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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
Facts and Events
- the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security. As First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign but, after it proved a disaster, he was demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He resigned in November 1915 and joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front for six months. In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George and served successively as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies, overseeing the Anglo-Irish Treaty and British foreign policy in the Middle East. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure and depressing the UK economy.
Out of government during his so-called "wilderness years" in the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat of militarism in Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940, he became Prime Minister, replacing Neville Chamberlain. Churchill formed a national government and oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945. After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. He lost the 1950 election, but was returned to office in 1951. His second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, especially Anglo-American relations and the preservation of the British Empire. Domestically, his government emphasised house-building and completed the development of a nuclear weapon (begun by his predecessor). In declining health, Churchill resigned as Prime Minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral.
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending Europe's liberal democracy against the spread of fascism. He has also been praised for his role in the Liberal welfare reforms. He has, however, been criticised for some wartime events and also for his imperialist views. As a writer, Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 for his historical and biographical work. He was also a prolific painter.
References
- Winston Churchill, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
- Nexus, NEHGS
v 13, #5, p 168.
Churchill, born November 30, 1874, was the eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill and the American heiress Jennie Jerome. He graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, but having served in India and the Sudan he resigned his cavalry commission in 1899 to become a correspondent during the Boer War. A daring escape after he had been captured made him a national hero, and in 1900 he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative. Despite his aristocratic background, he switched in 1904 to the Liberal Party. In 1908 he became president of the Board of Trade in Herbert Henry Asquith's Liberal cabinet. Then, and later as home secretary (1910-11), he worked for special reform in tandem with David Lloyd George. As first lord of the admiralty (1911-15), Churchill was a vigorous modernizer of the navy.
World War I and the Interwar Period: Churchill's role in World War I was controversial and almost destroyed his career. Naval problems and his support of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign forced his resignation from the admiralty. Following service as a battalion commander in France, he joined Lloyd George's coalition cabinet, and from 1917 to 1922 he filled several important positions, including minister of munitions and secretary for war. The collapse of Lloyd George and the Liberal Party in 1922 left Churchill out of Parliament between 1922 and 1924. Returning in 1924, he became chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government (1924-29). As such he displayed his new conservatism by returning Britain to the gold standard and vigorously condemning the trade unions during the general strike of 1926.
During the depression years (1929-1939) Churchill was denied cabinet office. Baldwin and later Neville Chamberlain, who dominated the national government from 1931 to 1940, disliked his opposition to self-government for India and his support of Edward VIII during the abdication crisis of 1936. His insistence on the need for rearmament and his censure of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler at Munich in 1938 also aroused suspicion. When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Churchill's views were finally appreciated, and public opinion demanded his return to the admiralty.
Churchill as Prime Minister: Churchill succeeded Chamberlain as prime minister on May 10, 1940. During the dark days of World War II that followed--Dunkerque, the fall of France, and the blitz--Churchill's pugnacity and rousing speeches rallied the British to continue the fight. He urged his compatriots to conduct themselves so that, "if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour."' By successful collaboration with President Franklin D. Roosevelt he was able to secure military aid and moral support from the United States. After the Soviet Union and the U.S. entered the war in 1941, Churchill established close ties with leaders of what he called the "Grand Alliance." Traveling ceaselessly throughout the war, he did manage to coordinate military strategy to ensure Hitler's defeat. His conferences with Roosevelt and Stalin, most notably at Yalta in 1945, also shaped the map of postwar Europe. By 1945 he was admired throughout the world, his reputation disguising the fact that Britain's military role had become secondary. Unappreciative of the popular demands for postwar social change, however, Churchill was defeated by the Labour Party in the election of 1945.
Churchill criticized the "welfare state" reforms of Labour under his successor Clement Attlee. He also warned in his "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946, of the dangers of Soviet expansion. He was prime minister again from 1951 to 1955, but this time age and poor health prevented him from providing dynamic leadership. Resigning in 1955, Churchill devoted his last years to painting and writing. He died on January 24, 1965, at the age of 90. Following a state funeral he was buried at Bladon near Blenheim Palace.
Churchill was also an able historian. His most Famous works are The World Crisis (4 vol., 1923-29), My Early Life (1930), Marlborough (4 vol., 1933-38), The Second World War (6 vol., 1948-53), and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (4 vol., 1956-58). He received the Nobel Prize for literature and a knighthood in 1953.
Churchill's death in 1965, like that of Queen Victoria in 1901, marked the end of an era in British history. Born into a Victorian aristocratic family, he witnessed and participated in Britain's transformation from empire to welfare state, and its decline as a world power. His true importance, however, rests on the fact that by sheer stubborn courage he led the British people, and the democratic Western world, away from the brink of defeat, to a final victory in the greatest conflict the world has ever seen.
- Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
, in Find A Grave.
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