promise and invaded Poland. Britain and France declared war. Chamberlain was pushed out of office, and Winston Churchill took his place as prime minister in May 1940.

Churchill: The “British Bulldog”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” Churchill told the House of Commons in his first speech as prime minister.

“We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”

Just as Churchill predicted, the road to victory in World War II was long and difficult: France fell to the Nazis in June 1940. In July, German fighter planes began three months of devastating air raids on Britain herself.

Though the future looked grim, Churchill did all he could to keep British spirits high. He gave stirring speeches in Parliament and on the radio. He persuaded U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide war supplies – ammunition, guns, tanks, planes – to the Allies, a program known as Lend-Lease, before the Americans even entered the war.

Though Churchill was one of the chief architects of the Allied victory, war-weary British voters ousted the Conservatives and their prime minister from office just two months after Germany’s surrender in 1945.

The Iron Curtain

The now-former prime minister spent the next several years warning Britons and Americans about the dangers of Soviet expansionism.

In a speech in Fulton, Missouri , in 1946, for example, Churchill declared that an anti-democratic “Iron Curtain,” “a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization,” had descended across Europe. Churchill’s speech was the first time anyone had used that now-common phrase to describe the Communist threat.

In 1951, 77-year-old Winston Churchill became prime minister for the second time. He spent most of this term working (unsuccessfully) to build a sustainable détente between the East and the West. He retired from the post in 1955.

In 1953, Queen Elizabeth made Winston Churchill a knight of the Order of the Garter. He died in 1965, one year after retiring from Parliament.

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Winston Churchill

(1874-1965)

Who Was Winston Churchill?

Early years.

Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England.

From an early age, young Churchill displayed the traits of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, a British statesman from an established English family, and his mother, Jeanette "Jennie" Jerome, an independent-minded New York socialite.

Churchill grew up in Dublin, Ireland, where his father was employed by his grandfather, the 7th Duke of Marlborough, John Spencer-Churchill.

Churchill proved to be an independent and rebellious student; after performing poorly at his first two schools, Churchill in April 1888 began attending Harrow School, a boarding school near London. Within weeks of his enrollment, he joined the Harrow Rifle Corps, putting him on a path to a military career.

At first, it didn't seem the military was a good choice for Churchill; it took him three tries to pass the exam for the British Royal Military College. However, once there, he fared well and graduated 20th in his class of 130.

Up to this time, his relationship with both his mother and father was distant, though he adored them both. While at school, Churchill wrote emotional letters to his mother, begging her to come see him, but she seldom came.

His father died when he was 21, and it was said that Churchill knew him more by reputation than by any close relationship they shared.

Military Career

Churchill enjoyed a brief but eventful career in the British Army at a zenith of British military power. He joined the Fourth Queen's Own Hussars in 1895 and served in the Indian northwest frontier and the Sudan, where he saw action in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.

While in the Army, he wrote military reports for the Pioneer Mail and the Daily Telegraph , and two books on his experiences, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898) and The River War (1899).

In 1899, Churchill left the Army and worked as a war correspondent for the Morning Post , a conservative daily newspaper. While reporting on the Boer War in South Africa, he was taken prisoner by the Boers during a scouting expedition.

He made headlines when he escaped, traveling almost 300 miles to Portuguese territory in Mozambique. Upon his return to Britain, he wrote about his experiences in the book London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900).

Parliament and Cabinet

In 1900, Churchill became a member of the British Parliament in the Conservative Party for Oldham, a town in Manchester. Following his father into politics, he also followed his father's sense of independence, becoming a supporter of social reform.

Unconvinced that the Conservative Party was committed to social justice, Churchill switched to the Liberal Party in 1904. He was elected a member of Parliament in 1908 and was appointed to the prime minister's cabinet as president of the Board of Trade.

As president of the Board of Trade, Churchill joined newly appointed Chancellor David Lloyd George in opposing the expansion of the British Navy. He introduced several reforms for the prison system, introduced the first minimum wage and helped set up labor exchanges and unemployment insurance.

Churchill also assisted in the passing of the People's Budget, which introduced taxes on the wealthy to pay for new social welfare programs. The budget passed in the House of Commons in 1909 and was initially defeated in the House of Lords before being passed in 1910.

In January 1911, Churchill showed his tougher side when he made a controversial visit to a police siege in London, with two alleged robbers holed up in a building.

Churchill's degree of participation is still in some dispute: Some accounts have him going to the scene only to see for himself what was going on; others state that he allegedly gave directions to police on how to best storm the building.

What is known is that the house caught fire during the siege and Churchill prevented the fire brigade from extinguishing the flames, stating that he thought it better to "let the house burn down," rather than risk lives rescuing the occupants. The bodies of the two robbers were later found inside the charred ruins.

Wife and Children

In 1908, Winston Churchill married Clementine Ogilvy Hozier after a short courtship.

The couple had five children together: Diana, Randolph, Sarah, Marigold (who died as a toddler of tonsillitis) and Mary.

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First Lord of the Admiralty

Named First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, Churchill helped modernize the British Navy, ordering that new warships be built with oil-fired instead of coal-fired engines.

He was one of the first to promote military aircraft and set up the Royal Navy Air Service. He was so enthusiastic about aviation that he took flying lessons himself to understand firsthand its military potential.

Churchill also drafted a controversial piece of legislation to amend the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, mandating sterilization of the feeble-minded. The bill, which mandated only the remedy of confinement in institutions, eventually passed in both houses of Parliament.

World War I

Churchill remained in his post as First Lord of the Admiralty through the start of World War I , but was forced out for his part in the disastrous Battle of Gallipoli . He resigned from the government toward the end of 1915.

For a brief period, Churchill rejoined the British Army, commanding a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front and seeing action in "no man's land."

In 1917, he was appointed minister of munitions for the final year of the war, overseeing the production of tanks, airplanes and munitions.

After World War I

From 1919 to 1922, Churchill served as minister of war and air and colonial secretary under Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

As colonial secretary, Churchill was embroiled in another controversy when he ordered air power to be used on rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq, a British territory. At one point, he suggested that poisonous gas be used to put down the rebellion, a proposal that was considered but never enacted.

Fractures in the Liberal Party led to the defeat of Churchill as a member of Parliament in 1922, and he rejoined the Conservative Party. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, returning Britain to the gold standard, and took a hard line against a general labor strike that threatened to cripple the British economy.

With the defeat of the Conservative government in 1929, Churchill was out of government. He was perceived as a right-wing extremist, out of touch with the people.

In the 1920s, after his ouster from government, Churchill took up painting. “Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time,” he later wrote.

Churchill went on to create over 500 paintings, typically working en plein air , though also practicing with still lifes and portraits. He claimed that painting helped him with his powers of observation and memory.

Sutherland Portrait

Churchill himself was the subject of a famous - and famously controversial - portrait by renowned artist Graham Sutherland.

Commissioned in 1954 by members of Parliament to mark Churchill's 80th birthday, the portrait was first unveiled in a public ceremony in Westminster Hall, where it met with considerable derision and laughter.

The unflattering modernist painting was reportedly loathed by Churchill and members of his family. Churchill's wife Clementine had the Sutherland portrait secretly destroyed in a bonfire several months after it was delivered to their country estate, Chartwell , in Kent.

'Wilderness Years'

Through the 1930s, known as his "wilderness years," Churchill concentrated on his writing, publishing a memoir and a biography of the First Duke of Marlborough.

During this time, he also began work on his celebrated A History of the English-Speaking Peoples , though it wouldn't be published for another two decades.

As activists in 1930s India clamored for independence from British rule, Churchill cast his lot with opponents of independence. He held particular scorn for Mahatma Gandhi , stating that "it is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer ... striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace ... to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."

• World War II

Although Churchill didn't initially see the threat posed by Adolf Hitler 's rise to power in the 1930s, he gradually became a leading advocate for British rearmament.

By 1938, as Germany began controlling its neighbors, Churchill had become a staunch critic of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain 's policy of appeasement toward the Nazis.

On September 3, 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the war cabinet; by April 1940, he became chairman of the Military Coordinating Committee.

Later that month, Germany invaded and occupied Norway, a setback for Chamberlain, who had resisted Churchill's proposal that Britain preempt German aggression by unilaterally occupying vital Norwegian iron mines and seaports.

Prime Minister

On May 10, 1940, Chamberlain resigned and King George VI appointed Churchill as prime minister and minister of defense.

Within hours, the German army began its Western Offensive, invading the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Two days later, German forces entered France. As clouds of war darkened over Europe, Britain stood alone against the onslaught.

Churchill was to serve as prime minister of Great Britain from 1940 to 1945, leading the country through World War II until Germany’s surrender.

Battle of Britain

Quickly, Churchill formed a coalition cabinet of leaders from the Labor, Liberal and Conservative parties. He placed intelligent and talented men in key positions.

On June 18, 1940, Churchill made one of his iconic speeches to the House of Commons, warning that "the Battle of Britain " was about to begin. Churchill kept resistance to Nazi dominance alive and created the foundation for an alliance with the United States and the Soviet Union.

Churchill had previously cultivated a relationship with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, and by March 1941, he was able to secure vital U.S. aid through the Lend Lease Act , which allowed Britain to order war goods from the United States on credit.

After the United States entered World War II in December 1941, Churchill was confident that the Allies would eventually win the war. In the months that followed, Churchill worked closely with Roosevelt and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to forge an Allied war strategy and postwar world.

In a meeting in Tehran (1943), at the Yalta Conference (1945) and the Potsdam Conference (1945), Churchill collaborated with the two leaders to develop a united strategy against the Axis Powers and helped craft the postwar world with the United Nations as its centerpiece.

As the war wound down, Churchill proposed plans for social reforms in Britain but was unable to convince the public. Despite Germany's surrender on May 7, 1945, Churchill was defeated in the general election in July 1945.

'Iron Curtain' Speech

In the six years after Churchill’s defeat, he became the leader of the opposition party and continued to have an impact on world affairs.

In March 1946, while on a visit to the United States, he made his famous "Iron Curtain" speech , warning of Soviet domination in Eastern Europe. He also advocated that Britain remain independent from European coalitions.

With the general election of 1951, Churchill returned to government. He became prime minister for the second time in October 1951 and served as minister of defense between October 1951 and March 1952.

Churchill went on to introduce reforms such as the Mines and Quarries Act of 1954, which improved working conditions in mines, and the Housing Repairs and Rent Act of 1955, which established standards for housing.

These domestic reforms were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises in the colonies of Kenya and Malaya, where Churchill ordered direct military action. While successful in putting down the rebellions, it became clear that Britain was no longer able to sustain its colonial rule.

Nobel Prize

In 1953, Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II .

The same year, he was named the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature for "his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values," according to the Nobel Prize committee.

Churchill died on January 24, 1965, at age 90, in his London home nine days after suffering a severe stroke. Britain mourned for more than a week.

Churchill had shown signs of fragile health as early as 1941 when he suffered a heart attack while visiting the White House. Two years later, he had a similar attack while battling a bout of pneumonia.

In June 1953, at age 78, he endured a series of strokes at his office. That particular news was kept from the public and Parliament, with the official announcement stating that he had suffered from exhaustion.

Churchill recuperated at home and returned to his work as prime minister in October. However, it was apparent even to the great statesman that he was physically and mentally slowing down, and he retired as prime minister in 1955. Churchill remained a member of Parliament until the general election of 1964 when he did not seek reelection.

There was speculation that Churchill suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his final years, though medical experts pointed to his earlier strokes as the likely cause of reduced mental capacity.

Despite his poor health, Churchill was able to remain active in public life, albeit mostly from the comfort of his homes in Kent and Hyde Park Gate in London.

As with other influential world leaders, Churchill left behind a complicated legacy.

Honored by his countrymen for defeating the dark regime of Hitler and the Nazi Party , he topped the list of greatest Britons of all time in a 2002 BBC poll, outlasting other luminaries like Charles Darwin and William Shakespeare .

To critics, his steadfast commitment to British imperialism and his withering opposition to independence for India underscored his disdain for other races and cultures.

Churchill Movies and Books

Churchill has been the subject of numerous portrayals on the big and small screen over the years, with actors from Richard Burton to Christian Slater taking a crack at capturing his essence. John Lithgow delivered an acclaimed performance as Churchill in the Netflix series The Crown , winning an Emmy for his work in 2017.

That year also brought the release of two biopics: In June, Brian Cox starred in the titular role of Churchill , about the events leading up to the World War II invasion of Normandy. Gary Oldman took his turn by undergoing an eye-popping physical transformation to become the iconic statesman in Darkest Hour .

Churchill's standing as a towering figure of the 20th century is such that his two major biographies required multiple authors and decades of research between volumes. William Manchester published volume 1 of The Last Lion in 1983 and volume 2 in 1986, but died while working on part 3; it was finally completed by Paul Reid in 2012.

The official biography, Winston S. Churchill , was begun by the former prime minister's son Randolph in the early 1960s; it passed on to Martin Gilbert in 1968, and then into the hands of an American institution, Hillsdale College , some three decades later. In 2015, Hillsdale published volume 18 of the series.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Winston Churchill
• Birth Year: 1874
• Birth date: November 30, 1874
• Birth City: Blenheim Palace, Woodstock
• Birth Country: England
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Winston Churchill was a British military leader and statesman. Twice named prime minister of Great Britain, he helped to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II.
• World Politics
• Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
• Harrow School
• Brunswick School
• Royal Military College (Academy) at Sandhurst
• St. George's School
• Interesting Facts
• Winston Churchill was a prolific writer and author and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.
• Churchill was a son of a British statesman father and an American socialite mother.
• In 1963 President JFK bestowed Churchill honorary U.S. citizenship, the first time a president gave such an award to a foreign national.
• Death Year: 1965
• Death date: January 24, 1965
• Death City: Hyde Park Gate, London
• Death Country: England

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Winston Churchill Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/winston-churchill
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: January 22, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
• I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
• Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
• A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
• Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities ... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
• From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

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Winston Churchill’s Childhood and Early Education

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was born on November 30, 1874, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, into the influential and aristocratic family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer-Churchill family, in the closely knit inner circle of Victorian society. Winston S. Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a direct descendent of John Churchill, the man who became first Duke of Marlborough early in the eighteenth century after fighting for king and country against Louis XIV of France during the War of Spanish Succession. In light of John Churchill’s deeds, parliament granted him the money to build a family seat, henceforth known as Blenheim Palace, which was named after his greatest victory . i Winston S. Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, was born to Leonard W. Jerome, a New York financier, avid horse-racing fan, ii and partial owner of the New York Times . iii It was rather common in the late nineteenth century for British aristocrats to marry American heiresses, as the women often arrived with sizeable wealth.

Soon after Winston was born, the family moved. Churchill called Dublin, Ireland, his home from ages two to six while he lived with his grandfather who served as Viceroy of Ireland and employed Churchill’s father as his private secretary. It was here in Dublin that Winston Churchill’s little brother, Jack, was born and Churchill began the earliest stages of his education in which his governess instructed him in those noble pursuits of history, literature, writing, and mathematics.

The family traveled between homes often, moving from Ireland to the Isle of Wight off England’s southern coast to Blenheim Palace and to London. Reportedly, the relationship between Churchill’s parents took a downward turn, and his mother was absent for a large portion of his childhood. According to some reports, Jennie Churchill found solace in the company of other men, considering that her husband was syphilitic, a fact Churchill did not know until his father was near death. After he died, Jennie married twice, and both men proved unsuitable partners. In 1899, she married a man twenty years younger than herself, and after a divorce, she married again in 1917 to another man twenty years her junior. When she died in 1922, Churchill said, “All the sunshine and storm of life was over,” perfectly exemplifying the difficult and disruptive life they had lived together as mother and son. iv

As he was often separated from his parents, Churchill developed a strong and close relationship with his nanny, Mrs. Elizabeth Everest, 1 to whom he fondly referred as “Old Woom” or “Woomany.” He later said, “Mrs. Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants.” v Their relationship grew into a close friendship as Winston S. Churchill grew older, and he was the only member of his family to visit her when he learned that she was gravely ill of peritonitis in 1895. Leaving his military duties, he brought a doctor and a nurse to her deathbed. Upon her death, Churchill arranged her funeral, provided the tombstone for her grave, and paid for its continued upkeep. “She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole twenty years I had lived,” he said. vi “I shall never know such a friend again.” vii Everest had served as his comrade, nurse, and motherly figure. In a letter to his mother, Churchill wrote, “I feel very low, and I find I never realized how much old Woom meant to me.” viii He kept her memory alive, though. In his bedroom hung a picture of her until he died; as with many children of the Victorian aristocracy, Winston found a real mother figure in his nanny, rather than in his biological mother. Now, The Churchill Centre and the Churchill family keep attention to the grave of Mrs. Elizabeth Everest, making sure that Churchill’s efforts to care for his childhood nanny did not cease. ix

Growing older, Winston passed the age of in-home learning and moved toward boarding school. During his childhood education, Churchill maintained a poor academic record. He attended three schools: St. George’s School in Berkshire; Brunswick School (since renamed Stoke Brunswick School) in Hove; and Harrow School.

In 1882, as befitted his family’s wealth and social standing, Winston Churchill packed up his belongings and was shipped off to St. George’s boarding school a few weeks before his eighth birthday. Therefore, he moved from receiving education from a governess to learning from St. George’s. Regarding his early educational system, Churchill said, “It appeared that I was to go away from home for many weeks at a stretch in order to do lessons under new masters … Now it was to be all lessons.” After two years with St. George’s, Churchill transferred to The Misses Thomson’s Preparatory School. Here, he found more interest in subjects such as French, horseback riding, poetry, and swimming. x

From an early age, Winston expressed a heavy interest in military history and affairs. His earliest surviving letter comprises a military scene filled with flags, castles, and toy soldiers, which Churchill particularly loved and collected. He amassed an army of around fifteen hundred Napoleonic-era toy soldiers, which he played with often during his self-simulated battles. Therefore, it was no surprise that Churchill began his military career soon after entering Harrow School xi in April of 1888. A month after starting at Harrow, he joined the Harrow Rifle Corps, which formed in 1859 as an affiliate of the Middlesex Regiment. xii An old Harrow song “Left, Right” proceeds as follows:

Young Brown he was a little boy

and barely four foot four

But his manly bosom yearned to join

the Harrow Rifle Corps.

So he went to see the Sergeant

and he made a grand salute.

And he said says he, I want to be

a volunteer recruit.

Winston Churchill began developing military skills—riding, gunmanship, and fencing—here at Harrow. Churchill especially loved the days when the Corps held “field days,” or mock battles when he was able to put his mind and mettle to the test. In 1892, Churchill won the Public Schools Championship for his excellence in these fields . xiii

Although Churchill excelled in the military aspect of his education, he did not particularly exceed in other areas right away. Speaking of his Harrow Latin entrance exam, Churchill recalled, “I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question, ‘1.’ After much reflection I put a bracket around it, thus, ‘(1).’ But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true. Incidentally, there arrived from nowhere in particular a blot and several smudges. I gazed for two whole hours at this sad spectacle; and then merciful ushers collected up my piece of foolscap and carried it up to the Headmaster’s table.” xiv

He entered Harrow with low expectations, a stutter, and a lisp, yet he never let these obstacles overcome his fondness for the English language. xv The master of the school, Robert Somervell, taught English in a way that appealed to Winston. Churchill wrote, “Thus, I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence—which is a noble thing. And when in after years my schoolfellows who had won prizes and distinctions for writing such beautiful Latin poetry had come down to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage.” xvi Despite his achievements and success in military matters, Churchill later revealed that he would have preferred to skip Harrow altogether. Churchill said, “In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.” xvii It was likely determined beforehand, though, that the child of Lord Randolph Churchill would not be turned away from Harrow, regardless of his poor exam results.

While probably not the underlying reason for his failures in school, Churchill’s strained relationship with his parents certainly did not encourage his studies. In fact, Churchill’s mother rarely visited him even though he wrote her letters, asking her to come see him at Harrow or allow him to go home. xviii In 1890, young Churchill’s mother wrote, “I had built up such hopes about you and felt so proud of you—and now all is gone … your work is an insult to your intelligence. If you would only trace out a plan of action for yourself and carry it out and be determined to do so—I am sure you could accomplish anything you wished.” xix

It was at Harrow that Churchill’s abilities as an orator grew. Although Churchill had a lateral lisp that plagued his career, the matter remains that his skills as a speaker are well-established. xx At Harrow, Churchill entered a competition in which he recited from memory 1200 lines of Lays of Ancient Rome , a long Macaulay poem. xxi

Due to Churchill’s interest in the military, his father determined that his son would join the army, and Winston Churchill accepted this instruction and set about following through with this goal. The next year, Churchill enrolled in the army class at Harrow, and he placed all his efforts in gaining entry in the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. xxii Thankfully, the army’s requirements fell at a lower rate than those for Home, Diplomatic, or Indian Civil services. xxiii Regardless of his low expectations in school, Churchill geared toward the political realm, and his career in the military helped him reach his goals. While at Harrow, he told his friend Murland Evans, “I tell you I shall be in command of the defenses in London … In the high position I shall occupy, it will fall to me to save the Capital and save the Empire.” xxiv Even at this early age, Churchill began plotting for his place as prime minister.

On his third attempt to pass the Sandhurst exam, Winston finally scored high enough to achieve entrance. After failing the second part twice, he left Harrow to study with Captain Walter James who professionally trained young men for the Sandhurst exam. Thankfully, his skills helped Churchill enter Sandhurst at age eighteen in 1893. xxv

Make sure to check out our latest book on Winston Churchill:

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1  “Mrs.” was an honorary title, as Elizabeth Everest never married.

i  Keegan, John. Winston Churchill . 2002.

ii  Nicholas, Herbert G. “Sir Winston Churchill.” Encyclopaedia Britannica . https://www.britannica.com/biography/Winston-Churchill. Accessed 21 May 2017.

iii  Keegan, John. Winston Churchill . 2002.

iv  Keegan, John. Winston Churchill . 2002.

v  “Winston’s Nanny.” National Churchill Museum . https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-nanny.html. Accessed 21 May 2017.

vi  Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. 1930.

vii  “Winston’s Nanny.” National Churchill Museum . https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/winston-churchill-nanny.html. Accessed 21 May 2017.

viii  Keegan, John. Winston Churchill . 2002.

ix  “The Life of Churchill: Child.” International Churchill Society . https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child. Accessed 21 May 2017.

x  “The Life of Churchill: School Years.” International Churchill Society . https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/school-years. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xi  Harrow School was founded in 1572 under a Royal Charter granted by Elizabeth I.

xii  “Lt. Churchill: 4 th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society . http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xiii  “Lt. Churchill: 4 th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society . http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xiv  Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. 1930.

xv  Sheldon, Michael. Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill . 2013.

xvi  Keegan, John. Winston Churchill . 2002.

xvii  Churchill, Winston. My Early Life. 1930.

xviii  Jenkins, Roy. Churchill: A Biography . 2011.

xix “The Life of Churchill: Harrow School.” International Churchill Society. https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/harrow. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xx  “Winston Churchill: Stutterer.” University of Toronto . http://www.utstat.utoronto.ca/sharp/Churchill.htm. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxi  “The Life of Churchill: Harrow School.” International Churchill Society. https://www.winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/child/harrow. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxii  “Lt. Churchill: 4 th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society . http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxiii  Keegan, John. Winston Churchill . 2002.

xxiv  “Lt. Churchill: 4 th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society . http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

xxv  “Lt. Churchill: 4 th Queen’s Own Hussars.” International Churchill Society . http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/the-soldier/lt-churchill-4th-queens-own-hussars. Accessed 21 May 2017.

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Sir winston churchill: a biography, the aim of this page is to give a brief introduction to the career of sir winston churchill, and to reveal the main features of both the public and the private life of the most famous british prime minister of the twentieth century..

Winston Churchill was born into the privileged world of the British aristocracy on November 30, 1874. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a younger son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His mother, Jennie Jerome, was the daughter of an American business tycoon, Leonard Jerome.

Winston’s childhood was not a particularly happy one. Like many Victorian parents, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill were distant. The family Nanny, Mrs Everest, became a surrogate mother to Winston and his younger brother, John S Churchill.

The Soldier

After passing out of Sandhurst and gaining his commission in the 4th Hussars’ in February 1895, Churchill saw his first shots fired in anger during a semi-official expedition to Cuba later that year. He enjoyed the experience which coincided with his 21st birthday.

In 1897 Churchill saw more action on the North West Frontier of India, fighting against the Pathans. He rode his grey pony along the skirmish lines in full view of the enemy. “Foolish perhaps,” he told his mother, ” but I play for high stakes and given an audience there is no act too daring and too noble.” Churchill wrote about his experiences in his first book The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898). He soon became an accomplished war reporter, getting paid large sums for stories he sent to the press – something which did not make him popular with his senior officers.

Using his mother’s influence, Churchill got himself assigned to Kitchener’s army in Egypt. While fighting against the Dervishes he took part in the last great cavalry charge in English history – at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898.

The Politician

Churchill was first elected to parliament in 1900 shortly before the death of Queen Victoria. He took his seat in the House of Commons as the Conservative Member for Oldham in February 1901 and made his maiden speech four days later. But after only four years as a Conservative he crossed the floor and joined the Liberals, making the flamboyant gesture of sitting next to one of the leading radicals, David Lloyd George.

Churchill rose swiftly within the Liberal ranks and became a Cabinet Minister in 1908 – President of the Board of Trade. In this capacity and as Home Secretary (1910-11) he helped to lay the foundations of the post-1945 welfare state.

His parliamentary career was far from being plain sailing and he made a number of spectacular blunders, so much so that he was often accused of having genius without judgement. The chief setback of his career occurred in 1915 when, as First Lord of the Admiralty, he sent a naval force to the Dardanelles in an attempt to knock Turkey out of the war and to outflank Germany on a continental scale. The expedition was a disaster and it marked the lowest point in Churchill’s fortunes.

However, Churchill could not be kept out of power for long and Lloyd George, anxious to draw on his talents and to spike his critical guns, soon re-appointed him to high office. Their relationship was not always a comfortable one, particularly when Churchill tried to involve Britain in a crusade against the Bolsheviks in Russia after the Great War.

Between 1922 and 1924 Churchill left the Liberal Party and, after some hesitation, rejoined the Conservatives. Anyone could “rat”, he remarked complacently, but it took a certain ingenuity to “re-rat”. To his surprise, Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Stanley Baldwin, an office in which he served from 1924 to 1929. He was an ebullient if increasingly anachronistic figure, returning Britain to the Gold Standard and taking an aggressive part in opposing the General Strike of 1926.

After the Tories were defeated in 1929, Churchill fell out with Baldwin over the question of giving India further self-government. Churchill became more and more isolated in politics and he found the experience of perpetual opposition deeply frustrating. He also made further blunders, notably by supporting King Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936. Largely as a consequence of such errors, people did not heed Churchill’s dire warnings about the rise of Hitler and the hopelessness of the appeasement policy. After the Munich crisis, however, Churchill’s prophecies were seen to be coming true and when war broke out in September 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty. So, nearly twenty-five years after he had left the post in pain and sorrow, the Navy sent out a signal to the Fleet: “Winston is back”.

The War Leader

For the first nine months of the conflict, Churchill proved that he was, as Admiral Fisher had once said, “a war man”. Chamberlain was not. Consequently the failures of the Norwegian Campaign were blamed on the pacific Prime Minister rather than the belligerent First Lord, and, when Chamberlain resigned after criticisms in the House of Commons, Churchill became leader of a coalition government. The date was May 10, 1940: it was Churchill’s, as well as Britain’s, finest hour.

When the German armies conquered France and Britain faced the Blitz, Churchill embodied his country’s will to resist. His oratory proved an inspiration. When asked exactly what Churchill did to win the war, Clement Attlee, the Labour leader who served in the coalition government, replied: “Talk about it.” Churchill talked incessantly, in private as well as in public – to the astonishment of his private secretary, Jock Colville, he once spent an entire luncheon addressing himself exclusively to the marmalade cat.

Churchill devoted much of his energy to trying to persuade President Roosevelt to support him in the war. He wrote the President copious letters and established a strong personal relationship with him. And he managed to get American help in the Atlantic, where until 1943 Britain’s lifeline to the New World was always under severe threat from German U-Boats.

Despite Churchill’s championship of Edward VIII, and despite his habit of arriving late for meetings with the neurotically punctual King at Buckingham Palace, he achieved good relations with George VI and his family. Clementine once said that Winston was the last surviving believer in the divine right of kings.

As Churchill tried to forge an alliance with the United States, Hitler made him the gift of another powerful ally – the Soviet Union. Despite his intense hatred of the Communists, Churchill had no hesitation in sending aid to Russia and defending Stalin in public. “If Hitler invaded Hell,” he once remarked, “I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

In December 1941, six months after Hitler had invaded Russia, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The war had now become a global one. But with the might of America on the Allied side there could be no doubt about its outcome. Churchill was jubilant, remarking when he heard the news of Pearl Harbor: “So we have won after all!”

However, America’s entry into the war also caused Churchill problems; as he said, the only thing worse than fighting a war with allies is fighting a war without them. At first, despite disasters such as the Japanese capture of Singapore early in 1942, Churchill was able to influence the Americans. He persuaded Roosevelt to fight Germany before Japan, and to follow the British strategy of trying to slit open the “soft underbelly” of Europe. This involved the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy – the last of which proved to have a very well armoured belly.

It soon became apparent that Churchill was the littlest of the “Big Three”. At the Teheran Conference in November, 1943, he said, the “poor little English donkey” was squeezed between the great Russian bear and the mighty American buffalo, yet only he knew the way home.

In June 1944 the Allies invaded Normandy and the Americans were clearly in command. General Eisenhower pushed across Northern Europe on a broad front. Germany was crushed between this advance and the Russian steamroller. On May 8, 1945 Britain accepted Germany’s surrender and celebrated Victory in Europe Day. Churchill told a huge crowd in Whitehall: “This is your victory.” The people shouted: “No, it is yours”, and Churchill conducted them in the singing of Land of Hope and Glory. That evening he broadcast to the nation urging the defeat of Japan and paying fulsome homage to the Crown.

From all over the world Churchill received telegrams of congratulations, and he himself was generous with plaudits, writing warmly to General de Gaulle whom he regarded as an awkward ally but a bastion against French Communism. But although victory was widely celebrated throughout Britain, the war in the Far East had a further three months to run. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally brought the global conflict to a conclusion. But at the pinnacle of military victory, Churchill tasted the bitterness of political defeat.

The Elder Statesman

Churchill expected to win the election of 1945. Everything pointed to his victory, from the primitive opinion polls to the cartoons in newspapers and the adulation Churchill received during the campaign, but he did not conduct it well. From the start he accused the Labour leaders – his former colleagues – of putting party before country and he later said that Socialists could not rule without a political police, a Gestapo. As it happened, such gaffes probably made no difference. The political tide was running against the Tories and towards the party which wholeheartedly favoured a welfare state – the reward for war-time sacrifices. But Churchill was shocked by the scale of his defeat. When Clementine, who wanted him to retire from politics, said that it was perhaps a blessing in disguise, Churchill replied that the blessing was certainly very effectively disguised. For a time he lapsed into depression, which sympathetic letters from friends did little to dispel.

Soon, however, Churchill re-entered the political arena, taking an active part in political life from the opposition benches and broadcasting again to the nation after the victory over Japan. In defeat Churchill had always been defiant, but in victory he favoured magnanimity. Within a couple of years he was calling for a partnership between a “spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany” as the basis for the re-creation of “the European family”. He was more equivocal about Britain’s role in his proposed “United States of Europe”, and, while the embers of the World War II were still warm, he announced the start of the Cold War. At Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, he pointed to the new threat posed by the Soviet Union and declared that an iron curtain had descended across Europe. Only by keeping the alliance between the English-speaking peoples strong, he maintained, could Communist tyranny be resisted.

After losing another election in 1950, Churchill gained victory at the polls the following year. Publicly he called for “several years of quiet steady administration”. Privately he declared that his policy was “houses, red meat and not getting scuppered”. This he achieved. But after suffering a stroke and the failure of his last hope of arranging a Summit with the Russians, he resigned from the premiership in April 1955.

“I am ready to meet my Maker,” Churchill had said on his seventy-fifth birthday; “whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter”. Churchill remained a member of parliament, though an inactive one, and announced his retirement from politics in 1963. This took effect at the general election the following year. Churchill died on 24 January 1965 – seventy years to the day after the death of his father. He received the greatest state funeral given to a commoner since that of the Duke of Wellington. He was buried in Bladon churchyard beside his parents and within sight of his birthplace, Blenheim Palace.

The Family Man

In the autumn of 1908 Churchill, then a rising Liberal politician, married Clementine Hozier, granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. Their marriage was to prove a long and happy one, though there were often quarrels – Clementine once threw a dish of spinach at Winston (it missed). Clementine was high principled and highly strung; Winston was stubborn and ambitious. His work invariably came first, though, partly as a reaction against his own upbringing, he was devoted to his children.

Winston and Clementine’s first child, Diana, was born in 1909. Diana was a naughty little girl and continued to cause her parents great distress as an adult. In 1932 she married John Bailey, but the marriage was unsuccessful and they divorced in 1935. In that year she married the Conservative politician, Duncan Sandys, and they had three children. That marriage also proved a failure. Diana had several nervous breakdowns and in 1963 she committed suicide.

The Churchills’ second child and only son, Randolph, was born in 1911. He was exceptionally handsome and rumbustious, and his father was very ambitious for him. During the 1930s Randolph stood for parliament several times but he failed to get in, being regarded as a political maverick. He did serve as Conservative Member of Parliament for Preston between 1940 and 1945, and ultimately became an extremely successful journalist and began the official biography of his father during the 1960s.

Randolph was married twice, first in 1939 to Pamela Digby (later Harriman) by whom he had a son, Winston, and secondly in 1948 to June Osborne by whom he had a daughter, Arabella. Neither marriage was a success.

The life of Sarah, the Churchills’ third child, born in 1914, was no happier than that of her elder siblings. Amateur dramatics at Chartwell led her to take up a career on the stage which flourished for a time. Sarah’s charm and vitality were also apparent in her private life, but her first two marriages proved unsuccessful and she was widowed soon after her third. Her first husband was a music hall artist called Vic Oliver whom she married against her parents’ wishes. Her second was Anthony Beauchamp but this marriage did not last and after their separation he committed suicide.

In 1918 Clementine Churchill gave birth to a third girl, Marigold. But in 1921, shortly after the deaths of both Clementine’s brother and Winston’s mother, Marigold contracted septicaemia whilst on a seaside holiday with the childrens’ governess. When she died Winston was grief-stricken and, as his last private secretary recently disclosed in an autobiography, Clementine screamed like an animal undergoing torture.

The following September the Churchills’ fifth and last child, Mary, was born. Unlike her brother and older sisters, Mary was to cause her parents no major worries. Indeed she was a constant source of support, especially to her mother. In 1947 she married Christopher Soames; who was then Assistant Military Attaché in Paris and later had a successful parliamentary and diplomatic career. Theirs was to be a long and happy marriage. Over the years Christopher became a valued confidant and counsellor to his father-in-law. They had five children, the eldest of whom (Nicholas) became a prominent member of the Conservative party. Christopher Soames died in 1987.

The Private Man

Churchill’s enormous reserves of energy and his legendary ability to exist on very little sleep gave him time to pursue a wide variety of interests outside the world of politics.

Churchill loved gambling and lost what was, for him, a small fortune in the great crash of the American stock market in October 1929, causing a severe setback to the family finances. But he continued to write as a means of maintaining the style of life to which he had always been accustomed. Apart from his major works, notably his multi-volume histories of the First and Second World Wars and the Life of his illustrious ancestor John, first Duke of Marlborough, he poured forth speeches and articles for newspapers and magazines. His last big book was the History of the English-Speaking Peoples, which he had begun in 1938 and which was eventually published in the 1950s. In 1953 Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Churchill took up painting as an antidote to the anguish he felt over the Dardanelles disaster. Painting became a constant solace and preoccupation and he rarely spent a few days away from home without taking his canvas and brushes. Even during his tour of France’s Maginot Line in the middle of August 1939 Churchill managed to snatch a painting holiday with friends near Dreux.

In the summer of 1922, while on the lookout for a suitable country house, Churchill caught sight of a property near Westerham in Kent, and fell instantly in love with it. Despite Clementine’s initial lack of enthusiasm for the dilapidated and neglected house, with its overgrown and seemingly unmanageable grounds, Chartwell was to become a much-loved family home. Clementine, however, never quite overcame her resentment of the fact that Winston had been less than frank with her over the buying of Chartwell, and from time to time her feelings surfaced.

With typical enthusiasm, Churchill personally undertook many major works of construction at Chartwell such as a dam, a swimming pool, the building (largely with his own hands) of a red brick wall to surround the vegetable garden, and the re-tiling of a cottage at the bottom of the garden. In 1946 Churchill bought a farm adjoining Chartwell and subsequently derived much pleasure, though little profit, from farming.

Churchill was born into the world of hunting, shooting and fishing and throughout his life they were to prove spasmodic distractions. But it was hunting and polo, first learned as a young cavalry officer in India, that he enjoyed most of all.

In the summer of 1949, Churchill embarked on a new venture – he bought a racehorse. On the advice of Christopher Soames, he purchased a grey three-year-old colt, Colonist II. It was to be the first of several thoroughbreds in his small stud. They were registered in Lord Randolph’s colours – pink with chocolate sleeves and cap. (These have been adopted as the colours of Churchill College.) Churchill was made a member of the Jockey Club in 1950, and greatly relished the distinction.

Among Winston’s closest friends were Professor Lindemann and the “the three B’s” (none popular with Clementine), Birkenhead, Beaverbook, Bracken. The Churchills entertained widely, including among their guests Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein and Lawrence of Arabia. Churchill regularly holidayed with rich friends in the Mediterranean, spending several cruises in the late 1950s as the guest of Greek millionaire shipowner, Aristotle Onassis.

Editorial note

Much of the information presented here was originally compiled by Josephine Sykes, Monica Halpin and Victor Brown. It was edited by Allen Packwood.

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Winston Churchill: Illustrated Biography for Children : Inspiring Tales of a True Hero, Twice Prime Minister (Illustrated Biographies for Children) [Print Replica] Kindle Edition

Winston Churchill: Inspiring Tales of a True Hero, Twice Prime Minister

Join us on an inspiring journey through the life of Winston Churchill, a man of remarkable courage and leadership. From his early adventures as a young soldier and war correspondent to his pivotal role as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II, Churchill's story is one of resilience, determination, and unwavering commitment to his country and its people.

Through captivating illustrations and engaging storytelling, this children's biography brings Churchill's legacy to life. Learn about his famous speeches, his role in forming the Grand Alliance, and his contributions to post-war Europe and the Cold War. Discover how his courage and resilience continue to inspire people around the world today.

Click on "Look Inside" to read some sample pages and embark on an unforgettable journey through the life of Winston Churchill, a true hero and leader of his time.

• Reading age 6 - 12 years
• Part of series Illustrated Biographies for Children
• Language English
• Publication date March 3, 2024
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CW1HRVHX
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 3, 2024
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
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Nicole damon.

Nicole Damon is a multifaceted creative professional, skillfully blending her talents as an illustrator and writer. With a passion for drawing, reading, writing, and exploring the globe, she brings a unique perspective to her work. Nicole Damon is devoted to crafting visually stunning and engaging books for children, aiming to captivate their imaginations through her beautifully illustrated picture book

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What Happened To Winston Churchill's Kids?

He was stubborn, mercurial, and prejudiced even for his time, and his record as a peacetime statesman and leader is spotty at best. But Winston Churchill cut a singular figure in British and world history. As Gautam Mukunda argued in Forbes , the very traits that led Churchill so badly astray elsewhere were indispensable in the fight against Nazism. Leading that fight in Western Europe's bleakest moment is the sort of thing that leads posterity to accept a man's many flaws, even when they include unbridled contempt for people attempting to cast off the British empire.

 It was the sort of heroic achievement that Churchill's father, Lord Randolph, wouldn't have imagined him capable of. Per Josh Ireland's "Churchill & Son" (via The American Conservative ), Lord Randolph was a distant and uninvolved father who only spoke with his son to reprimand him. If he imagined any Churchill at 10 Downing Street, it was himself — Lord Randolph was a champion of Tory democracy and a strong contender for prime minister before he repelled needed allies and died relatively young from complications of syphilis. Churchill's mother wasn't much more attentive to him, writes the Churchill International Society . She had society functions and adultery to occupy her time.

Despite the distance between him and his parents, Churchill revered them and declared their neglect a blessing, though he took a different approach when he became a father. "[He] was an affectionate and devoted parent," the Society reports. But that didn't mean Churchill's children had an easier time navigating life than their father.

Diana Churchill

With his wife Clementine, Winston Churchill had five children — a son and four daughters. The eldest, Diana, was born on July 11, 1909 (per John Pearson's  "The Private Lives of Winston Churchill" ). As she came into the world, Churchill proudly told David Lloyd George, "She is the image of me." According to the International Churchill Society, Churchill was one to spoil his children, while Clementine acted as disciplinarian. Though both of them sought to be more involved than their own parents had been, Churchill's career and Clementine's devotion to him still came first, and the series of nannies who attended to Diane and her siblings had a mischievous brood on their hands.

When she wasn't acting out, Diane was a shy child, a trait that became more pronounced as she grew. Per Rachel Trethewey's "The Churchill Sisters" (via The History Reader ), she was closer to her father than her mother, who often inadvertently wounded her eldest daughter with sharp criticism. As an adult, Diana often accompanied and cheered up her father when Clementine was indisposed, and she shared his interest in politics. Churchill doted on her, but he never saw Diana as a potential heir to his political career on account of her sex.

While affectionate with her father, the introverted and sensitive Diana worried both her parents, according to the Churchill Archives Center . Both her marriages ended in divorce, though her union with Duncan Sandys (a devoted Churchill supporter) bore three children. She experienced a series of nervous breakdowns, through which she said her father was her greatest supporter. Diana would predecease Churchill, dying from suicide in 1963. She was 54.

Randolph Churchill

In "Churchill & Son," Josh Ireland imagines Winston Churchill looking at his only son, Randolph, and seeing all the best and worst of his own character. In Ireland's judgment, and that of other observers, the latter won out in Randolph. Born in 1911, he was every bit as misbehaved as his big sister had been. But where Diana developed into a nervous young woman, Randolph became, in John Pearson's estimation, a "monster" who alternately protected and terrorized the other children in the family. Ireland writes that he would confess to misdeeds he hadn't done just to show how little punishment meant to him.

Churchill was as indulgent with Randolph as he was with Diana and determined to make his boy a statesman in his mold. Randolph did serve in Parliament, though it took him four tries to get elected, and his time as an MP overlapped with his service as an intelligence officer during World War II . But his cruelty, failed marriages, and odious personality alienated even his father. According to the Daily Mail , Churchill allegedly once said of his son, "I love Randolph, but I don't like him."

Randolph's time in Parliament didn't extend past the war. Still unpleasant and reckless with money, he did demonstrate a gift for writing that he turned into a successful career as a journalist and author. Among his literary accomplishments were two volumes in his father's biography — for all their strife, he idolized his father. Per Jonathan Aitken's "Heroes and Contemporaries,"  Randolph was still working on the third volume when he died in 1968, aged 57.

Sarah Millicent Hermione Touchet-Jesson

There have been two women of note in the Churchill family named Sarah. The first, the Duchess of Marlborough, used her window of influence at court to advance the Whig agenda during the reign of Queen Anne. The second was the daughter Winston Churchill nicknamed "Mule" for her stubborn streak, according to John Pearson's "The Private Lives of Winston Churchill." Born in 1914, staffer Jane Portal said Sarah may have been Churchill's favorite child (via The Churchill Project ). Affection didn't stop him from trying to prevent her first marriage or from squabbling with her over the years. But even as he fought with his middle child, Churchill admired her willfulness (per UPI ).

One of Sarah's choices Churchill didn't object to was her profession. Both her parents were content for her to be an actress as long as she applied herself, and she had talent enough to take her to the West End, Broadway, and Hollywood in turn. Her most enduring work as an actress came in 1951 when she performed opposite Fred Astaire in "Royal Wedding." Ultimately, Sarah showed her patriotism by putting her career on hold during World War II to serve in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, and she accompanied her father to the Yalta Conference.

Outgoing and popular, Sarah — who friends feared was prone to self-destruction — struggled to find personal happiness. Her heavy drinking frequently got her in trouble with the law, and she lost two husbands to suicide and a heart attack, respectively. Sarah died herself in 1982, at 67, after a long struggle with an unspecified internal condition.

Marigold Churchill

The fourth of Winston Churchill's children was born on November 15, 1918, just after the armistice ended World War I. Per Martin Gilbert's "Churchill: A Life,"  she was named Marigold and nicknamed "Duckadilly." Churchill considered her an affectionate and attentive child who checked in on him every morning. "[She] takes a great interest in everything that is said to her or shown to her," he wrote his wife Clementine on Valentine's Day 1921. But that August, Marigold fell ill with meningitis. She died of sepsis on the 23rd. She was a few months shy of her 3rd birthday.

Marigold's heartbroken parents initially had her buried in London's Kensal Green Cemetery. But as other members of her family died, they were buried at St. Martin's Church in Bladon, and Marigold's last surviving sibling, Mary Soames, sought to have her relocated to join the rest of the family. Soames herself died in 2014, and the legal process to have Marigold moved was long and complex. But in 2020, she was reinterred with her family at St Martin's, where she shares a headstone with her older sister Sarah. Her headstone in Kensal Green remains as a listed monument.

[Featured image by LordHarris via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled]

Mary Soames

The youngest of Winston Churchill's children is widely held to have had the happiest life. Mary Churchill, later Mary Soames after her marriage, was born on September 15, 1922. Much younger than all her surviving siblings, she was primarily raised at the Churchills' country home of Chartwell, with her mother's cousin Maryott Whyte as her primary caregiver. Per her New York Times obituary, her upbringing was full of Arcadian bliss and colorful visitors. As a teenager, she began taking annual skiing trips with her mother, and the two of them remained close.

Without telling her father, Mary enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service during World War II and saw action in London and the continent. She later traveled with her father to the Potsdam conference. Churchill allegedly once hoped to arrange Mary's marriage to Prince Charles, Count of Flanders and regent of Belgium, but she instead married Christopher Soames in 1947. She supported her husband in his long career as a politician and diplomat. They had five children.

Having never seriously pursued writing before, Mary launched into a literary career in 1979 with a biography of her mother. She went on to write several more books about her family, the last being "A Daughter's Tale" in 2011. Mary also served controversially as chairman of the board of trustees for the Royal National Theatre and patronized various organizations connected to her family's legacy. She died in 2014 at age 91.

Winston Churchill

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