Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was born on the 30th November 1874, the son of Tory MP Lord Randolph Churchill.

He was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst Military College, and joined the army as a Subaltern of the Queen’s Own Hussars Cavalry regiment.

Churchill, the military man

In 1897 he fought with the Malakand field force, which he described in The Story of the Malakand Field Force, and once again in 1898, when he fought hand-to-hand against the Dervishes. He left the army soon after, and travelled to South Africa as a journalist for the The Morning Post.

Whilst in South Africa he was taken prisoner by the Boers, and made a daring escape with a price on his head. His subsequent fame aided his success at the polls.

Churchill, the politician

Churchill entered Parliament on the 3rd October 1900, as the Conservative MP for Oldham. He gave his maiden speech on the 18th February 1901.

A disagreement over the Tory’s protectionist policy led to him joining the Liberals in 1904, in the safe seat of Manchester North West. He served as Home Secretary in 1910, and First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. He still held the post at the advent of World War I, but was blamed for the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign. Lloyd George then shifted him over to Minister for Munitions, where he helped to develop tank warfare.

In 1922 Churchill went into hospital to have his appendix removed, and by the time he came out an election had been called, in which he lost his constituency to Edwin Scrymgeour; prompting a quip that he had lost his ministerial office, his seat and his appendix all at once.

He lost again for the Liberals in 1923, and stood as a ‘Constitutionalist’ in 1924. He formally rejoined the Tories a year later, whereupon Baldwin made him Chancellor. However, his poor decision to return to the Gold Standard led to rising unemployment and the General Strike of 1926.

When the Tories were defeated in 1929, Churchill returned again to the opposition’s bench. The next two years saw a marked decline in his relations with the party, and when they were returned in 1931 Churchill remained on the backbenches.

His renaissance began in 1933, when Hitler came to power. Churchill was a bitter critic from the off, and his outspoken views and dire warnings of doom led to him being ostracised in Parliament. Whilst the Government was eagerly pursuing a policy of containment against the Nazis, Churchill was the lone voice urging rearmament.

Prime Minister Churchill and World War II

When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement fell to pieces. War was declared, and Churchill was returned to the Admiralty.

A series of poor results reflected badly on the Prime Minister, and when Germany invaded the Low Countries his tenure was over. He resigned in May 1940 and Churchill was made the head of a coalition.

His frequent speeches in the Commons and on the radio have gone down in history as some of the greatest ever made.

Conservative Prime Minister

As soon as the war was over Churchill disbanded the coalition and called an election, fully expecting to win. But the world took a breath when the public returned a Labour Government.

In 1951 he became Prime Minister again, but his failing health led to his resignation on the 5th April 1955, aged eighty-one.

Later life

Churchill died on the 24th January 1965. His body laid in State for three days before a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

• Photographs
• Famous quotes

Photographs of Winston Churchill

^{Winston Churchill MP, c.1900Sir Winston ChurchillChurchill’s V-for-Victory, c.1943Prime Minister Churchill, c.1944}

Famous quotes by Winston Churchill

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will 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: 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.

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.

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.

Winston Churchill – Related articles…

> Churchill Museum & War Rooms
Home to Prime Minister Churchill’s wartime government during the dark days of World War II.