Winston Churchill

Biography

Born on 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace into a British aristocratic family, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill and Jennie Jerome, an American. His childhood was lonely: his parents, largely indifferent, entrusted him mainly to his nanny Mrs Everest, to whom he remained deeply attached. A mediocre pupil at Harrow, he chose a military career and graduated from Sandhurst in 1894. He served in campaigns in India, Sudan and South Africa, where his capture and subsequent escape during the Boer War (1899) brought him immediate national fame.

Back in England, Churchill entered politics and was elected to Parliament in 1900. He changed parties (from Conservative to Liberal and back again), earning lasting enmities. Appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, he modernised the Royal Navy but bore responsibility for the failure at Gallipoli (1915), a disastrous Dardanelles operation that wrecked his reputation. He left government, went to fight on the Western Front, then returned to politics. In the 1930s, isolated, he was one of the few voices publicly warning about German rearmament and the Nazi danger, against the prevailing mood of appeasement.

On 10 May 1940, the very day Hitler launched his offensive in the West, Churchill became Prime Minister. His accession coincided with the Dunkirk disaster and the fall of France. In that moment of absolute crisis, his speeches in Parliament and on the radio galvanised British resistance: "We shall fight on the beaches" and "Their finest hour" entered history. He forged an indispensable relationship with Franklin Roosevelt to secure American aid, and met Stalin to coordinate Allied strategy. His tenacity played a decisive part in keeping Britain in the war through the turning point of 1942-1943.

Paradoxically, Churchill was defeated at the July 1945 elections even as victory over Germany had just been secured. After six years of war, the British public chose an ambitious social programme over the war hero. He returned to power in 1951 and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his body of written work (memoirs, histories, biographies). Struck by several strokes, he retired from political life in 1955 and died on 24 January 1965 at the age of 90, receiving a state funeral attended by world leaders.

Churchill is regularly ranked as the greatest Briton of all time. His name is inseparable from resistance to tyranny and the defence of liberal democracy in its darkest hours. A man of contradictions - a committed imperialist yet a fierce defender of liberties in Europe - he embodies the complexity of his era. His writings, speeches and exceptional personality continue to inspire politicians and citizens around the world.