Churchill, Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) 1874 -- 1965
British statesman, prime minister, and author. Born November 30, 1874, in Oxfordshire, England, the eldest son of Randolph Churchill. Winston Churchill is most notable for his parliamentary career, which spanned the reigns of six monarchs, from Queen Victoria to her great-great-granddaughter, Elizabeth II. His early military service included hand-to-hand combat in the Sudan, and he lived to see the use of atomic weapons as a means to end World War II. He was most familiar as a diplomat in his homburg hat and bowtie flashing the V-for-Victory sign with his index and middle fingers; but he was also a weekend artisan, building garden walls at his home at Chartwell, as well as an accomplished painter. His paintings were regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy, which held a one-man retrospective of his work in 1958.
One of the greatest orators of the twentieth century, Churchill used words and phrases條ike "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" or "the iron curtain" hat have assumed a permanent place in the English lexicon. An example of his wit is his frequently quoted retort to Lady Astor who had told him, "If I were to marry you, I'd feed you poison," to which Churchill responded, "And if I were your husband, I'd take it."
Churchill's military career began almost immediately upon his graduation with honors from Sandhurst, the West Point of Great Britain. In March 1895, he was appointed to the Fourth (Queen's Own) Hussars as a sub-lieutenant, assigned to duty at the Aldershop camp in Hampshire. After attachment as an "observer" to an anti-insurrectionary Spanish force in Cuba, he served in Bangalore, India. His next assignments included the Tirah Expeditionary Force in 1898 and the Nile Expeditionary Force, where he participated in the famous cavalry charge at Omdurman.
Churchill also saw battle as a journalist. In 1897, as a war correspondent for The London Daily Telegraph, he joined General Sir Benden Blood's expedition against the Pathams in the area of the Malakand Pass. In a similar capacity for The London Morning Post, he went to South Africa after the outbreak of the Boer War. There, on November 15, 1899, he was taken prisoner by Louis Botha, who later became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa and a close friend of Sir Winston's.
Churchill followed his escape from Botha with a lecture tour of the United States, and thus helped finance the start of his political career. It began with an unsuccessful stand as a Conservative in a by-election in Oldham, Lancashire, in 1898; he ran again for the position, successfully, in 1900. Over the next three years, however, he found himself in disagreement with his party, particularly over the high tariff policy of Joseph Chamberlain. Therefore, in 1904 he "crossed the aisle" in the House of Commons and affiliated himself with the free-trade Liberals. Cabinet positions followed, first under-secretary for the colonies, then privy councillor. Upon the rise of Herbert Henry Asquith to prime minister in 1908, Churchill became president of the board of trade and home secretary. In these last two positions Churchill sponsored such progressive legislation as the establishment of the British Labor Exchanges, old age pensions, and health and unemployment insurance.
In 1911, Churchill became first lord of the admiralty, readying the British fleet for war with Germany. By the start of World War I in 1914, the Royal Navy was so well prepared, having changed over from coal to oil-fueled vessels, that it quickly confined the German fleet to its home ports. The Germans refrained from an all-out naval confrontation, relying instead upon the submarine. Churchill's other major accomplishment at this time was the establishment of the Royal Air Force, first called the Royal Flying Corps. But after encountering loud criticism for the British landings on Gallipoli (the Dardanelles campaign), which resulted in heavy casualties, Churchill was demoted. He resigned his office in 1916 to go to the front as a lieutenant-colonel in command of the Sixth Royal Fusiliers. Nevertheless, he was soon recalled by Prime Minister Lloyd George to become minister of munitions.
After World War I, Churchill introduced a number of military reforms as secretary of state for war and for air (1918-21). As secretary for the colonies (1921-22), he worked toward the establishment of new Arab states, toward a Jewish homeland in the Middle East, and toward an Irish free state. At this time, Churchill was growing increasingly anti-socialist, setting himself at odds with the pro-labor segment of the Liberal party. His use of British troops to suppress the Bolshevist regime in the Soviet Union lost him the favor of Lloyd George, who appointed Sir Robert Horne chancellor of the exchequer over Churchill. But in 1924, Churchill rejoined the Conservatives and was immediately named chancellor of the exchequer.
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