Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer, Prime Minister

b. Blenheim Palace, 30 November 1874; d. 24 January 1965

British statesman, soldier, and historian, eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill, was born at and educated at Harrow and Sandhurst. He joined the army in 1895 and in the dual role of soldier and military correspondent served in the Spanish/American war in Cuba, in India, Egypt, and South Africa, where he was briefly imprisoned by the Boers. In the 'khaki' election of 1900 he won Oldham for the Conservatives and held it for nearly six years. When Chamberlain's Tariff Reform was launched in 1903, Churchill was one of its active opponents and crossed the floor of the House to join the Liberal party. In 1906 he won Northwest Manchester for the Liberals. He had in the meantime been appointed under-secretary of state for the colonies in the Campbell-Bannerman administration and in 1908 became president of the Board of Trade. Defeated at the by-election at that time necessitated by his appointment, he soon obtained another seat at Dundee.

In 1910 Churchill became home secretary and during his tenure of this office lost much of his previously-won reputation as a radical by his action in sending in the military to aid the police at Tonypandy. In 1911 he was transferred to the Admiralty where, with the aid of Lord Fisher, he brought the fleet to the excellent state of preparedness which was evidenced on the outbreak of the First World War. The disaster of the Dardanelles expedition of 1915 and Fisher's criticisms brought political attacks on Churchill which led to his demotion to the Duchy of Lancaster and to his resignation later that year. He was out of office until 1917 when he was appointed minister of munitions by Lloyd George and, subsequently, secretary of state for war.

In 1921 he became secretary of state for the colonies, but with the collapse of the coalition in 1922 he lost his parliamentary seat to Labour and was out of office for two years. In the general election of 1924 he was finally returned to Parliament, winning Epping as a Constitutionalist, and Baldwin made him his Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1925 he rejoined the Conservative party. As chancellor he was notable for his rigid orthodoxy and for his disastrous decision to return to the gold standard. During the General Strike of May 1926, Churchill edited the government newspaper The British Gazette and pressed for a militant response to the strikers. Out of office from 1929 to 1939, he led the life of a back-bench MP, vociferous in his criticism of the National Government's policy on India - he was opposed to any abdication of British power - and ever more insistent in his warnings on the rate of German rearmament and British unpreparedness.

On the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Chamberlain bowed to popular demand and appointed Churchill first lord of the Admiralty, where his influence was immediately felt. The collapse of the Norwegian campaign early in May 1940 and the dramatic debate of 8 May led to the fall of Chamberlain. Churchill replaced him, combining the office of prime minister with that of minister of defence. As a war minister, Churchill captured the spirit and inspired the confidence of the nation. His indomitable confidence in eventual, if hard won victory, sustained British morale, particularly in the early years of disaster. Through the evacuation of Dunkirk, the collapse of France, and the Battle of Britain, he maintained a spirit of confident defiance, always ready with a telling and characteristic utterance. When Germany attacked the USSR in 1941 Churchill was ready immediately with his promises of wholehearted aid for the Russian people, and after America's entry into the war as a result of Pearl Harbor, he worked ceaselessly to unite the three nations in the Grand Alliance, which was to win the war. He had already developed a close relationship with Roosevelt, which was to be a decisive factor in the years to come, especially when the inevitable difficulties with Stalin arose. In 1942 he was in Moscow for discussions with Stalin, in 1943 in Casablanca and Quebec for talks with Roosevelt, and at the first meeting of all the Allies at Teheran.

In 1944, as Allied successes grew, he made continual trips to the Front, and there were further conferences in Quebec and Moscow to discuss strategy. In 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met at Yalta to draw up plans for the final defeat of Germany and for the occupation and control of the country after its unconditional surrender. Subsequently, in June 1945, Churchill went to Potsdam to discuss the final stages of the war, but, already worried by Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe, the 'iron curtain descending' as he later described it, he could have no part in the eventual decisions of the conference as part way through it his government was defeated in a general election and he had to return to England. Churchill had, soon after the German surrender, sounded the Labour leaders on the possibility of continuing the coalition government until after the end of the war with Japan. Their response was not favourable and the general election of July 1945 put Churchill out of office. In his flamboyant election campaign he had been greeted everywhere with unbounded enthusiasm; but it was enthusiasm for the man, not for the party.

For the next six years he led the Opposition, confining himself to criticisms of Labour's domestic and imperial policies and concerning himself greatly with the need for European unity. In 1950 the Conservatives gained several seats in the general election, but Labour still held a slender majority. Eighteen months later the Conservatives returned to power with Churchill as prime minister. His peace ministry was something of a personal triumph. It saw the end of the Korean War, an apparent lessening in the 'cold war', and revival in the country's economy. There was, however, little progress towards the United Europe of which Churchill had proclaimed himself an advocate. In 1953 he was created KG and in April 1955 resigned from the premiership to be succeeded by Anthony Eden. He remained in Parliament as MP for Woodford until the dissolution in 1964 and his retirement was the occasion of a special motion by the Commons 'putting on record its unbounded admiration and gratitude for his services to Parliament, to the nation and to the world'.

He died on 24 January 1965 and after a state funeral at St Paul's, was buried at Bladon, Oxfordshire. Churchill was also a noted painter, whose pictures were hung in the Royal Academy, and a historian. His publications include, Lord Randolph Churchill, 1906; My Early Life, 1930; Marlborough, 4 vols, 1933-38; The Second World War, 6 vols, 1948-54; A History of the English-speaking Peoples, 4 vols, 1956-58.

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