Winston Churchill

Early life

Childhood and schooling: 1874–1895

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on 30 November 1874 at his family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. On his father's side, he was a member of the aristocracy as a descendant of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, representing the Conservative Party, had been elected member of parliament (MP) for Woodstock in February 1874. His mother was Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill, a daughter of Leonard Jerome, an American businessman.

In 1876, Churchill's paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, was appointed Viceroy of Ireland. Randolph became his private secretary and the family relocated to Dublin. Winston's brother, Jack, was born there in 1880. For much of the 1880s, Randolph and Jennie were effectively estranged, and the brothers were cared for by their nanny, Elizabeth Everest. When she died in 1895, Churchill wrote "she had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole of the twenty years I had lived".

Churchill began boarding school at St George's in Ascot, Berkshire, aged 7, but he was not academic and his behaviour was poor. In 1884, he transferred to Brunswick School in Hove, where his academic performance improved. In April 1888, aged 13, he passed the entrance exam for Harrow School. His father wanted him to prepare for a military career, so his last three years at Harrow were in the army form. After two unsuccessful attempts to gain admittance to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he succeeded. He was accepted as a cadet in the cavalry, starting in September 1893. His father died in January 1895.

Cuba, India, and Sudan: 1895–1899

In February 1895, Churchill was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars regiment of the British Army, based at Aldershot. Eager to witness military action, he used his mother's influence to get posted to a war zone. In the autumn, he and friend Reggie Barnes, went to observe the Cuban War of Independence and became involved in skirmishes after joining Spanish troops attempting to suppress independence fighters. Churchill sent reports to the Daily Graphic in London. He proceeded to New York and wrote to his mother about "what an extraordinary people the Americans are!" With the Hussars, he went to Bombay in October 1896. Based in Bangalore, he was in India for 19 months, visiting Calcutta and joining expeditions to Hyderabad and the North West Frontier.

In India, Churchill began a self-education project, reading widely including Plato, Edward Gibbon, Charles Darwin and Thomas Babington Macaulay. The books were sent by his mother, with whom he shared frequent correspondence. To learn about politics, he asked her to send him copies of The Annual Register, the political almanack. In an 1898 letter, he referred to his beliefs, saying: "I do not accept the Christian or any other form of religious belief". Churchill had been christened in the Church of England but underwent a virulently anti-Christian phase in his youth, and as an adult was an agnostic. In another letter to a cousin, he referred to religion as "a delicious narcotic" and expressed a preference for Protestantism over Roman Catholicism because he felt it "a step nearer Reason".

Interested in parliamentary affairs, Churchill declared himself "a Liberal in all but name", adding he could never endorse the Liberal Party's support for Irish home rule. Instead, he allied himself to the Tory democracy wing of the Conservatives and on a visit home, gave his first speech for the party's Primrose League at Claverton Down. Mixing reformist and conservative perspectives, he supported the promotion of secular, non-denominational education while opposing women's suffrage.

Churchill volunteered to join Bindon Blood's Malakand Field Force in its campaign against Mohmand rebels in the Swat Valley of north-west India. Blood accepted on condition he was assigned as a journalist, the beginning of Churchill's writing career. He returned to Bangalore in October 1897 and wrote his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, which received positive reviews. He wrote his only work of fiction, Savrola, a Ruritanian romance. To keep occupied, Churchill embraced writing as what Roy Jenkins calls his "whole habit", especially through his career when he was out of office. Writing was his safeguard against recurring depression, which he referred to as his "black dog".

Politics and South Africa: 1899–1901

Churchill spoke at Conservative meetings and was selected as one of the party's two candidates for the June 1899 Oldham by-election. While campaigning, he referred to himself as "a Conservative and a Tory Democrat". Although the seats had been held by the Conservatives, the result was a narrow Liberal victory.

As a journalist for the Morning Post, Churchill anticipated the outbreak of the Second Boer War between Britain and the Boer republics, leading him to sail to South Africa. In October, he travelled to the conflict zone near Ladysmith, which was under siege by Boer troops, and then headed to Colenso. At the Battle of Chieveley, his train was derailed by Boer artillery shelling, and he was captured as a prisoner of war (POW) and interned in a POW camp in Pretoria. Churchill made a formal protest about his internment to the Transvaal Secretary of State, asserting his status as a non-combatant journalist, but he was told he had invalidated that by carrying a revolver. In December, Churchill escaped and evaded his captors by stowing aboard freight trains and hiding in a mine. He made it to safety in Portuguese East Africa. His escape attracted much publicity.

In January 1900, Churchill briefly rejoined the army as a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse regiment, joining Redvers Buller's fight to relieve the Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria. He was among the first British troops into both places. With his cousin Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, he demanded and received the surrender of 52 Boer prison camp guards. Throughout the war, he publicly chastised anti-Boer prejudices, calling for them to be treated with "generosity and tolerance", and afterwards urged the British to be magnanimous in victory. In July, having resigned his lieutenancy, he returned to Britain. His Morning Post dispatches had been published as London to Ladysmith via Pretoria and sold well.

Churchill rented a flat in London's Mayfair, using it as his base for six years. He stood again as a Conservative candidate at Oldham in the October 1900 general election, securing a narrow victory to become a Member of Parliament aged 25. In the same month, he published Ian Hamilton's March, a book about his South African experiences, which became the focus of a lecture tour in November through Britain, America, and Canada. Members of Parliament were unpaid and the tour was a financial necessity. In America, Churchill met Mark Twain, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt, who he did not get on with. In spring 1901, he gave lectures in Paris, Madrid, and Gibraltar.

Early political career: 1901–1908

Conservative MP: 1901–1904

In February 1901, Churchill took his seat in the House of Commons, where his maiden speech gained widespread coverage. He associated with a group of Conservatives known as the Hughligans, but was critical of the Conservative government on various issues, especially increases in army funding. He believed additional military expenditure should go to the navy. This upset the Conservative front bench but was supported by Liberals, with whom he increasingly socialised, particularly Liberal Imperialists like H. H. Asquith. Churchill later wrote that he "drifted steadily to the left". He privately considered "the gradual creation by an evolutionary process of a Democratic or Progressive wing to the Conservative Party", or alternately a "Central Party" to unite the Conservatives and Liberals.

By 1903, there was division between Churchill and the Conservatives, largely because he opposed their promotion of protectionism. As a free trader, he helped found the Free Food League. Churchill sensed that the animosity of party members would prevent him gaining a Cabinet position under a Conservative government. The Liberal Party was attracting growing support, and so his defection in 1904 may have been influenced by ambition. He increasingly voted with the Liberals. For example, he opposed an increase in military expenditure, supported a Liberal bill to restore legal rights to trade unions, and opposed the introduction of import tariffs. Arthur Balfour's government announced protectionist legislation in October 1903. Two months later, incensed by Churchill's criticism of the government, the Oldham Conservative Association informed him it would not support his candidature at the next election.

In May 1904, Churchill opposed the government's proposed Aliens Bill, designed to curb Jewish immigration. He stated that the bill would "appeal to insular prejudice against foreigners, to racial prejudice against Jews, and to labour prejudice against competition" and expressed himself in favour of "the old tolerant and generous practice of free entry and asylum to which this country has so long adhered and from which it has so greatly gained". On 31 May 1904, he crossed the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party.

Liberal MP: 1904–1908

As a Liberal, Churchill attacked government policy and gained a reputation as a radical under the influences of John Morley and David Lloyd George. In December 1905, Balfour resigned as prime minister and King Edward VII invited the Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman to replace him. Hoping to secure a working majority, Campbell-Bannerman called a general election in January 1906, which the Liberals won in a massive landslide. Churchill won the Manchester North West seat, and his biography of his father was published, for which he received an advance payment of £8,000. It was generally well received. The first biography of Churchill himself, written by the Liberal MacCallum Scott, was also published around this time.

In the new government, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonial Office, a junior ministerial position he had requested. He worked beneath the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, and took Edward Marsh as his secretary; Marsh remained his secretary for 25 years. Churchill's first task was helping to draft a constitution for the Transvaal; and he helped oversee the formation of a government in the Orange River Colony. In dealing with southern Africa, he sought to ensure equality between the British and Boers. He announced a gradual phasing out of the use of Chinese indentured labourers in South Africa; he and the government decided a sudden ban would cause too much upset and might damage the colony's economy. He expressed concerns about the relations between European settlers and the black African population; after the Zulu launched their Bambatha Rebellion in Natal, Churchill complained about the "disgusting butchery of the natives" by Europeans.

Asquith government: 1908–1915

President of the Board of Trade: 1908–1910

With Campbell-Bannerman terminally ill, Asquith became prime minister in April 1908. He appointed Churchill as President of the Board of Trade. Aged 33, Churchill was the youngest Cabinet member since 1866. Newly appointed Cabinet ministers were legally obliged to seek re-election at a by-election. On 24 April, Churchill lost the Manchester North West by-election to the Conservative candidate by 429 votes. On 9 May, the Liberals stood him in the safe seat of Dundee, where he won comfortably.

Churchill proposed marriage to Clementine Hozier; they were married on 12 September 1908 at St Margaret's, Westminster and honeymooned in Baveno, Venice, and Veveří Castle in Moravia. They lived at 33 Eccleston Square, London, and their first daughter, Diana, was born in 1909. The success of their marriage was important to Churchill's career as Clementine's unbroken affection provided him with a secure and happy background.

One of Churchill's first tasks as a minister was to arbitrate in an industrial dispute among ship-workers and employers, on the River Tyne. He afterwards established a Standing Court of Arbitration to deal with industrial disputes, establishing a reputation as a conciliator. He worked with Lloyd George to champion social reform. He promoted what he called a "network of State intervention and regulation" akin to that in Germany.

Continuing Lloyd George's work, Churchill introduced the Mines Eight Hours Bill, which prohibited miners from working more than an eight-hour day. In 1909, he introduced the Trade Boards Bill, creating Trade Boards which could prosecute exploitative employers. Passing with a large majority, it established the principle of a minimum wage and the right to have meal breaks. In May 1909, he proposed the Labour Exchanges Bill to establish over 200 Labour Exchanges through which the unemployed would be assisted in finding employment. He promoted the idea of an unemployment insurance scheme, which would be part-funded by the state.

To ensure funding for their reforms, Lloyd George and Churchill denounced Reginald McKenna's policy of naval expansion, refusing to believe war with Germany was inevitable. As Chancellor, Lloyd George presented his "People's Budget" on 29 April 1909, calling it a war budget to eliminate poverty. With Churchill as his closest ally, Lloyd George proposed unprecedented taxes on the rich to fund Liberal welfare programmes. The budget was vetoed by the Conservative peers who dominated the House of Lords. His social reforms under threat, Churchill became president of the Budget League, and warned that upper-class obstruction could anger working-class Britons and lead to class war. The government called the January 1910 general election, which resulted in a Liberal victory; Churchill retained his seat at Dundee. He proposed abolition of the House of Lords in a cabinet memo, suggesting it be succeeded by a unicameral system, or smaller second chamber that lacked an in-built advantage for the Conservatives. In April, the Lords relented and the People's Budget passed. Churchill continued to campaign against the House of Lords and assisted passage of the Parliament Act 1911 which reduced and restricted its powers.

Home Secretary: 1910–1911

In February 1910, Churchill was promoted to Home Secretary, giving him control over the police and prison services; he implemented a prison reform programme. Measures included a distinction between criminal and political prisoners, with rules for the latter being relaxed. There were educational innovations like the establishment of libraries, and a requirement to stage entertainments four times a year. The rules on solitary confinement were relaxed, and Churchill proposed abolition of automatic imprisonment of those who failed to pay fines. Imprisonment of people aged between 16 and 21 was abolished except for the most serious offences. Churchill reduced ("commuted") 21 of the 43 death ("capital") sentences passed while he was Home Secretary.

A major domestic issue was women's suffrage. Churchill supported giving women the vote, but would only back a bill to that effect if it had majority support from the (male) electorate. His proposed solution was a referendum, but this found no favour with Asquith and women's suffrage remained unresolved until 1918. Many suffragettes believed Churchill was a committed opponent, and targeted his meetings for protest. In November 1910, the suffragist Hugh Franklin attacked Churchill with a whip; Franklin was imprisoned for six weeks.

In November 1910, Churchill had to deal with the Tonypandy riots, in which coal miners in the Rhondda Valley violently protested against working conditions. The Chief Constable of Glamorgan requested troops to help police quell the rioting. Churchill, learning that the troops were already travelling, allowed them to go as far as Swindon and Cardiff, but blocked their deployment; he was concerned their use could lead to bloodshed. Instead he sent 270 London police, who were not equipped with firearms, to assist. As the riots continued, he offered the protesters an interview with the government's chief industrial arbitrator, which they accepted. Privately, Churchill regarded the mine owners and striking miners as "very unreasonable". The Times and other media outlets accused him of being soft on the rioters; in contrast, many in the Labour Party, which was linked to the trade unions, regarded him as too heavy-handed. Churchill incurred the long-term suspicion of the labour movement.

Asquith called a general election in December 1910, and the Liberals were re-elected with Churchill secure in Dundee. In January 1911, Churchill became involved in the Siege of Sidney Street; three Latvian burglars had killed police officers and hidden in a house in the East End of London, surrounded by police. Churchill stood with the police though he did not direct their operation. After the house caught fire, he told the fire brigade not to proceed into the house because of the threat posed by the armed men. Afterwards, two of the burglars were found dead. Although he faced criticism for his decision, he said he "thought it better to let the house burn down rather than spend good British lives in rescuing those ferocious rascals".

First Lord of the Admiralty

In October 1911, Asquith appointed Churchill First Lord of the Admiralty, and he took up official residence at Admiralty House. He created a naval war staff and, over the next two and a half years, focused on naval preparation, visiting naval stations and dockyards, seeking to improve morale, and scrutinising German naval developments. After Germany passed its 1912 Naval Law to increase warship production, Churchill vowed that for every new German battleship, Britain would build two. He invited Germany to engage in a mutual de-escalation, but this was refused.

Churchill pushed for higher pay and greater recreational facilities for naval staff, more submarines, and a renewed focus on the Royal Naval Air Service, encouraging them to experiment with how aircraft could be used for military purposes. He coined the term "seaplane" and ordered 100 to be constructed. Some Liberals objected to his level of naval expenditure; in December 1913 he threatened to resign if his proposal for four new battleships in 1914–15 was rejected. In June 1914, he convinced the House of Commons to authorise the government purchase of a 51% share in the profits of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, to secure oil access for the navy.

The central issue in Britain was Irish Home Rule and, in 1912, Asquith's government introduced the Home Rule Bill. Churchill urged Ulster Unionists to accept it as he opposed the Partition of Ireland. He stated: "Whatever Ulster's right may be, she cannot stand in the way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a permanent veto on the nation. Half a province cannot obstruct forever the reconciliation between the British and Irish democracies". Following a Cabinet decision, he boosted the naval presence in Ireland to deal with any Unionist uprising. Seeking a compromise, Churchill suggested Ireland remain part of a federal UK, but this angered Liberals and Irish nationalists.

As First Lord, Churchill was tasked with overseeing Britain's naval effort when the First World War began in August 1914. The navy transported 120,000 troops to France and began a blockade of Germany's North Sea ports. Churchill sent submarines to the Baltic Sea to assist the Russian Navy and sent the Marine Brigade to Ostend, forcing a reallocation of German troops. In September, Churchill assumed full responsibility for Britain's aerial defence. On 7 October, Clementine gave birth to their third child, Sarah. In October, Churchill visited Antwerp to observe Belgian defences against the besieging Germans and promised reinforcements. Soon afterwards, Antwerp fell to the Germans and Churchill was criticised in the press. He maintained that his actions had prolonged resistance and enabled the Allies to secure Calais and Dunkirk. In November, Asquith called a War Council including Churchill. Churchill set the development of the tank on the right track and financed its creation with Admiralty funds.

Military service, 1915–1916

On 25 November 1915, Churchill resigned from the government, although he remained an MP. Asquith rejected his request to be appointed Governor-General of British East Africa. Churchill decided to return to active service with the Army and was attached to the 2nd Grenadier Guards, on the Western Front. In January 1916, he was temporarily promoted to lieutenant-colonel and given command of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. The battalion was moved to the Belgian Front near Ploegsteert. For three months, they faced continual shelling, though no German offensive. Churchill narrowly escaped death when, during a visit by his cousin the Duke of Marlborough, a large piece of shrapnel fell between them. In May, the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers were merged into the 15th Division and Churchill secured permission to leave active service. His temporary promotion ended on 16 May 1916, when he returned to the rank of major.

Back in the House of Commons, Churchill spoke out on war issues, calling for conscription to be extended to the Irish, greater recognition of soldiers' bravery, and for the introduction of steel helmets. In November 1916 he penned "The greater application of mechanical power to the prosecution of an offensive on land", but it fell on deaf ears. He was frustrated at being out of office, but was repeatedly blamed for the Gallipoli disaster by the pro-Conservative press. Churchill argued his case before the Dardanelles Commission, whose report placed no blame on him personally for the campaign's failure.

Lloyd George government: 1916–1922

Minister of Munitions: 1917–1919

In October 1916, Asquith resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Lloyd George who, in May 1917, sent Churchill to inspect the French war effort. In July, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions. He negotiated an end to a strike in munitions factories along the Clyde and increased munitions production. In his October 1917 letter to his Cabinet colleagues, he penned the plan of attack that would bring final victory to the Allies. He ended a second strike, in June 1918, by threatening to conscript strikers into the army. In the House of Commons, Churchill voted in support of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which gave some women the right to vote. In November 1918, four days after the Armistice, Churchill's fourth child, Marigold, was born.

Secretary of State for War and Air: 1919–1921

Lloyd George called a general election for 14 December 1918. During the campaign, Churchill called for nationalisation of the railways, a control on monopolies, tax reform, and the creation of a League of Nations to prevent wars. He was returned as MP for Dundee and, though the Conservatives won a majority, Lloyd George was retained as prime minister. In January 1919, Lloyd George moved Churchill to the War Office as both Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air.

Churchill was responsible for demobilising the army, though he convinced Lloyd George to keep a million men conscripted for the British Army of the Rhine. Churchill was one of the few government figures who opposed harsh measures against Germany, and he cautioned against demobilising the German Army, warning they might be needed as a bulwark against Soviet Russia; he was outspoken against Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik government. He initially supported using British troops to assist the anti-Bolshevik White forces in the Russian Civil War, but soon recognised the people's desire to bring them home. After the Soviets won the civil war, Churchill proposed a cordon sanitaire around the country.

In the Irish War of Independence, he supported the use of the paramilitary Black and Tans to combat Irish revolutionaries. After British troops in Iraq clashed with Kurdish rebels, Churchill authorised two squadrons to the area, proposing they be equipped with "poison gas" to be used to "inflict punishment upon recalcitrant natives without inflicting grave injury upon them", although this was never implemented. He saw the occupation of Iraq as a drain on Britain and proposed, unsuccessfully, that the government should hand control back to Turkey.

Secretary of State for the Colonies: 1921–1922

Churchill became Secretary of State for the Colonies in February 1921. He used his new position to push his earlier plan for aerial bombing of Iraq. Cabinet approved it in August and eight RAF squadrons were sent to Iraq the next year. One was commanded by Arthur Harris, who boasted that "within 45 minutes a full-sized village ... can be practically wiped out." Japanese historian Yuki Tanaka says this precedent, along with Italy, of "indiscriminate bombing" "to terrorize enemy civilians" of "uncivilized races" led to its extension to Europeans in the Second World War.

In March, the first exhibit of his paintings took place in Paris, with Churchill exhibiting under a pseudonym. In May, his mother died, followed in August by his daughter Marigold, from sepsis. Churchill was haunted by Marigold's death for the rest of his life.

Churchill was involved in negotiations with Sinn Féin leaders and helped draft the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He was responsible for reducing the cost of occupying the Middle East, and was involved in the installations of Faisal I of Iraq and Abdullah I of Jordan. Churchill travelled to Mandatory Palestine where, as a supporter of Zionism, he refused an Arab Palestinian petition to prohibit Jewish migration. He did allow temporary restrictions following the Jaffa riots.

In January 1921, a train crash in Wales killed a cousin, Lord Herbert Vane-Tempest, with whom Churchill shared a great-grandmother, Frances Vane, Marchioness of Londonderry. He inherited from her Irish estate, which yielded approximately £55,000. This capital enabled him to begin searching for a small country estate.

In September 1922, the Chanak Crisis erupted as Turkish forces threatened to occupy the Dardanelles neutral zone, which was policed by the British army based in Chanak. Churchill and Lloyd George favoured military resistance to any Turkish advance but the majority Conservatives in the coalition government opposed it. A political debacle ensued which resulted in the Conservative withdrawal from the government, precipitating the November 1922 general election.

Also in September, Churchill's fifth and last child, Mary, was born, and in the same month he purchased Chartwell, in Kent, which became his family home. In October 1922, he underwent an appendectomy. While he was in hospital, Lloyd George's coalition was dissolved. In the general election, Churchill lost his Dundee seat to Edwin Scrymgeour, a prohibitionist candidate. Later, he wrote that he was "without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix". He was elevated as one of 50 members of the Order of the Companions of Honour, as named in Lloyd George's 1922 Dissolution Honours list.

Out of Parliament: 1922–1924

Churchill spent much of the next six months at the Villa Rêve d'Or near Cannes, painting and writing his memoirs. He wrote an autobiographical history of the war, The World Crisis. The first volume was published in April 1923 and the rest over the next ten years. After the 1923 general election was called, seven Liberal associations asked Churchill to stand as their candidate; he selected Leicester West but did not win. A Labour government led by Ramsay MacDonald took power. Churchill had hoped they would be defeated by a Conservative-Liberal coalition. He strongly opposed the MacDonald government's decision to loan money to Soviet Russia and feared the signing of an Anglo-Soviet Treaty.

In March 1924, alienated by Liberal support for Labour, Churchill stood as an independent anti-socialist candidate in the Westminster Abbey by-election but was defeated. In May, he addressed a Conservative meeting in Liverpool and declared there was no longer a place for the Liberal Party in politics. He said that Liberals must back the Conservatives to stop Labour and ensure "the successful defeat of socialism". In July, he agreed with Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin that he would be selected as a Conservative candidate in the next general election, which was held on 29 October. Churchill stood at Epping, but described himself as a "Constitutionalist". The Conservatives were victorious, and Baldwin formed the new government. Although Churchill had no background in finance or economics, Baldwin appointed him as Chancellor.

Chancellor of the Exchequer: 1924–1929

Becoming Chancellor on 6 November 1924, Churchill formally rejoined the Conservative Party a year later. As Chancellor, he intended to pursue his free trade principles in the form of laissez-faire economics, as under the Liberal social reforms. In April 1925, he controversially, albeit reluctantly, restored the gold standard in his first budget, at its 1914 parity, against the advice of leading economists including John Maynard Keynes. The return to gold is held to have caused deflation and resultant unemployment with a devastating impact on the coal industry. Churchill presented five budgets to April 1929. Among his measures were reduction of the state pension age from 70 to 65; immediate provision of widow's pensions; reduction of military expenditure; income tax reductions and imposition of taxes on luxury items.

During the General Strike of 1926, Churchill edited the British Gazette, the government's anti-strike propaganda newspaper. After the strike, he acted as an intermediary between striking miners and their employers. He called for the introduction of a legally binding minimum wage. In a House of Commons speech in 1926, Churchill stated that Ireland should be united within itself, and also "united to the British Empire." In early 1927, Churchill visited Rome where he met Mussolini, whom he praised for his stand against Leninism.

"Wilderness Years": 1929–1939

Marlborough and the India Question: 1929–1932

In the 1929 general election, Churchill retained his Epping seat, but the Conservatives were defeated, and MacDonald formed his second Labour government. Out of office, Churchill was prone to depression (his "black dog") but addressed it by writing. He began work on Marlborough: His Life and Times, a biography of his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. He had developed a reputation for being a heavy drinker, although Jenkins believes that was often exaggerated.

Hoping that the Labour government could be ousted, he gained Baldwin's approval to work towards establishing a Conservative-Liberal coalition, although many Liberals were reluctant. In October 1930, after his return from a trip to North America, Churchill published his autobiography, My Early Life, which sold well and was translated into multiple languages. In January 1931, Churchill resigned from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet because Baldwin supported the government's decision to grant Dominion status to India. Churchill believed that enhanced home rule status would hasten calls for full independence. He was particularly opposed to Mohandas Gandhi, whom he considered "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir". His views enraged Labour and Liberal opinion, though he was supported by many grassroot Conservatives.

The October 1931 general election was a landslide victory for the Conservatives. Churchill nearly doubled his majority in Epping, but was not given a ministerial position. The Commons debated Dominion Status for India on 3 December and Churchill insisted on dividing the House, but this backfired as only 43 MPs supported him. He embarked on a lecture tour of North America, hoping to recoup financial losses sustained in the Wall Street crash. On 13 December, Churchill was crossing Fifth Avenue in New York City when he was knocked down by a car, suffering a head injury from which he developed neuritis. To further his convalescence, he and Clementine took ship to Nassau for three weeks, but Churchill became depressed about his financial and political losses. He returned to America in late January 1932 and completed most of his lectures before arriving home on 18 March.

Having worked on Marlborough for much of 1932, Churchill in August decided to visit his ancestor's battlefields. In Munich, he met Ernst Hanfstaengl, a friend of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who was then rising in prominence. Hanfstaengl tried to arrange a meeting between Churchill and Hitler, but Hitler was unenthusiastic: "What on earth would I talk to him about?" Soon after visiting Blenheim, Churchill was affected by paratyphoid fever and spent two weeks at a sanatorium in Salzburg. He returned to Chartwell on 25 September, still working on Marlborough. Two days later, he collapsed after a recurrence of paratyphoid which caused an ulcer to haemorrhage. He was taken to a London nursing home and remained there until late October.

Warnings about Germany and the abdication crisis: 1933–1936

In January 1933, Churchill was quick to realise the threat posed by Hitler's regime. He expressed alarm that the British government had reduced RAF spending, and warned that Germany's Luftwaffe would soon be a more powerful air force. Armed with data provided clandestinely by senior civil servants, Desmond Morton and Ralph Wigram, Churchill was able to speak with authority about what was happening in Germany, and spoke of his concerns in a radio broadcast in November 1934, having denounced the intolerance and militarism of Nazism in the House of Commons. While Churchill regarded Mussolini's regime as a bulwark against the threat of communist revolution, he opposed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, despite describing the country as a primitive, uncivilised nation. He admired the exiled king of Spain Alfonso XIII, and feared communism was making inroads during the Spanish Civil War. He referred to Franco's army as the "anti-red movement", but later became critical of Franco as too close to Mussolini and Hitler.

Between October 1933 and September 1938, the four volumes of Marlborough: His Life and Times were published and sold well. The India Bill passed in February 1935; Churchill and 83 other Conservative MPs voted against it. In June 1935, MacDonald resigned and was succeeded as prime minister by Baldwin. Baldwin then led the Conservatives to victory in the 1935 general election; Churchill retained his seat, but was again left out of the government. In January 1936, Edward VIII succeeded George V as monarch. His desire to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, caused the abdication crisis. Churchill supported Edward and clashed with Baldwin on the issue. Afterwards, although Churchill immediately pledged loyalty to George VI, he wrote that the abdication was "premature and probably quite unnecessary".

Anti-appeasement: 1937–1939

In May 1937, Baldwin resigned and was succeeded as prime minister by Neville Chamberlain. At first, Churchill welcomed Chamberlain's appointment but, in February 1938, matters came to a head after Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden resigned over Chamberlain's appeasement of Mussolini, a policy which Chamberlain was extending towards Hitler. In 1938, Churchill warned the government against appeasement and called for collective action to deter German aggression. Following the Anschluss, Churchill spoke in the House of Commons:

A country like ours, possessed of immense territory and wealth, whose defence has been neglected, cannot avoid war by dilating upon its horrors, or even by a continuous display of pacific qualities, or by ignoring the fate of the victims of aggression elsewhere. War will be avoided, in present circumstances, only by the accumulation of deterrents against the aggressor.

He began calling for a mutual defence pact among European states threatened by German expansionism, arguing this was the only way to halt Hitler. In September, Germany mobilised to invade the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Churchill visited Chamberlain and urged him to tell Germany that Britain would declare war if the Germans invaded Czechoslovak territory; Chamberlain was unwilling to do this. On 30 September, Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement, agreeing to allow German annexation of the Sudetenland. Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 October, Churchill described the agreement as "a total and unmitigated defeat". Following the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Churchill and his supporters called for the foundation of a national coalition. His popularity increased as a result.

First Lord of the Admiralty: September 1939 to May 1940

Phoney War and the Norwegian Campaign

On 3 September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany, Chamberlain reappointed Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, and he joined the war cabinet. A high-profile minister during the 'Phoney War', Churchill was ebullient after the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December 1939, and welcomed home the crews, congratulating them on "a brilliant sea fight". On 16 February 1940, Churchill ordered Captain Philip Vian of the destroyer HMS Cossack to board the German supply ship Altmark in Norwegian waters, freeing 299 British merchant seamen who had been captured by the Admiral Graf Spee. These actions, and his speeches, enhanced Churchill's reputation. He was concerned about German naval activity in the Baltic and wanted to send a naval force, but this was soon changed to a plan, codenamed Operation Wilfred, to mine Norwegian waters and stop iron ore shipments to Germany. Due to disagreements, Wilfred was delayed until 8 April 1940, the day before the German invasion of Norway.

Norway Debate and Chamberlain's resignation

After the Allies failed to prevent the German occupation of Norway, the Commons held a debate from 7 to 9 May on the government's conduct of the war, one of the most significant events in parliamentary history. On the second day, the Labour opposition called for a division which was in effect a vote of no confidence in Chamberlain's government. Churchill was called upon to wind up the debate, placing him in the difficult position of having to defend the government without damaging his own prestige. The government won the vote, but its majority was drastically reduced amid calls for a national government.

Early on 10 May, German forces invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands as a prelude to their assault on France. Since the division vote, Chamberlain had been trying to form a coalition, but Labour declared they would not serve under his leadership, although they would accept another Conservative. The only two candidates were Churchill and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary. Halifax admitted he could not govern effectively as a member of the House of Lords, so Chamberlain advised the King to send for Churchill, who became prime minister. Churchill later wrote of a profound sense of relief, saying that he believed his life so far had been 'a preparation for this hour and for this trial'.

Prime Minister: 1940–1945

Dunkirk to Pearl Harbor: May 1940 to December 1941

Churchill began his premiership by forming a war cabinet: Chamberlain as Lord President of the Council, Labour leader Clement Attlee as Lord Privy Seal (later Deputy Prime Minister), Halifax as Foreign Secretary and Labour's Arthur Greenwood as a minister without portfolio. In practice, these five were augmented by the service chiefs and ministers who attended most meetings. The cabinet changed in size and membership as the war progressed, a key appointment being the leading trades unionist Ernest Bevin as Minister of Labour and National Service. In response to criticisms, Churchill created and assumed the position of Minister of Defence, making him the most powerful wartime prime minister in history. He drafted outside experts into government to fulfil vital functions, especially on the Home Front. These included friends like Lord Beaverbrook and Frederick Lindemann, who became the government's scientific advisor.

In May, Churchill had still been unpopular with many Conservatives, and most of the Labour Party. Chamberlain remained Conservative Party leader until October. By then, Churchill had won over his doubters, and his succession as party leader was a formality.

Churchill succeeded as an orator despite having a speech impediment from childhood. He had a lateral lisp and worked on his pronunciation by repeating phrases designed to cure his problem with the sibilant letter "s". He was ultimately successful, turning the impediment into an asset, as when he called Hitler a "Nar-zee" (rhymes with "khazi"; emphasis on the "z"), rather than a Nazi ("ts"). His first speech as prime minister, delivered to the Commons on 13 May, was the "blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech. Churchill made it plain that a long road lay ahead and that victory was the final goal:

I would say to the House... that I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. 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: 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.

Pearl Harbor to D-Day: December 1941 to June 1944

In December 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was followed by their invasion of Malaya. On the 8th, Churchill declared war on Japan. With the hope of using Irish ports for counter-submarine operations, Churchill sent a telegram to Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera in which he obliquely offered Irish unity: "Now is your chance. Now or never! A nation once again! I will meet you wherever you wish." No meeting took place and there is no record of a response. Churchill went to Washington to meet Roosevelt for the Arcadia Conference. This was important for "Europe first", the decision to prioritise victory in Europe over victory in the Pacific, taken by Roosevelt while Churchill was still in the mid-Atlantic. The Americans agreed with Churchill that Hitler was the main enemy and defeat of Germany was key to Allied success. It was also agreed that the first joint Anglo-American strike would be Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. Originally planned for spring 1942, it was launched in November 1942 when the crucial Second Battle of El Alamein was underway.

On 26 December, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the United States Congress. Later that night, he suffered a heart attack, which was diagnosed by his physician, Charles Wilson, as a coronary deficiency requiring several weeks' bed rest. Churchill instead journeyed to Ottawa by train, where he gave a speech to the Canadian Parliament that included the "some chicken, some neck" line in which he recalled French predictions in 1940 that "Britain alone would have her neck wrung like a chicken". He arrived home mid-January, having flown from Bermuda to Plymouth in the first transatlantic air crossing by a head of government, to find there was a crisis of confidence in his government and him; he decided to face a vote of confidence in the Commons, which he won easily.

While he was away, the Eighth Army, having relieved the Siege of Tobruk, had pursued Operation Crusader against Rommel's forces in Libya, successfully driving them back to a defensive position at El Agheila. On 21 January 1942, however, Rommel launched a surprise counter-attack which drove the Allies back to Gazala. Elsewhere, British success in the Battle of the Atlantic was compromised by the Kriegsmarine's introduction of its M4 4-rotor Enigma, whose signals could not be deciphered by Bletchley Park for nearly a year. At a press conference in Washington, Churchill had to play down his increasing doubts about the security of Singapore.

Defeat of Germany: June 1944 to May 1945

Churchill was determined to be actively involved in the Normandy invasion and hoped to cross the Channel on D-Day (6 June 1944) or at least D-Day+1. His desire caused unnecessary consternation at SHAEF, until he was effectively vetoed by the King. Churchill expected an Allied death toll of 20,000 on D-Day but fewer than 8,000 died in all of June. He made his first visit to Normandy on 12 June to visit Montgomery. That evening, as he was returning to London, the first V-1 flying bombs were launched. On 22–23 July, Churchill went to Cherbourg and Arromanches where he saw the Mulberry Harbour.

Churchill met Roosevelt at the Second Quebec Conference in September 1944. They reached agreement on the Morgenthau Plan for the Allied occupation of Germany, the intention of which was not only to demilitarise, but de-industrialise. Eden opposed it and persuaded Churchill to disown it. US Secretary of State Cordell Hull convinced Roosevelt it was infeasible.

At the fourth Moscow conference in October 1944, Churchill and Eden met Stalin and Molotov. This conference has gained notoriety for the so-called "Percentages agreement" in which Churchill and Stalin effectively agreed the post-war fate of the Balkans. By then, the Soviet armies were in Rumania and Bulgaria. Churchill suggested a scale of predominance throughout the whole region so as not to, as he put it, "get at cross-purposes in small ways". He wrote down some suggested percentages of influence per country and gave it to Stalin who ticked it. The agreement was that Russia would have 90% control of Romania and 75% control of Bulgaria. The United Kingdom and United States would have 90% control of Greece. Hungary and Yugoslavia would be 50% each. In 1958, five years after the account of this meeting was published (in The Second World War), Soviet authorities denied Stalin had accepted such an "imperialist proposal".

From 30 January to 2 February 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt met for their Malta Conference ahead of the second "Big Three" event at Yalta from 4 to 11 February. Yalta had massive implications for the post-war world. There were two predominant issues: the question of setting up the United Nations Organisation, on which much progress was made; and the more vexed question of Poland's post-war status, which Churchill saw as a test case for Eastern Europe. Churchill faced criticism for the agreement on Poland. For example, 27 Tory MPs voted against him when the matter was debated in the Commons at the end of the month. Jenkins, however, maintains that Churchill did as well as possible in difficult circumstances, not least the fact that Roosevelt was seriously ill and could not provide Churchill with meaningful support.

Caretaker government: May 1945 to July 1945

With a general election looming, and with Labour ministers refusing to continue the coalition, Churchill resigned as prime minister on 23 May 1945. Later that day, he accepted the King's invitation to form a new government, known officially as the National Government but sometimes called the caretaker ministry. It contained Conservatives, National Liberals and a few non-party figures such as Sir John Anderson and Lord Woolton, but not Labour or Archibald Sinclair's Official Liberals. Churchill was formally reappointed on 28 May.

Churchill was Great Britain's representative at the Potsdam Conference when it opened on 17 July and was accompanied at its sessions by Eden and Attlee. They attended nine sessions in nine days before returning to England for their election counts. After the landslide Labour victory, Attlee returned with Bevin as the new Foreign Secretary for five days of discussion. Potsdam went badly for Churchill. Eden later described his performance as "appalling", saying he was unprepared and verbose. Churchill upset the Chinese, exasperated the Americans and was easily led by Stalin, whom he was supposed to be resisting.

Churchill mishandled the election campaign by resorting to party politics and trying to denigrate Labour. On 4 June, he committed a serious gaffe by saying in a radio broadcast that a Labour government would require "some form of Gestapo" to enforce its agenda. It backfired and Attlee made political capital by saying in his reply broadcast next day: "The voice we heard last night was that of Mr Churchill, but the mind was that of Lord Beaverbrook". Jenkins says that this broadcast was "the making of Attlee"—it had a significant bearing on the election result.

Although polling day was 5 July, the results did not become known until 26 July, owing to the need to collect votes of those serving overseas. Clementine and daughter Mary had been at the count in Woodford, Churchill's new constituency, and had returned to Downing Street to meet him for lunch. Churchill was unopposed by the major parties in Woodford, but his majority over a sole independent candidate was much less than expected. He anticipated defeat by Labour and Mary later described the lunch as "an occasion of Stygian gloom". To Clementine's suggestion that defeat might be "a blessing in disguise", Churchill retorted: "At the moment it seems very effectively disguised".

Leader of the Opposition: 1945–1951

"Iron Curtain" speech

Churchill continued to lead the Conservative Party and served as Leader of the Opposition. In 1946, he was in America from early January to late March. It was on this trip he gave his "Iron Curtain" speech about the USSR and its creation of the Eastern Bloc. His view was that, though the Soviet Union did not want war with the western Allies, its entrenched position in Eastern Europe had made it impossible for the three great powers to provide the world with a "triangular leadership". Within the same speech, he called for "a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States", but emphasised the need for co-operation within the framework of the United Nations Charter.

Churchill was an early proponent of pan-Europeanism, having called for a "United States of Europe" in a 1930 article. He supported the creations of the Council of Europe in 1949 and the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, but his support was initially with the firm proviso that Britain must not join any federal grouping. But as the first steps to European unity were taken, and as the new realities of Britain's shrunken role in the world sank in, Churchill advocated the creation of a united Europe that would include Britain. He lent his considerable personal prestige to the Congress of Europe in 1948 in The Hague, where he called for the 16 democratic European countries, "including Great Britain, linked with her Empire and Commonwealth", to start building Europe, aiming at "the union of Europe as a whole". In 1961, when Harold Macmillan applied to join the European Economic Community (EEC), Churchill wrote to his Conservative Association in support.

Labour won the 1950 general election, but with a much-reduced majority. A fresh election was called the following year and the Conservatives won a majority.

Prime Minister: 1951–1955

Election result and cabinet appointments

Despite losing the popular vote, the Conservatives won a majority of 17 seats in the October 1951 general election and Churchill became prime minister, remaining in office until his resignation on 5 April 1955. Eden was restored to Foreign Affairs. Future prime minister Harold Macmillan was appointed Minister of Housing and Local Government with a manifesto commitment to build 300,000 new houses per year, Churchill's only real domestic concern. He achieved the target and, in 1954, was promoted to Minister of Defence.

Health issues to eventual resignation

Churchill was nearly 77 when he took office and not in good health following minor strokes. By December 1951, George VI had become concerned about Churchill's decline and intended asking him to stand down in favour of Eden, but the King had his own health issues and died on 6 February 1952. Churchill developed a friendship with Elizabeth II and, in spring 1953, accepted the Order of the Garter at her request. He was knighted on 24 April 1953. It was widely expected he would retire after the Queen's Coronation in 1953 but, after Eden became seriously ill, Churchill increased his own responsibilities by taking over at the Foreign Office. On 23 June 1953, Churchill suffered a serious stroke; the matter was kept secret and Churchill went to Chartwell to recuperate. He had recovered by November. He retired in April 1955 and was succeeded by Eden.

Foreign affairs

Churchill feared a global conflagration and believed the only way to preserve peace and freedom was co-operation between Britain and America. He made four official transatlantic visits from January 1952 to July 1954. He enjoyed a good relationship with Truman, but difficulties arose over the planned European Defence Community (EDC), by which Truman hoped to reduce America's military presence in West Germany. Churchill wanted US military support of British interests in Egypt and the Middle East, but while Truman expected British military involvement in Korea, he viewed any US commitment to the Middle East as maintaining British imperialism. The Americans recognised the British Empire was in terminal decline and had welcomed the Attlee government's policy of decolonisation. Churchill believed Britain's position as a world power depended on the empire's continued existence.

Churchill had been obliged to recognise Colonel Nasser's revolutionary government of Egypt, which took power in 1952. Much to Churchill's dismay, agreement was reached in October 1954 on the phased evacuation of British troops from their Suez base. Britain agreed to terminate its rule in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by 1956, though this was in return for Nasser's abandonment of Egyptian claims over the region. Elsewhere, the Malayan Emergency, a guerrilla war fought by Communist fighters against Commonwealth forces, had begun in 1948 and continued until 1960. Churchill's government maintained the military response to the crisis and adopted a similar strategy for the Mau Mau Uprising in British Kenya (1952–1960).

Churchill was uneasy about the election of Eisenhower as Truman's successor. After Stalin died in March 1953, Churchill sought a summit meeting with the Soviets, but Eisenhower refused out of fear the Soviets would use it for propaganda. Churchill believed Eisenhower did not fully comprehend the danger posed by the H-bomb and he greatly distrusted Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. Churchill hosted Eisenhower at the Three-Powers Bermuda Conference, with French Prime Minister Joseph Laniel, in December; they met again in June/July 1954 at the White House. In the end, the Soviets proposed a four-power summit, but it did not meet until July 1955, three months after Churchill's retirement.

Later life: 1955–1965

Retirement: 1955–1964

Elizabeth II offered to create Churchill Duke of London, but he declined because of the objections of Randolph, who would have inherited the title. Although publicly supportive, Churchill was privately scathing about Eden's handling of the Suez Crisis and Clementine believed that many of his visits to the US in the following years were attempts to repair Anglo-American relations.

By the time of the 1959 general election, he seldom attended the House of Commons. He stood down at the 1964 general election. He spent most of his retirement at Chartwell or at his London home in Hyde Park Gate, and became an habitué of high society at La Pausa on the French Riviera.

In June 1962, aged 87, Churchill broke his hip from falling in Monte Carlo. He was flown to a London hospital where he remained for three weeks. Jenkins says Churchill was never the same after this. In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy, under authorisation of an Act of Congress, proclaimed him an honorary citizen of the United States, but he was unable to attend the White House ceremony. There has been speculation he became very depressed in his final years, but this was emphatically denied by his secretary Anthony Montague Browne, who was with him for his last 10 years.

Death, funeral and memorials

Churchill suffered his final stroke on 10 January 1965 and died at his London home, 28 Hyde Park Gate, on 24 January. Churchill was given a state funeral. His coffin lay in state at Westminster Hall for three days. The funeral ceremony was at St Paul's Cathedral on 30 January. Afterwards, the coffin was taken by boat along the River Thames to Waterloo Station and from there by a special train to the family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon.

Worldwide, numerous memorials have been dedicated to Churchill. His statue in Parliament Square was unveiled by his widow Clementine in 1973. The Cabinet War Rooms have been renamed the Churchill War Rooms. Churchill College, Cambridge, was established as a national memorial to Churchill. In a 2002 BBC poll that attracted 447,423 votes, he was voted the greatest-ever Briton.

Churchill was the first of only eight people to be granted honorary citizenship of the United States. The United States Navy named a Arleigh Burke-class destroyer as the USS Winston S. Churchill in 1999. Other memorials in North America include the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, where he made the 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech; Churchill Square in Edmonton, Alberta; and the Winston Churchill Range, a mountain range northwest of Lake Louise, also in Alberta.

Artist, historian, and writer

Churchill was a prolific writer. His output included a novel (Savrola), two biographies, memoirs, histories, and press articles. Two of his most famous works were his six-volume memoir, The Second World War, and the four-volume A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Churchill received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

He used either "Winston S. Churchill" or "Winston Spencer Churchill" as his pen name to avoid confusion with the American novelist Winston Churchill, with whom he had a friendly correspondence. For many years, he relied on his press articles to assuage his financial worries.

Churchill became an accomplished amateur artist beginning after his resignation from the Admiralty in 1915. Often using the pseudonym "Charles Morin", identical to that of the French landscape painter Charles Camille Morin (died 1919), he completed hundreds of paintings, many of which are on show in Chartwell and in private collections.

Churchill was an amateur bricklayer, constructing buildings and garden walls at Chartwell. He joined the Amalgamated Union of Building Trade Workers, but was expelled after he rejoined the Conservative Party. He bred butterflies. He was known for his love of animals and always had several pets, mainly cats but also dogs, pigs, lambs, bantams, goats and fox cubs among others.

Legacy and assessments

Political ideology

As a politician, Churchill was perceived by some to have been largely motivated by personal ambition rather than political principle. During his early career, he was often provocative and argumentative to an unusual degree; and his barbed rhetorical style earned him enemies in parliament. Others deemed him to be an honest politician who displayed particular loyalty to his family and close friends. Robert Rhodes James said he "lacked any capacity for intrigue and was refreshingly innocent and straightforward".

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill's approach to politics generated widespread "mistrust and dislike", largely on account of his two party defections. His biographers have variously categorised him, in terms of political ideology, as "fundamentally conservative", "(always) liberal in outlook", and "never circumscribed by party affiliation". He was nearly always opposed to socialism because of its propensity for state planning and his belief in free markets. The exception was during his wartime coalition when he was reliant upon the support of his Labour colleagues. Churchill had long been regarded as an enemy of the working class, and his response to the Rhondda Valley unrest and his anti-socialist rhetoric brought condemnation from socialists who saw him as a reactionary. His role in opposing the General Strike earned the enmity of strikers and most members of the Labour movement. Paradoxically, Churchill was supportive of trade unionism, which he saw as the "antithesis of socialism".

On the other hand, he was in many respects a radical and reformer, but always with the intention of preserving the existing social structure, displaying what Addison calls the attitude of a "benevolent paternalist". Jenkins remarked that Churchill had "a substantial record as a social reformer" in his ministerial career. Similarly, Rhodes James thought that Churchill's achievements were "considerable".

Imperialism and racial views

Churchill was a staunch imperialist and monarchist, who consistently exhibited a "romanticised view" of the British Empire and its reigning monarch, especially during his last term as premier. He has been described as a "liberal imperialist"; he advocated against indigenous self-rule in the colonies, insisting that the Empire maintained the welfare of those who lived there.

According to Paul Addison, Churchill was opposed to immigration from the Commonwealth. There is also evidence of his support for eugenics, based upon a letter he wrote to Asquith in February 1910 about an "increasingly rapid growth" of feeble-mindedness and insanity in Britain. However, Addison makes the point that Churchill opposed antisemitism (as in 1904, when he was critical of the proposed Aliens Bill), and argues that he would never have tried "to stoke up racial animosity against immigrants, or to persecute minorities".

Cultural depictions

While biographies by Addison, Gilbert, Jenkins and Rhodes James are among the most acclaimed works about Churchill, he has been the subject of numerous others. David Freeman counted 62 in English to the end of the 20th century. At a public ceremony on 30 November 1954, Churchill's 80th birthday, the joint Houses of Parliament presented him with a full-length portrait of himself, painted by Graham Sutherland. Churchill and Clementine reportedly hated it and she had it destroyed.

Biographical films include Young Winston (1972); it featured Simon Ward in the title role. Other depictions were by Robert Hardy in Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (1981); Albert Finney in The Gathering Storm (2002); Brendan Gleeson in Into the Storm (2009); and Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour (2017). John Lithgow played Churchill in The Crown (2016–2019). Finney, Gleeson, Oldman, and Lithgow all won awards for their performances.

Family

Churchill married Clementine Hozier in September 1908. They remained married until his death. Churchill was aware of the strain his career placed on their marriage. According to Colville, he had an affair in the 1930s with Doris Castlerosse, although this is discounted by Andrew Roberts.

The Churchills' first child, Diana, was born in July 1909; Randolph, in May 1911, Sarah, in October 1914, and Marigold, in November 1918. Marigold died in August 1921, from sepsis. On 15 September 1922, the Churchills' last child, Mary, was born. Later that month, the Churchills bought Chartwell, which would be their home until Winston's death in 1965.