Clementine Churchill

Clementine Hozier with Winston Churchill shortly before their marriage in 1908

Clementine Churchill (1915)

Clementine Ogilvy Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill , née Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (born April 1, 1885 in London , †  December 12, 1977 in Knightsbridge , London), was the wife of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill .

Life

Clementine Churchill b. Hozier was the daughter of Sir Henry Montague Hozier and his second wife, Lady Blanche Henrietta Ogilvy (1852-1925). Sir Henry's paternity is often questioned, however, as his wife, known for her sexual frivolity, later insisted that Captain William George "Bay" Middleton , a well-known gentleman rider, was the biological father of their famous daughter. Various biographers speculate that Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1837-1916; grandfather of Hitler's alleged English lover Unity Mitford ), the husband of Lady Blanche's sister, was the real father of all of her children and thus also of Clementine Churchill.

Clementine Churchill was educated first at home and later at the Berkhamsted School for Girls and studied - at that time extremely unusual for a woman - at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1906 she first met her future husband, Winston Churchill, then Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, when they both attended a banquet hosted by an aunt Churchill.

In 1908 the two met again and deepened their relationship. Churchill had meanwhile become Minister of Commerce and thus held the second most important economic office in the British government after the Chancellor of the Exchequer. For his political advancement, Churchill needed a wife according to the conventions of the time . Churchill had previously proposed marriage to two other women (including the American actress Ethel Barrymore ), but both had refused (Barrymore on the grounds that she was unable to cope with the stressful life of a politician; Churchill's other admirer, an heiress from a wealthy Home, did not believe that he would have a political future).

They were married on September 2, 1908 at St Margaret's Church in Westminster .

Political activity at the side of her husband

Various Churchill biographers assign Clementine Churchill, a committed campaigner for women's rights, an important role in the gradual change in Churchill's stance on women's suffrage , which the latter initially viewed with skepticism but later advocated. In 1909, Clementine Churchill's courageous intervention saved her husband from being pushed by a suffragette in front of an arriving train at Bristol Station .

During the First World War she organized soup kitchens for munitions workers in northeast London on behalf of the YMCA . In the period between the world wars she supported her husband's election campaigns and hosted the famous evening parties at the Churchill's country house, Chartwell in Kent, where she a. a. Brendan Bracken , Heinrich Brüning , Charlie Chaplin and Georges Clemenceau received.

During World War II , she was Chair of British Red Cross Aid to Russia, President of the YWCA War Time Appeal, and Chair of the Fulmer Chase Maternity Clinic for the Wives of Young Officers. In 1953, Clementine Churchill received the Nobel Prize for Literature on behalf of her husband , who was unable to do so due to a stroke who was bedridden.

family

The marriage of Clementine and Winston Churchill had five children: Diana (1909–1963), Randolph (1911–1968), Sarah (1914–1982), Marigold (1918–1921) and Mary (1922–2014).

Randolph Churchill followed in his father's footsteps and became a parliamentarian. Sarah Churchill was fairly successful as an actress and played a. a. alongside Fred Astaire in the film Royal Wedding . Mary Soames was the editor of several books about her parents; since 2005 she was a member of the Order of the Garter .

Honors

The Clementine Churchill Hospital in Harrow is named after her. After World War II she received honorary degrees from the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford, and in 1976 she received an honorary degree from Bristol University.

In 1946 she was ennobled as the Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire . In 1965, after the death of her husband, she was raised as Baroness Spencer-Churchill , of Chartwell in the County of Kent , to a life peeress and thereby a member of the House of Lords .

Others

• Churchill gave his wife the nickname "Cat" (cat) in letters to her - which were also provided with small animal drawings - while she called him "Pug" (pug) and later "Pig" (piggy).
• In 2009 the television film Into the Storm was made, in which the British Janet McTeer played the role of Clementine Churchill.
• The Netflix series The Crown is about the life of the reigning British Queen Elizabeth II . There Clementine Churchill is played in the first season by Harriet Walter .
• She was portrayed by Miranda Richardson in the film Churchill .
• In 2017's The Darkest Hour , she was played by Kristin Scott Thomas .

literature

• Winston Churchill; Clementine Churchill: Speaking for Themselves. The personal letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill. Doubleday, London 1998.
• Jack Fishman: My Darling Clementine: Story of Lady Churchill. Star Books, London 1974.
• Sonia Purnell: Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill. Penguin, New York 2015.
• Mary Soames: Clementine Churchill. The biography of a marriage. Mariner Books, London 2003.

Web links

Commons : Clementine Churchill  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files