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The Great Leader Series No.25 - Sir Winston Churchill
Our great leader this month is something of an enigma. Both loved and hated by the public, he was voted the greatest Briton ever on a BBC television programme on November 2002. Despite his record during World War 11, he was defeated in the General Election of 1945, the first election since 1935.
Winston Lionel Spencer Churchill was born two months early at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the home of his grandparents. His parents were Lord Randolph Churchill, a politician and Jennie Jerome, an American socialite.
As he grew up he received the best possible education, for the time. He attended Harrow, but he achieved little and went to Sandhurst Military Academy. He joined the Fourth Hussars, seeing action in Cuba and the Indian North West Frontier before transferring to the Sudan where he fought with General the Lord Kitchener at the Battle of Omdurman. Upon leaving the army, the Boer War he became the war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and was captured. He escaped from a Boer Prison of War Campjust hours before Jans Smut, the Boers’ leader and Churchill’s friend, arranged his formal release. He was present at the Relief of Ladysmith.
During his time in the British Army he had written his first book and two more followed during his time in South Africa.
Upon his return home he made his first forays into the world of British Politics, gaining the reputation of being a maverick. In 1900 he was elected the Conservative MP for Oldham. In 1904 he crossed the floor and became a Liberal as he felt the Liberal Party better represented his views on free trade. From 1906 to 1908 he was MP for Manchester before moving to serve the people of Dundee until 1922.
From 1908 to 1910 he was the President of the Board of Trade under Asquith. His main achievement during his tenure at the Board of Trade was the introduction of labour exchanges. When he became Home Secretary in 1910 he used the Army to maintain law and order during a miners’ strike in South Wales; and the infamous Siege of Sidney Street in January 1911 where he sent in a detachment of the Scots Guards.
Churchill’s work as First Lord of the Admiralty during 1911 and1915 ensured that the navy was modernised, up to date and ready for war. He also became a supporter of using airplanes for combat.
The fiasco that became Dardanelles Campaign was suggested by Churchill, and its failure became Churchill’s responsibility. He was dismissed and became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancashire, which was seen as a demotion by many. He left the post six months later and rejoined the army.
Churchill was a man determined to do what he thought was best and wanted to serve the country, so when he returned to the army he commanded a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front until 1916.
But he soon returned to government and in 1917 he was appointed Minister for Munitions where he stayed until 1918 and the end of the war. In 1919 he was appointed Minister of War and Air until 1920 when he became Colonial Secretary. He kept this post until he lost his seat in Dundee in the 1922 election. After this Churchill left the Liberal party and became MP for Epping standing as a “constitutional anti-socialist”. Stanley Baldwin made him Chancellor of the Exchequer. He kept this post for five years, officially rejoining the Conservative Party in 1925. However he lost his Conservative seat at an election in 1929 but he did return to politics for ten years. In the gap he was kept busy by his family of four, his writing and his painting.
Despite his lack of academic achievements, he had become an avid reader and writer. He drew on his life experiences and personal knowledge as his inspiration.
He also kept abreast of international news He spoke out about the developing situation in India and Hitler’s more and more aggressive attitude in Europe. He was concerned about the attitude of Neville Chamberlain.
In the last year before the war in 1939, Churchill urged the government to be pro-active against Hitler, and to introduce conscription.
On 3 September 1939 Churchill was brought back into the government by Chamberlain who made him First Lord of the Admiralty. It seemed that the government was failing in the face of the war. The failure in Norway in 1940 encouraged criticism from the public and on 10 May 1940 Churchill was made Prime Minister. During the war he became the most dominant man in British politics.
Churchill’s leadership during the hard years of the WW2 inspired the people of the UK to make great achievements. He was a great orator, his words and action gave people a unity of purpose. They became part of an extremely large team working for a common purpose. Churchill showed a real empathy with city dwellers throughout the Blitz, staying in London. Many nights he sat on the roof tops of Whitehall, fire spotting.
Churchill also took a role in military decisions. He pushed for commando units and didn’t pull any punches when battles were lost.
However, when a general election was held in 1945, ten years since the last one, Churchill lost to Clement Attlee. Churchill’s response to his wife’s comment of “It’s a blessing in disguise”, was “it’s very well disguised”.
Pundits have suggested that the election was lost because Churchill had succeeded in the task set him in 1940, and the public felt that his skills were now redundant. He continued as leader of the Opposition. He was concerned about the Cold War. It was he who coined the phrase “iron curtain” during a speech in Westminster, Missouri.
In 1951 Churchill regained his post as PM, but sadly, his health was not robust enough for him to involve himself in the day to day politics as the post demanded. It had been kept a secret that he had suffered a stroke in August 1949.
In April 1953 he was made a Knight of the Garter and resigned from politics in 1955.
Churchill holds a unique place in the history of this country and a unique place in the hearts of people of this country. His time as an historic world leader is also marked by the success of his painting and writing. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953 and he was made an Honorary Citizen of America in the same year.
He spent his retirement in the house at Chartwell, Kent which he had lovingly and expensively restored. In early January the ninety year old statesman suffered a stroke. During the next fifteen days he drifted in to deep sleep from which he never awakened and on 15 January he slipped quietly away surrounded by his closest family, at his home in London.
Churchill’s body lay in state in Westminster Hall for three days before a state funeral. The funeral included a procession on the Thames, a service in a packed St Paul’s Cathedral and a train journey from Waterloo station to Oxfordshire before a private service at the church in Bladon, a village close to Blenheim Palace where he had born.
So why did the word enigma come to mind when thinking of Winston Churchill? He was born into an aristocratic family but he failed at the early stages of his formal education. He followed tradition and joined the army. After seeing action he worked in a bloody colonial war. He always followed and did what he thought was best for him in the circumstances. Like many of his ancestors he went on to serve his country, but as an elected MP. He was a hardnosed politician who then went on to steer this country through hard and difficult times, only to fail in the next election. But in 2002 he was honoured by the people of this country as the Greatest Briton ever.
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Story By: Anne Walker
Date : 02-02-2010
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