Winston Churchill

The Rt Hon. Sir Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill
Periods in Office:	10 May 1940 to 27 July 1945 26 October 1951 to April 7, 1955
PM Predecessors:	Neville Chamberlain Clement Attlee
PM Successors:	Clement Attlee Anthony Eden
Birth:	30 November 1874
Place of Birth:	Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England
Death:	24 January 1965
Place of Death:	London
Political Party:	As PM:Conservative Party (UK) Also: Liberal Party (UK)

The Right Honourable Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG,OM,CH,FRS,PC (30 November 1874 -24 January 1965) was a British statesman, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. At various times a soldier, journalist, author and politician, Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in British and world history. He won the 1953 Nobel Prize in literature.

Churchill's legal surname was Spencer-Churchill, but starting with his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, his branch of the family always used just the name Churchill in public life.

Early life

Born at Blenheim Palace, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire. Winston Churchill was a descendant of the first famous member of the Churchill family, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Winston's politician father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was the third son of the John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough; Winston's mother was Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome. Neither parent showed young Winston much affection or love but he greatly admired his father and was also influenced towards politics as a result of his distinguished but short career.

Churchill spent much of his childhood at boarding schools, including the Headmaster's House at Harrow School, one of the most prestigious private schools in the United Kingdom. He famously sat the entrance exam but on confronting the latin paper he carefully wrote the title, his name and the number 1 followed by a dot and could not think of anything else to write. He was accepted despite this (doubt has been cast on even the grandson of a Duke could be admitted to Harrow without any Latin), but placed in the bottom division where they were primarily taught English which he excelled at. Today at Harrow there is an annual Churchill essay prize on a subject chosen by the head of the english department. He was rarely visited by his mother, whom he virtually worshipped, despite his letters begging her to either come or let his father permit him to come home. He had a distant relationship with his father despite keenly following his father's career. Once, in 1886, he is reported to have proclaimed "My daddy is Chancellor of the Exchequer and one day that's what I'm going to be." His desolate, lonely childhood stayed with him throughout his life.

He was very close to his nurse, Elizabeth Ann Everest (nicknamed "Woom" by Churchill), and was deeply saddened when she died on July 3, 1895. Churchill paid for her gravestone at the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium.

Churchill did badly at Harrow, regularly being punished for poor work and lack of effort. His nature was independent and rebellious and he failed to achieve much academically, failing some of the same courses numerous times despite showing great ability in other areas such as maths and history, in both of which he was placed at times at the top of his class. His refusal to study the classics undermined any chance of success at a school like Harrow and University admission was not an option for him. He always regretted this and later called 189607, when he was in India, the of the University of his life as he read widely, including Schopenhauer, Malthus, Darwin, Aristotle (on politics), Henry Fawcett's Political Economy, William Lecky's European Morals and Rise and Influence of Rationalism, Pascal's Provincial Letters, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Liang's Modern Science and Modern Thought, Rochefort's Memoirs and Hallam's Constitutional History and one hundred volumes of the Annual Register covering the last one humdred years of parliamentary debates (in the UK). [1].

The view of Churchill as a failure at school is one which he himself propagated, probably due to his father's intense dislike of the young Winston and his obvious readiness to label his son a disappointment. He did, however, become the school's fencing champion. He almost certainly protested too loudly about his academic abilities but this was part of the literary style he had developed.

Young Churchill

After being educated at Harrow he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He already had political ambition but knew that in order to stand a chance in politics he needed money and a reputation. The military, with the possibility of distinguishing himself in action, would provide the second while journalism and writing would provide the first. He appears to have had an uncanny presience of his own future role and destiny. In a conversation that took place in 1891 while still at Harrow with his contemporary Sir Murland Evans about their ambitions, Churchill (then 16) remarked 'I can see vast changes coming over a now peaceful world; great upheavals, terrible struggles, wars such as one cannot imagine ... London will be attacked and I will be very prominent in the defence of London' (see his grandson's speech, [2]). Few in 1891 would think an attack on London a remote possibility and for Churchill to have foreseen his future role in the defence of Britain is truly remarkable. He enjoyed Sandhurst, made more friends there than he had at school and graduated eighth out of one hundred and fifty, an achievement of which he deceased father would have been proud. he spent his last three years at Harrow in the Army class. Churchill himself wrote, 'I passed out eighth in my batch of a hundred and fifty. I mention this because it shows that I could learn quickly enough the things that mattered' (1996: 59). Churchill joined the Fourth Hussars in 1895 and saw action on the Indian north-west frontier and in the Sudan where he took part in the Battle of Omdurman (1898). He chose cavalry, qualifying for a cadetship because he loved horses and there was actually less competition to join, since it cost more than the infantry (1996: 35). He commented that once he had become a gentlemen cadet, he 'acquired a new status' in his father's eyes' (45). However, when he suggested that he might assist him as his private secretary, he 'froze me into stone' (46). He volunteered for service in places were action was likely not because he wanted to place himself at risk but to further his personal agenda and to quench his thirst for adventure (80). In 1895 he went to Cuba while on leave as a military observer during the Spanish-Cuban war at the invitation of the Spanish government, who awarded him the Cruz Rosa (Red Cross) medal. He also paid his first visit to the US where he was hosted by one of his mother's friends, who introduced him to New York society. [3]. Hed first started smoking cigars in Cuba. Next he served in India, where he hoped that there might be a 'mutiny or a revolt' to deal with (44). There, he saw action against the Pathans on the North West Frontier, then in 1898 he joined the 21st Lancers and fought at Omdurman in Sudan under Kitchener in what has been described as the last cavalry charge. He reported this for the Morning Post.

While in the army Churchill supplied military reports for the Daily Graphic, The Pioneer and the Daily Telegraph, starting from Cuba and wrote books such as The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898) and The River War (1899). After leaving the British Army in 1899, Churchill worked as a war correspondent for the Morning Post. While reporting the Boer War in South Africa he was taken prisoner by the Boers but made headline news when he escaped. On returning to England he wrote about his experiences in the book, London to Ladysmith (1900). He became someting of a national hero, which was just what he wanted to achieve in order to seek nomination as a prosective parliamentary candidate, or, as he put it, 'forge his sword into a despatch box'. One of his main ambitions was to achieve something significant while still young and he despaired that leadership was always in the hands of old men. Ironically, he was when he achieved the highest office.

commanded a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front.

Ministerial office

In the 1906 general election, Churchill won a seat in Manchester. In the Liberal government of Henry Campbell-Bannerman he served as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Churchill soon became the most prominent member of the Government outside the Cabinet, and when Campbell-Bannerman was succeeded by Herbert Henry Asquith in 1908, it came as little surprise when Churchill was promoted to the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister was obliged to seek re-election at a by-election. Churchill lost his Manchester seat to the Conservative William Joynson-Hicks but was soon elected in another by-election at Dundee. As President of the Board of Trade he pursued radical social reforms in conjunction with David Lloyd George, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In 1910 Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, where he was to prove somewhat controversial. A famous photograph from the time shows the impetuous Churchill taking personal charge of the January 1911 Sidney Street Siege, peering around a corner to view a gun battle between cornered anarchists and Scots Guards. His role attracted much criticism. The building under siege caught fire. Churchill denied the fire brigade access, forcing the criminals to choose surrender or death. Arthur Balfour asked, "He [Churchill] and a photographer were both risking valuable lives. I understand what the photographer was doing but what was the Right Honourable gentleman doing?"

In 1911, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he would hold into the First World War. He gave impetus to military reform efforts, including development of naval aviation, tanks, and the switch in fuel from coal to oil, a massive engineering task, also reliant on securing Mesopotamia's oil rights, bought circa 1907 through the secret service using the Royal Burmah Oil Company as a front company. The development of the battle tank was financed from naval research funds via the Landships Committee, and, although a decade later development of the battle tank would be seen as a stroke of genius, at the time it was seen as misappropriation of funds. The battle tank was deployed ineptly in 1915, much to Churchill's annoyance. He wanted a fleet of tanks used to surprised the Germans under cover of smoke, and to open a large section of the trenches by crushing barbed wire and creating a breakthrough sector.

However, he was also one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Gallipoli landings on the Dardanelles during World War I, which led to his description as "the butcher of Gallipoli". When Asquith formed an all-party coalition government, the Conservatives demanded Churchill's demotion as the price for entry. For several months Churchill served in the non-portfolio job of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, before resigning from the government feeling his energies were not being used. He rejoined the army, though remaining an MP, and served for several months on the Western Front. During this period his second in command was a young Archibald Sinclair who would later lead the Liberal Party.

Return to power

In December 1916, Asquith and the Conservative Party were ousted from power and were replaced by Lloyd George and the now ruling Liberal Party. However, the time was thought not yet right to risk the Conservatives' wrath by bringing Churchill back into government. However, in July 1917 Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions. After the end of the war Churchill served as both Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air (1919–1921). On the possible use of gas weapons (teargas) in quelling uprisings in the British mandated territories of the former Ottoman Empire, Churchill wrote:

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.

During this time (1919–21), he undertook with surprising zeal the cutting of military expenditure. However, the major preoccupation of his tenure in the War Office was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention, declaring that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". He secured from a divided and loosely organised Cabinet an intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation – and in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour. In 1920, after the last British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine. He became Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1921 and was a signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 which established the Irish Free State.

Career between the wars

In October 1922, Churchill underwent an operation to remove his appendix. Upon his return, he learned that the government had fallen and a General Election was looming. The Liberal Party was now beset by internal division and Churchill's campaign was weak. He lost his seat at Dundee to prohibitionist, Edwin Scrymgeour, quipping that he had lost his ministerial office, his seat and his appendix all at once. Churchill stood for the Liberals again in the 1923 general election, losing in Leicester, but over the next twelve months he moved towards the Conservative Party, though initially using the labels "Anti-Socialist" and "Constitutionalist". Two years later, in the General Election of 1924, he was elected to represent Epping (where there is now a statue of him) as a "Constitutionalist" with Conservative backing. The following year he formally rejoined the Conservative Party, commenting wryly that "Anyone can rat [change parties], but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat."

He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw the United Kingdom's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926. This decision prompted the economist John Maynard Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, correctly arguing that the return to the gold standard would lead to a world depression. Churchill later regarded this as one of the worst decisions of his life. To be fair to him, it must be noted that he was not an economist and that he acted on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, Montague Norman (of whom Keynes said: "Always so charming, always so wrong".)

During the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machineguns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and during the dispute he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country." Furthermore, he was to controversially claim that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing as it had "a way to combat subversive forces" – that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution.

The Conservative government was defeated in the 1929 General Election. In the next two years, Churchill became estranged from the Conservative leadership over the issues of protective tariffs and Indian Home Rule. When Ramsay MacDonald formed the National Government in 1931, Churchill was not invited to join the Cabinet. He was now at the lowest point in his career, in a period known as "the wilderness years". He spent much of the next few years concentrating on his writing, including Marlborough: His Life and Times – a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough – and A History of the English Speaking Peoples (which was not published until well after WWII). He became most notable for his outspoken opposition towards the granting of independence to India (see Simon Commission and Government of India Act 1935).

Soon, though, his attention was drawn to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the dangers of Germany's rearmament. For a time he was a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself and counter the belligerence of Germany. Churchill was a fierce critic of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. He was also an outspoken supporter of King Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis, leading to some speculation that he might be appointed Prime Minister if the King refused to take Baldwin's advice and consequently the government resigned. However, this did not happen, and Churchill found himself politically isolated and bruised for some time after this.

Role as wartime Prime Minister

At the outbreak of the Second World War Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In this job he proved to be one of the highest-profile ministers during the so-called "Phoney War", when the only noticeable action was at sea. Churchill advocated the pre-emptive occupation of the neutral Norwegian iron-ore port of Narvik and the iron mines in Kiruna, Sweden, early in the War. However, Chamberlain and the rest of the War Cabinet disagreed, and the operation was delayed until the German invasion of Norway, which was successful despite British efforts.

In May 1940, directly upon the German invasion of France by a surprising lightning advance through the Low Countries, it became clear that the country had no confidence in Chamberlain's prosecution of the war. Chamberlain resigned, and Churchill was appointed Prime Minister and formed an all-party government. In response to previous criticisms that there had been no clear single minister in charge of the prosecution of the war, he created and took the additional position of Minister of Defence. He immediately put his friend and confidant the industrialist and newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook in charge of aircraft production. It was Beaverbrook's astounding business acumen that allowed Britain to quickly gear up aircraft production and engineering that eventually made the difference in the war.

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Winston Churchill on the cover of TIME magazine (30 Sep. 1940).

Churchill's speeches were a great inspiration to the embattled United Kingdom. His first speech as Prime Minister was the famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat" speech. He followed that closely with two other equally famous ones, given just before the Battle of Britain. One included the immortal line, "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." The other included the equally famous "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", which engendered the enduring nickname "The Few" for the Allied fighter pilots who won it.

Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in 1943

His good relationship with Franklin D. Roosevelt secured the United Kingdom vital supplies via the North Atlantic Ocean shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected. Upon re-election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of not only providing military hardware to Britain without the need for monetary payment, but also of providing, free of fiscal charge, much of the shipping that transported the supplies. Put simply, Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the USA; and so Lend-lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic conferences with Roosevelt which covered the Atlantic Charter, Europe first strategy, the Declaration by the United Nations and other war policies. Churchill initiated the Special Operations Executive (SOE) under Hugh Dalton's Ministry of Economic Warfare, which established, conducted and fostered covert, subversive and partisan operations in occupied territories with notable success; and also the Commandos which established the pattern for most of the world's current Special Forces. The Russians referred to him as the "British Bulldog".

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Dwight D. Eisenhower with Winston Churchill during World War II

However, some of the military actions during the war remain controversial. Churchill was at best indifferent and perhaps complicit in the Great Bengal famine of 1943 which took the lives of at least 2.5 million Bengalis. Japanese troops were threatening British India after having successfully taken neighbouring British Burma. Some consider the British government's policy of denying effective famine relief a deliberate and callous scorched earth policy adopted in the event of a successful Japanese invasion. Churchill supported the bombing of Dresden shortly before the end of the war; Dresden was primarily a civilian target with many refugees from the East and was of allegedly little military value. However, the bombing was helpful to the allied Soviets.

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Churchill, Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference

Churchill was party to treaties that would redraw post-WWII European and Asian boundaries. These were discussed as early as 1943. Proposals for European boundaries and settlements were officially agreed to by Harry S. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at Potsdam.

The settlement concerning the borders of Poland, i.e. the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union and between Germany and Poland, was viewed as a betrayal in Poland during the post-war years, as it was established against the views of the Polish government in exile. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was the transfer of people, to match the national borders. As he expounded in the House of Commons in 1944, "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions." The transfers were in the end carried out in a way which resulted in hardship and death for many of those transferred. Churchill opposed the effective annexation of Poland by the Soviet Union and wrote bitterly about it in his books, but he was unable to prevent it at the conferences.

After World War II

Although the importance of Churchill's role in World War II was undeniable, he had many enemies in his own country. His expressed contempt for a number of popular ideas, in particular public health care and better education for the majority of the population, produced much dissatisfaction amongst the population, particularly those who had fought in the war. Immediately following the close of the war in Europe, Churchill was heavily defeated at election by Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. Some historians think that many British voters believed that the man who had led the nation so well in war was not the best man to lead it in peace. Others see the election result as a reaction against not Churchill personally, but against the Conservative Party's record in the 1930s under Baldwin and Chamberlain.

Winston Churchill was an early supporter of the pan-Europeanism that eventually led to the formation of the European Common market and later the European Union (for which one of the three main buildings of the European Parliament is named in his honour). Churchill was also instrumental in giving France a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (which provided another European power to counterbalance the Soviet Union's permanent seat). Churchill also occasionally made comments supportive of world government. For instance, he once said[4]:

Unless some effective world supergovernment for the purpose of preventing war can be set up ... the prospects for peace and human progress are dark ...If ... it is found possible to build a world organization of irresistible force and inviolable authority for the purpose of securing peace, there are no limits to the blessings which all men enjoy and share.

At the beginning of the Cold War, he famously mentioned the "Iron Curtain", a phrase originally created by Joseph Goebbels. The phrase entered the public consciousness after a 1946 speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, when Churchill, a guest of Harry S. Truman, famously declared:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.

Second term

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Churchill during his second term

Churchill was restless and bored as leader of the Conservative opposition in the immediate post-war years. After Labour's defeat in the General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government – after the wartime national government and the short caretaker government of 1945 – would last until his resignation in 1955. During this period he renewed what he called the "special relationship" between Britain and the United States, and engaged himself in the formation of the post-war order.

His domestic priorities were, however, overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action.

Anglo-Iranian Oil Dispute

The crisis began under the government of Clement Attlee. In March 1951, the Iranian parliament (the Majlis) voted to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and its holdings by passing a bill strongly backed by the elderly statesman Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who was elected Prime Minister the following April by a large majority of the parliament. The International Court of Justice was called in to settle the dispute, but a 50/50 profit-sharing arrangement, with recognition of nationalisation, was rejected by Mossadegh. Direct negotiations between the British and the Iranian government ceased, and over the course of 1951, the British ratcheted up the pressure on the Iranian government and explored the possibility of a coup against it. U.S. President Harry S. Truman was reluctant to agree, placing a much higher priority on the Korean War. The effects of the blockade and embargo were staggering and led to a virtual shutdown of Iran's oil exports.

Churchill's return to power brought with it a policy of undermining the Mossadegh government. Both sides floated proposals unacceptable to the other, each side believing that time was on its side. Negotiations broke down, and as the blockade's political and economic costs mounted inside Iran, coup plots arose from the army and pro-British factions in the Majlis.

Churchill and his Foreign Secretary pursued two mutually exclusive goals. On one hand, they wanted "development and reform" in Iran; on the other hand, they did not want to give up the control or revenue from AIOC that would have permitted that development and reform to go forward. Initially they backed Sayyid Zia as an individual with whom they could do business, but as the embargo dragged on, they turned more and more to an alliance with the military. Churchill's government had come full-circle, from ending the Attlee plans for a coup, to planning one itself.

The crisis dragged on until 1953. Churchill approved a plan, with help from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, to back a coup in Iran. The combination of external and internal political pressure converged around Fazlollah Zahedi. Over the summer of 1953, demonstrations grew in Iran, and with the failure of a plebiscite, the government was destabilised. Zahedi, using foreign financing, took power, and Mossadegh surrendered to him on 20 August 1953.

The coup pointed to an underlying tension within the post-War order: the industrialised Democracies, hungry for resources to rebuild in the wake of World War II, and to engage the Soviet Union in the Cold War, dealt with emerging states such as Iran as they had with colonies in a previous era. On one hand, spurred by the fear of a third world war against the USSR and committed to a policy of containment at any cost, they were more than willing to circumvent local political prerogatives. On the other hand, many of these local governments were both unstable and corrupt. The two factors created a vicious circle – intervention led to more dictatorial rule and corruption, which made intervention rather than establishment of strong local political institutions a greater and greater temptation.

The Mau Mau Rebellion

In 1951, grievances against the colonial distribution of land came to a head with the Kenya Africa Union demanding greater representation and land reform. When these demands were rejected, more radical elements came forward, launching the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952. On 17 August 1952, a state of emergency was declared, and British troops were flown to Kenya to deal with the rebellion. As both sides increased the ferocity of their attacks, the country moved to full-scale civil war.

In 1953, the Lari massacre, perpetrated by Mau-Mau insurgents against Kikuyu loyal to the British, changed the political complexion of the rebellion and gave the public-relations advantage to the British. Churchill's strategy was to use a military stick combined with implementing many of the concessions that Attlee's government had blocked in 1951. He ordered an increased military presence and appointed General Sir George Erskine, who would implement Operation Anvil in 1954 that broke the back of the rebellion in the city of Nairobi. Operation Hammer, in turn, was designed to root out rebels in the countryside. Churchill ordered peace talks opened, but these collapsed shortly after his leaving office.

Malaya Emergency

In Malaysia, a rebellion against British rule had been in progress since 1948. Once again, Churchill's government inherited a crisis, and once again Churchill chose to use direct military action against those in rebellion while attempting to build an alliance with those who were not. He stepped up the implementation of a "hearts and minds" campaign and approved the creation of fortified villages, a tactic that would become a recurring part of Western military strategy in South-East Asia. (See Vietnam War).

The Malayan Emergency was a more direct case of a guerrilla movement, centred in an ethnic group, but backed by the Soviet Union. As such, Britain's policy of direct confrontation and military victory had a great deal more support than in Iran or in Kenya. At the highpoint of the conflict, over 35,500 British troops were stationed in Malaysia. As the rebellion lost ground, it began to lose favour with the local population.

While the rebellion was slowly being defeated, it was equally clear that colonial rule from Britain was no longer tenable. In 1953, plans were drawn up for independence for Singapore and the other crown colonies in the area. The first elections were held in 1955, just days before Churchill's own resignation, and by 1957, under Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Malaysia became independent.

Honours for Churchill

In 1953 he was awarded two major honours: he was invested as a Knight of the Garter (becoming Sir Winston Churchill, KG) and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values". A stroke in June of that year led to him being paralysed down his left side. He retired because of his health on 5 April 1955 but retained his post as Chancellor of the University of Bristol.

In 1955, Churchill was offered elevation to dukedom as the first-ever Duke of London, a title he himself selected. However, he then declined the title after being persuaded by his son Randolph not to accept it. Since then, no people other than royalty have ever been offered a Dukedom in the United Kingdom.

In 1956 Churchill received the Karlspreis (engl.: Charlemagne Award), an award by the German city of Aachen to those who most contribute to the European idea and European peace. In 1959 he became Father of the House, the MP with the longest continuous service. He was to hold the position until his retirement from the Commons in 1964. He became the first person to receive Honorary U.S. Citizenship in 1963. From 1941 to his death, he was the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a ceremonial office.

Family

On 2 September 1908 at the socially desirable St. Margaret's, Westminster, Churchill married Clementine Hozier, a dazzling but largely penniless beauty whom he met at a dinner party that March (he had proposed to actress Ethel Barrymore but was turned down). They had five children: Diana; Randolph; Sarah, who co-starred with Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding; Marigold, who died in early childhood; and Mary, who has written a book on her parents.

Clementine's mother was Lady Blanche Henrietta Ogilvy, second wife of Sir Henry Montague Hozier and a daughter of the 7th Earl of Airlie. Clementine's paternity, however, is open to healthy debate. Lady Blanche was well-known for sharing her favours and was eventually divorced as a result. She maintained that Clementine's father was Capt. William George "Bay" Middleton, a noted horseman. But Clementine's biographer Joan Hardwick has surmised, due to Sir Henry Hozier's reputed sterility, that all Lady Blanche's "Hozier" children were actually fathered by her sister's husband, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, better known as a grandfather of the infamous Mitford sisters of the 1920s.

Churchill's son Randolph and his grandsons Nicholas Soames and Winston all followed him into Parliament.

When not in London on government business, Churchill usually lived at his beloved Chartwell House in Kent, two miles south of Westerham. He and his wife bought the house in 1922 and lived there until his death in 1965. During his Chartwell stays, he enjoyed writing there, as well as painting, bricklaying, and admiring the estate's famous black swans.

Last days

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Arms of Winston Churchill

Aware that he was slowing down both physically and mentally, Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 and was succeeded by Anthony Eden, who had long been his ambitious protégé. (Three years earlier, Eden had married Churchill's niece Anna Clarissa Churchill, his second marriage.) Churchill spent most of his retirement at Chartwell and in the south of France.

In 1963 U.S. President John F. Kennedy named Churchill the first Honorary Citizen of the United States. Churchill was too ill to attend the White House ceremony, so his son and grandson accepted the award for him.

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The world paid tribute to the former prime minister in different ways

On 15 January 1965 Churchill suffered another stroke – a severe cerebral thrombosis – that left him gravely ill. He died nine days later on 24 January 1965, 70 years to the day of his father's death. His body lay in State in Westminster Hall for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral. This was the first state funeral for a non-royal family member since that of Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar in 1914. As his coffin passed down the Thames on a boat, the cranes of London's docklands bowed in salute. The Royal Artillery fired a 19-gun salute (as head of government), and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters. The state funeral was the largest gathering of dignitaries in Britain as representatives from over 100 countries attended, including French President Charles de Gaulle, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, other heads of state and government, and members of royalty. It also saw largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

It has been suggested it was Churchill's wish that, were de Gaulle to outlive him, his (Churchill's) funeral procession should pass through Waterloo Station. This is complete myth. Though of course President de Gaulle did indeed attend the service and the coffin departed for Bladon from Waterloo Station, there is absolutely no connection. In fact, Churchill did not plan his own funeral as commonly believed; he made a few suggestions, but there was a private committee which made the plans, and he was not on it.

At Churchill's request, he was buried in the family plot at Saint Martin's Churchyard, Bladon, near Woodstock and not far from his birthplace at Blenheim.

Because the funeral took place on 30 January, people in the United States marked Churchill's funeral by paying tribute to his friendship with Roosevelt because it was the anniversary of FDR's birth.

On February 9, 1965, Churchill's estate was probated at 304,044 pounds sterling.

Churchill as historian

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Statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, opposite the Palace of Westminster in central London. Another cast of the same statue is found in Oslo, Norway, and a similar in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Churchill was a prolific writer throughout his life and, during his periods out of office, regarded himself as a professional writer who was also a Member of Parliament. Despite his aristocratic birth, he inherited little money (his mother spent most of his inheritance) and always needed ready cash to maintain his lavish lifestyle and to compensate for a number of failed investments. Some of his historical works, such as A History of the English Speaking Peoples, were written primarily to raise money.

Although Churchill was an excellent writer, he was not a trained historian, and his historical works show many limitations. In his youth he was an avid reader of history but within a narrow range. The major influences on his historical thought, and his prose style, were Clarendon's history of the English Civil War, Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Macaulay's History of England. He had no knowledge of, or interest in, social or economic history, and he always saw history as essentially political and military, driven by great men rather than by economic forces or social change.

Churchill was the last (and one of the most influential) exponents of "Whig history" – the belief of the 18th- and 19th-century Whigs that the British people had a unique greatness and an imperial destiny, and that all British history should be seen as progress towards fulfilling that destiny. This belief inspired his political career as well as his historical writing. It was an old-fashioned view of history even in Churchill's youth, but he never modified it or showed any interest in other schools of history. Although he employed professional historians as assistants, they had no influence over the content of his works.

Churchill's historical writings fall into three categories. The first is works of family history, the biographies of his father, Life of Lord Randolph Churchill (1906), and of his great ancestor, Marlborough: His Life and Times (four volumes, 1933–38). These are still regarded as fine biographies, but are marred by Churchill's desire to present his subjects in the best possible light. He made only limited use of the available source materials and, in the case of his father, suppressed some material from family archives that reflected badly on Lord Randolph. The Marlborough biography shows to the full Churchill's great talent for military history. Both books have been superseded by more scholarly works but are still highly readable.

The second category is Churchill's autobiographical works, including his early journalistic compilations The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), The River War (1899), London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900) and Ian Hamilton's March (1900). These latter two were issued in a re-edited form as My Early Life (1930). All these books are colourful and entertaining, and contain some valuable information about Britain's imperial wars in India, Sudan and South Africa, but they are essentially exercises in self-promotion, since Churchill was already a Parliamentary candidate in 1900.

Churchill's reputation as a writer, however, rests on the third category, his three massive multi-volume works of narrative history. These are his histories of the First World War – The World Crisis (six volumes, 1923–31) – and of The Second World War (six volumes, 1948–53), and his History of the English-Speaking Peoples (four volumes, 1956–58, much of which had been written in the 1930s). These are among the longest works of history ever published (The Second World War runs to more than two million words), and earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Churchill's histories of the two world wars are, of course, far from being conventional historical works, since the author was a central participant in both stories and took full advantage of that fact in writing his books. Both are in a sense, therefore, memoirs as well as histories, but Churchill was careful to broaden their scope to include events in which he played no part – the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, for example. Inevitably, however, Churchill placed Britain, and therefore himself, at the centre of his narrative. Arthur Balfour described The World Crisis as "Winston's brilliant autobiography, disguised as a history of the universe."

As a Cabinet minister for part of the First World War and as Prime Minister for nearly all of the Second, Churchill had unique access to official documents, military plans, official secrets and correspondence between world leaders. After the First War, when there were few rules governing these documents, Churchill simply took many of them with him when he left office and used them freely in his books – as did other wartime politicians such as David Lloyd George. As a result of this, strict rules were put in place preventing Cabinet ministers using official documents for writing history or memoirs once they left office.

The World Crisis was inspired by Lord Esher's attack on Churchill's reputation in his memoirs. It soon broadened out into a general multi-volume history. The volumes are a mix of military history, written with Churchill's usual narrative flair; diplomatic and political history, largely written to justify Churchill's own actions and policies during the war; portraits of other political and military figures, usually written to further political vendettas or settle debts (most notably with Lloyd George); and personal memoir, written in a colourful but highly selective manner. Today these books are almost useless as historical references. As with all Churchill's works, they have nothing to say about economic or social history, and are coloured by his political views – particularly in regards to the Russian Revolution. But they remain highly readable for their narrative skill and vivid portrayals of people and events.

When he resumed office in 1939, Churchill fully intended writing a history of the war then beginning. He said several times: "I will leave judgements on this matter to history – but I will be one of the historians." To circumvent the rules against the use of official documents, he took the precaution throughout the war of having a weekly summary of correspondence, minutes, memoranda and other documents printed in galleys and headed "Prime Minister's personal minutes". These were then stored at his home for future use. As well, Churchill wrote or dictated a number of letters and memorandums with the specific intention of placing his views on the record for later use as a historian.

This all became a source of great controversy when The Second World War began appearing in 1948. Churchill was not an academic historian, he was a politician, and was in fact Leader of the Opposition, still intending to return to office. By what right, it was asked, did he have access to Cabinet, military and diplomatic records which were denied to other historians?

What was unknown at the time was the fact that Churchill had done a deal with the Attlee Labour government which came to office in 1945. Recognising Churchill's enormous prestige, Attlee agreed to allow him (or rather his research assistants) free access to most documents, provided that (a) no official secrets were revealed, (b) the documents were not used for party political purposes, and (c) the typescript was vetted by the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook. Brook took a close interest in the books and rewrote some sections himself to ensure that nothing was said which might harm British interests or embarrass the government. Churchill's history thus became a semi-official one.

Churchill's privileged access to documents and his unrivalled personal knowledge gave him an advantage over all other historians of the Second World War for many years. The books had enormous sales in both Britain and the United States and made Churchill a rich man for the first time. It was not until after his death and the opening of the archives that some of the deficiencies of his work became apparent.

Some of these were inherent in the unique position Churchill occupied as a historian, being both a former Prime Minister and a serving politician. He could not reveal military secrets, such as the work of the code-breakers at Bletchley Park (see Ultra) or the planning of the atomic bomb. He could not discuss wartime disputes with figures such as Dwight Eisenhower, Charles de Gaulle or Tito, since they were still world leaders at the time he was writing. He could not discuss Cabinet disputes with Labour leaders such as Attlee, whose goodwill the project depended on. He could not reflect on the deficiencies of generals such as Archibald Wavell or Claude Auchinleck for fear they might sue him (some, indeed, threatened to do so).

Other deficiencies were of Churchill's own making. Although he described the fighting on the Eastern Front, he had little real interest in it and no access to Soviet or German documents, so his account is a pastiche of secondary sources, largely written by his assistants. The same is true to some extent of the war in the Pacific except for episodes such as the fall of Singapore in which he was involved. His account of the U.S. naval war in the Pacific was so heavily based on other writers that he was accused of plagiarism.

The real focus of Churchill's work is always on the war in Western Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa, but here his work is based heavily on his own documents, so it greatly exaggerates his own role. He had little access to American documents, and even those he did have, such as his letters from Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower, had to be used with caution for diplomatic reasons. Although he was, of course, a central figure in the war, he was not as central as his books suggest. Although he is usually fair, some personal vendettas are aired – against Stafford Cripps, for example.

The Second World War can still be read with great profit by students of the period, provided it is seen mainly as a memoir by a leading participant rather than as an authoritative history by a professional and detached historian. The war, and particularly the period between 1940 and 1942 when Britain was fighting alone, was the climax of Churchill's career, and his personal account of the inside story of those days is unique and invaluable. But since the archives have been opened far more accurate and reliable histories have been written.

Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples was commissioned and largely written in the 1930s when Churchill badly needed money, but it was put aside when war broke out in 1939, being finally issued after he left office for the last time in 1955. Although it contains much fine writing, it shows Churchill's deficiencies as a historian at their most glaring. It is generally regarded as tendentious and very old-fashioned, seeing world history as a one-dimensional pageant of battles and speeches, kings and statesmen, in which the English occupy central stage. Events of central importance to modern history, such as the industrial revolution, are scarcely mentioned. Although Churchill's enormous prestige ensured that the books were respectfully received and sold well, they are now little read. NOTES 'in 1940 Churchill, alone, stood across the pathy pf Hitler's victory. Not on;y Americans .... but many other people, including serious historians and biographer sof Hitl;er, tend to see Hitler as doomed by a war that he started ... but few peopleunderstnad how close Hitler came to winning hias war in the summer of 1940'. He was extraordinary ... no one else could have done what he did in 1940 (p 1Lukaca) Chu'l greatest failuire, harming his reputation and his career, was that of his strident opposition to granting Dominion status to India 1929-1935; beleived that Britain still had a moral duty to 'discharge dutuies to' a 'vast helpless population' (15). he did not want to become PM to preside over the liquidation of the BE. His interest in US was 'historical more than racial, civilizational more than cultural' (16). His vision was of a federation of the Eng spek people, followed by 'another Age of Antonimes, movement forward to thje sunny uplands of a democratic world order, buttressed by themild and benevolent global and maritime primacy of the Eng-sp peopkle'. This was consistently his vision, 'from the very beginnin gto the very end of his public life' (15). He spoke of a European Union, and hoped for a Union between his English-speaking confederacy and a European Union . 'He was no British isilationsit' alrthough he did not want a Europe dominated by germany (83). At the Hague in 1948, he spoke of a EU, 'the Europe we seek to unite is all Europe', and he thought European divisions exacerbated the Cold war (100)'foundation of Christian faith and Christian ethics. It is the originj of most of the culture. arts,philosophy and science both of ancient and modern times ' but its disunity is its 'tragedy' (1948). Arnhem (1956) beleived that as a result of WEestern unity, the nations of the east would also gain their independemcve - he foresaw this #'years earlier'. surmises that he would not have approved of a 'faceless, frequently powerless, largely bureaucrtaic "EU" (100). 'He did not live to see the developing predicament of Britain's association with Europe'. 14th Jukly, Britain was 'fighting by ourselves but not for oursleves alone'. Warned Roosevelt that he might face a germany more numerous, better armed and stronger than the New World if Hitler won (15 June 1940). london was the 'strong City of Refuger which enshrines the title-deeds of human progress and is of deep consequence to Christian Civilization'. (95) Recognised that part of the price for the survival of 'British independence and of democracy was the eventual transference of much of the imperial burden to the Americans' (95) he knew that Brit and Emp would not cont to co-exist. ;In these British uisklands that look so small on the map we stand, the faithful guardians of the right and dearest hopes of a dozen states and nations now gripped and tormented in a base and cruel servitude'. 17-18 god allowed churchill the task of being civilizations's defendwer at a 'dramatic moment in the twentith century'. Represented some aristocrtaic traits that he beleivedd were worth prseserving. Believed that his nation;s primacy was not accidfental, but had a pivotal role to play in ther world and 'in an entire era in the world that had begun about fourhundred years before his birth [and] was moving towards its end' (17-18). Last soeech in 1955 in the House of Commons, 'Which way shall we turn to save our lives and the future of the world? It does not matter so much for old people' they are going soon away; but I find it poignant to look at youth in all its activity and ardour ... and wondwer what would lie before them if God wearied of manking' (18) 'churc was not a reluigious man'. Histories were 'works of art' . Wrote history because he was intersted in it and consious that he was also making histoiry (114) . 'Stunning passages and phrases are abundant in every one ofg his books' infl by Macauley and Gibbonm 'but did not emulate them' (123) He was a .maker of history' whose mind was steeped in histtory' He was conscious that history would examine and judge him. He 'understood that Hitler was a very modern incarnation of a very old evil' (199).A P Taylor said 'historians of the future would ignore ast thie peril the spiritual contacvt whoich one man found in 1940 with the rest of his fellow-countrymen' . He used his own experience, and sometimes defended his actions (111, citing Defoe). chapter 6 - should not compare with professors who have the aid of researchers. But carefully documented. His books tell us about his vision of the world. p 16 quality of eng-sp peop 'it included his vision of the future of the world' (16). not a relic of the past. 'In the preface of both his World wzr Historuies he wrote that he followed 'as far as I am able, the method of Defoe's Memoirs of a Cavalier, in which the author hangs the chroncile and discussion of great military and political eventsc upon the thread of the personal experiences of an individual' . That method was then complimenetd by almost too copious notes in all of his workd (106) -suggesting at least an amateur historians repect for primary sources. 'evidence of assiduous attempts at research' (106). His mistake was to try to tell eveything. Speeches short, books long! some of his passahes should ';inspire historians as long as English history is written' great historian'. 111 The World Crises (1923-1927) Balfour said 'he had written a big book about himself and then called it the wec ( 105). "It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor."

- Winston Churchill, 1930. Gandhi sent his thanks and added that ‘he would love to be a naked-fakir but was not one as yet’.

The following year, Gandhi met face to face with Churchill during the Indian round table conference — "...I have an alternative that is unpleasant to you" he told Churchill and his clan of imperialists. " India demands complete liberty and freedom...the same liberty that Englishmen enjoy... and I want India to become a partner in the Empire. I want to partner with the English people ... not merely for mutual benefit, but so that the great weight that is crushing the world to atoms may be lifted from its shoulders". [5] Tagore, 'we had not lost faith in the generosity of the English race'. English literature had introduced Indiands to 'liberal humanism. 'engl;and at that time gave regufge to people fleeing persecution and 'afforded political martyrs ... an unreserved welcome'. (321) But lost faith when he discovered how those who accepted the highest truiths of civiluization disowned them with impunity whenever questions of national self-interest were involved' (322). 'large hearted liberalism of the nineteenth century English politcs', '

Miscellany and trivia

• Because of the existence of another Winston Churchill, who was an American, the British Winston's books were published under the name "Winston Spencer Churchill" or "Winston S. Churchill" to distinguish them, though some later printings ignore this.

• Various secondary/high schools in Canada and the United States are named after Churchill, such as Sir Winston Churchill High School in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

• Churchill was an ardent supporter of Zionism, following his meetings with Chaim Weizmann and the visits in Eretz Israel - Palestina. He kept supporting it (and later, Israel) even after WWII. [6]

• Churchill College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, was founded in 1960 as the national and commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill.

• The Churchill tank, a heavy infantry tank of World War II, was named in his honour.

• A few people have attributed Churchill's extraordinary abilities to his being affected by bipolar disorder. This is not widely accepted, however, and no major biographer of Churchill has made that claim. In his last years, Churchill is believed by several writers to have suffered from Alzheimer's disease, though the Churchill Centre disputes this. Certainly he suffered from fits of depression that he called his "black dog." Some researchers also believe that Churchill was dyslexic, based on the difficulties he described himself having at school. However, the Churchill Centre and other experts strongly refute this (Source: http://www.winstonchurchill.org ).

• Churchill also overcame a severe stammer and lisp, but some of his speeches were still marred with traces of them. Churchill even thought that these added an interesting element to a speaker's voice: "Sometimes a slight and not unpleasing stammer or impediment has been of some assistance in securing the attention of the audience. . ." ^[7][8]

• The United States Navy destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) is named in his honour. In 1963, Churchill was the first person to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

• Churchill's mother was American and some, including Churchill himself, have said that his maternal grandmother was an Iroquois, which would make Churchill the only British prime minister of Native American descent. Research has failed to validate this contention, and some doubt its accuracy.

• In 1995, a row erupted after the National Lottery spent 12 million pounds of its 'good causes' budget on Churchill's personal papers after his descendants said they were tempted to sell them to American academics. Churchill's family were heavily criticised for not offering the papers to the nation for free.

• Churchill was voted as "The Greatest Briton" in 2002 "100 Greatest Britons" poll sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public. He was also named TIME magazine "Man of the Half-Century" in the early 1950s.

• John Lennon's middle name was Winston. His mother named him after the prime minister. This is also true of the Australian Prime Minister John Howard

• The Churchill cigar size actually was named after him, his favorite brand being Romeo y Julieta.

• Churchill was a Freemason between 1901 and 1912, although there is evidence he had some involvement subsequently. [9].

• In 1943 Churchill was played by Dudley Field Malone, one of the attorneys in the Scopes Trial in the propaganda film Mission to Moscow.

• In July 1944 Churchill requested from the Chief of Staff General Ismay a study on the potential use of poison gas as a means of shortening the war or retaliating against the V-1 and V-2 rockets then falling on London:

I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas. I would not use it unless it could be shown either that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year... If the bombardment of London became a serious nuisance and great rockets with far-reaching and devastating effect fell on many centres of Government and labour, I should be prepared to do anything that would hit the enemy in a murderous place. I may certainly have to ask you to support me in using poison gas. We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention. We could stop all work at the flying bomb starting points. I do not see why we should have the disadvantages of being the gentleman while they have all the advantages of being the cad. There are times when this may be so but not now... (source: Prime Minister's Personal Minute, D.217/4, 6 July 1944)

The study concluded and advised Churchill that the use of such weapons would not benefit the war effort.

See also

• Lady Hermione Cobbold
• Bombing of Dresden in World War II
• List of World War I veterans

Churchill's war cabinet, May 1940–May 1945

• Winston Churchill – Prime Minister, Minister of Defence and Leader of the House of Commons.
• Neville Chamberlain – Lord President of the Council
• Clement Attlee – Lord Privy Seal and effective Deputy Leader of the House of Commons.
• Lord Halifax – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• Arthur Greenwood – Minister without Portfolio

Changes

• August 1940: Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production, joins the War Cabinet
• October 1940: Sir John Anderson succeeds Neville Chamberlain as Lord President. Sir Kingsley Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour, enter the War Cabinet. Lord Halifax assumes the additional job of Leader of the House of Lords.
• December 1940: Anthony Eden succeeds Lord Halifax as Foreign Secretary. Halifax remains nominally in the Cabinet as Ambassador to the United States. His successor as Leader of the House of Lords is not in the War Cabinet.
• May 1941: Lord Beaverbrook ceased to be Minister of Aircraft Production, but remains in the Cabinet as Minister of State. His successor was not in the War Cabinet.
• June 1941: Lord Beaverbrook becomes Minister of Supply, remaining in the War Cabinet.
• 1941: Oliver Lyttelton enters the Cabinet as Minister Resident in the Middle East.
• 4 February 1942: Lord Beaverbrook becomes Minister of War Production, his successor as Minister of Supply is not in the War Cabinet.
• 19 February 1942: Beaverbrook resigns and no replacement Minister of War Production is appointed for the moment. Clement Attlee becomes Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister. Sir Stafford Cripps succeeds Attlee as Lord Privy Seal and takes over the position of Leader of the House of Commons from Churchill. Sir Kingsley Wood leaves the War Cabinet, though remaining Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• 22 February 1942: Arthur Greenwood resigns from the War Cabinet.
• March 1942: Oliver Lyttelton fills the vacant position of Minister of Production ("War" was dropped from the title). Richard Gardiner Casey (a member of the Australian Parliament) succeeds Oliver Lyttelton as Minister Resident in the Middle East.
• October 1942: Sir Stafford Cripps retires as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons and leaves the War Cabinet. His successor as Lord Privy Seal is not in the Cabinet, Anthony Eden takes the additional position of Leader of the House of Commons. The Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, enters the Cabinet.
• September 1943: Sir John Anderson succeeds Sir Kingsley Wood (deceased) as Chancellor of the Exchequer, remaining in the War Cabinet. Clement Attlee succeeds Anderson as Lord President, remaining also Deputy Prime Minister. Attlee's successor as Dominions Secretary is not in the Cabinet.
• November 1943: Lord Woolton enters the Cabinet as Minister of Reconstruction.

Winston Churchill's caretaker cabinet, May–July 1945

• Winston Churchill – Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
• Lord Woolton – Lord President of the Council
• Lord Beaverbrook – Lord Privy Seal
• Sir John Anderson – Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Sir Donald Bradley Somervell – Secretary of State for the Home Department
• Anthony Eden – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the House of Commons
• Oliver Stanley – Secretary of State for the Colonies
• Lord Cranborne – Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and Leader of the House of Lords
• Sir P.J. Grigg – Secretary of State for War
• Leo Amery – Secretary of State for India and Burma
• Lord Rosebery – Secretary of State for Scotland
• Harold Macmillan – Secretary of State for Air
• Brendan Bracken – First Lord of the Admiralty
• Oliver Lyttelton – President of the Board of Trade and Minister of Production
• Robert Hudson – Minister of Agriculture
• Rab Butler – Minister of Labour

Winston Churchill's third cabinet, October 1951–April 1955

• Winston Churchill – Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
• Lord Simonds – Lord Chancellor
• Lord Woolton – Lord President of the Council
• Robert Arthur James Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury – Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords
• Rab Butler – Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe – Secretary of State for the Home Department
• Anthony Eden – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
• Oliver Lyttelton – Secretary of State for the Colonies
• Lord Ismay – Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
• James Stuart – Secretary of State for Scotland
• Peter Thorneycroft – President of the Board of Trade
• Lord Cherwell – Paymaster-General
• Sir Walter Monckton – Minister of Labour
• Harry Crookshank – Minister of Health and Leader of the House of Commons
• Harold Macmillan – Minister of Housing and Local Government
• Lord Leathers – Minister for the Co-ordination of Transport, Fuel, and Power

Changes

• March 1952: Lord Salisbury succeeds Lord Ismay as Commonwealth Relations Secretary. Salisbury remains also Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. Lord Alexander of Tunis succeeds Churchill as Minister of Defence.
• May 1952: Harry Crookshank succeeds Lord Salisbury as Lord Privy Seal, remaining Leader of the House of Commons. Salisbury remains Commonwealth Relations Secretary and Leader of the House of Lords. Crookshank's successor as Minister of Health is not in the Cabinet.
• November 1952: Lord Woolton becomes Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Lord Salisbury succeeds Lord Woolton as Lord President. Lord Swinton succeeds Lord Salisbury as Commonwealth Relations Secretary.
• September 1953: Florence Horsbrugh, the Minister of Education, Sir Thomas Dugdale, the Minister of Agriculture, and Gwilym Lloyd George, the Minister of Food, enter the cabinet. The Ministry for the Co-ordination of Transport, Fuel, and Power, is abolished, and Lord Leathers leaves the Cabinet.
• October 1953: Lord Cherwell resigns as Paymaster General. His successor is not in the Cabinet.
• July 1954: Alan Lennox-Boyd succeeds Oliver Lyttelton as Colonial Secretary. Derick Heathcoat Amory succeeds Sir Thomas Dugdale as Minister of Agriculture.
• October 1954: Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, now Lord Kilmuir, succeeds Lord Simonds as Lord Chancellor. Gwilym Lloyd George succeeds him as Home Secretary. The Food Ministry is merged into the Ministry of Agriculture. Sir David Eccles succeeds Florence Horsbrugh as Minister of Education. Harold Macmillan succeeds Lord Alexander of Tunis as Minister of Defence. Duncan Sandys succeeds Macmillan as Minister of Housing and Local Government. Osbert Peake, the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, enters the Cabinet.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War by Robert Massie (ISBN 1844135284); deals with forty years of European politics by reference to the naval arms race between Britain and Germany. Contains chapters on Churchill's early life (chapter 40: "I Do Believe That I Am a Glowworm") and period as First Lord of the Admiralty (chapter 41: Churchill at the Admiralty).
• Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert (ISBN 0-8050-2396-8)
• Winston Churchill by Henry Pelling, (first issue) 1974, (Wordsworth Military Library Edition) 1999 (ISBN 1-84022-218-2),
• Winston Churchill by Sebastian Haffner, Reinbek 1967, Germany
• Quotations database, World Beyond Borders.
• The Oxford Dictionary of 20th Century Quotations by Oxford University Press (ISBN 0-19-860103-4)
• The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory 1874-1932, 1983, Little, Brown (Vol. I) by William Manchester, ISBN 0316545031
• The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Alone 1932-1940, 1988, Little, Brown (Vol. II) by William Manchester, ISBN 0316545120
• Volume III remains unfinished as of August 2005

Churchill: Visionary. Statesman. Historian. John Lukacs. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, ISBN 0300097697

• Nehru, Jawaharlal The Discovery of India, Oxford, Oxford University Press; Centenary ed edition (December 14, 2005)

0195623592

External links

• The Churchill Centre website
• Audio of Churchill's "finest hour" speech
• Rethinking Churchill, Parts 1 to 5
• Winston Churchill in Cuba
• Opinion piece on Churchill's significance in history.
• Another bio of him including extended quotations from his speeches
• Churchill and the Great Republic. Exhibition explores Churchill's lifelong relationship with the United States.
• Churchill and Zionism (by Dr. Yoav Tenenbaum, Tel Aviv University)
• Churchill Quotations (240 Quotations)
• Many downloadable speeches by Churchill

Preceded by: David Lloyd George	President of the Board of Trade 1908–1910	Succeeded by: Sydney Buxton
Preceded by: Herbert Gladstone	Home Secretary 1910–1911	Succeeded by: Reginald McKenna
Preceded by: Reginald McKenna	First Lord of the Admiralty 1911–1915	Succeeded by: Arthur Balfour
Preceded by: Edwin Samuel Montagu	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1915	Succeeded by: Herbert Samuel
Preceded by: Christopher Addison	Minister of Munitions 1917–1919	Succeeded by: The Lord Inverforth
Preceded by: The Viscount Milner	Secretary of State for War 1919–1921	Succeeded by: Sir Laming Worthington-Evans
Preceded by: The Lord Weir	Secretary of State for Air 1919–1921	Succeeded by: Frederick Edward Guest
Preceded by: The Viscount Milner	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1921–1922	Succeeded by: The Duke of Devonshire
Preceded by: Philip Snowden	Chancellor of the Exchequer 1924–1929	Succeeded by: Philip Snowden
Preceded by: The Earl Stanhope	First Lord of the Admiralty 1939–1940	Succeeded by: A. V. Alexander Template:Succession box two by three to two
Preceded by: Neville Chamberlain	Leader of the British Conservative Party 1940–1955	Succeeded by: Sir Anthony Eden
Preceded by: The Marquess of Willingdon	Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports 1941–1965	Succeeded by: Sir Robert Menzies
Preceded by: Clement Attlee	Prime Minister 1951–1955	Succeeded by: Sir Anthony Eden
Preceded by: Emanuel Shinwell	Minister of Defence 1951–1952	Succeeded by: Earl Alexander of Tunis
Preceded by: David Grenfell	Father of the House 1959–1964	Succeeded by: Rab Butler

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