Winston Churchill

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Winston Churchill was a British politician, soldier and writer who became Prime Minister in 1940, and again from 1951 to 1955. He was born at Blenheim Palace on 30 November 1874 and died on 24 January 1965.

Early life and army career

Churchill was the son of Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill and the grandson of the Duke of Marlborough. "His path was Sandhurst, not a university." He entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in September 1893, and joined the 4th Hussars in February 1895. In 1896 he was posted to India. In 1898 his book The Story of the Malakand Field Force was published, and he joined Kitchener's expedition to the Sudan.

In 1899 he was captured by the Boers and held in Pretoria, but he escaped in December and reached Durban. According to Wrigley, Churchill hoped to become famous through bestselling books; his novel Savrola came out in 1900.

Early political career

After losing a by-election at Oldham in 1899, Churchill was elected Member of Parliament for Oldham in October 1900. In 1903 he became a leading figure in the Free Food League, which opposed tariff reform, and in 1904 he left the Conservative Party and joined the Liberals in the House of Commons.

In 1908 he joined the cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. That year he married Clementine Hozier at St Margaret's, Westminster. He became Home Secretary in 1910 and was responsible for public order; Wrigley says he took a firm law-and-order line.

First World War

In 1911 Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty, the minister in charge of the Royal Navy. On 30 July 1914 he ordered the fleets to take up battle stations. After the Dardanelles campaign he resigned from the government in November 1915, and in 1916 he commanded the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned as Minister of Munitions in 1917, and from 1919 he was Secretary of State for War and Air.

Chancellor of the Exchequer

Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924 to 1929. In April 1925 he returned Britain to the Gold Standard at the value it had before the war. Wrigley notes that this was heavily criticised, not least by the economist J. M. Keynes. During the General Strike of 1926 he edited the British Gazette.

Second World War

On 3 September 1939 Churchill again became First Lord of the Admiralty. On 10 May 1940 he became Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. On 14 May he spoke in the House of Commons, offering nothing but hard work and sacrifice.

In August 1941 he met Roosevelt at Placentia Bay, where the Atlantic Charter was drafted. He met Roosevelt again at Casablanca in January 1943, and attended conferences at Cairo and Tehran later that year. In February 1945 he met Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, and in July 1945 he attended the Potsdam Conference. The defeat of the Conservatives in the general election was announced on 26 July 1945.

Later life

Churchill was Prime Minister again from 1951 to 1955, and retired on 5 April 1955. His history The Second World War appeared in six volumes between 1948 and 1953. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature; his wife Clementine, with Mary Soames, accepted it on his behalf in Stockholm.

Churchill died on 24 January 1965, 70 years to the day after his father's death. He was given a state funeral on 30 January 1965 and was buried at Bladon churchyard.

See also

• Napoleon