Randolph Frederick Churchill

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Randolph Frederick Churchill
Randolph Churchill (left) with his father and son Winston at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II , June 2, 1953, photograph by Toni Frissell

Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill (born May 28, 1911 in London , † June 6, 1968 in East Bergholt , Suffolk ) was a British journalist and politician .

Live and act

Randolph Churchill was born in 1911 to future British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine in his parents' house on Bolton Street in Mayfair, London. He was the second of five children and his parents' only son.

After attending the private school Eton and studied at Christ Church College of Oxford University , which he left without a degree, Churchill began to work as a journalist.

As a journalist, Churchill worked in Germany in 1932, where he accompanied Adolf Hitler's election campaigns in the press on the mediation of his friend Ernst Hanfstaengl . Randolph and Hanfstaengl's attempt at this time to arrange a meeting between his father and Hitler in Munich failed at the last moment.

In the 1930s, Randolph Churchill, who stood out for his good looks and carefully selected clothing, was on the one hand a nationally known young "dandy", but on the other hand was considered in better society because of his excessive alcohol consumption, his "immorality" and his choleric manner an "enfant terrible".

In 1935, Churchill ran a by-election in Liverpool Wavertree as an independent Conservative. He spoke out against the India Bill and "branched" votes from the official Conservative candidate. In this way he contributed to the victory of the third candidate who belonged to the Labor party. His attempt to be elected to the House of Commons for West Toxteth in the fall elections of the same year, this time as the official Conservative candidate, also failed. His third attempt, in a by-election in February 1936, against Malcolm MacDonald, Dominions Secretary of the then coalition government, was also unsuccessful. For his father, who was then trying to find a cabinet post, this represented another setback in a long series of defeats during this period.

In 1940 Randolph Churchill finally succeeded in moving into the House of Commons for the Preston constituency as part of the "truce" of all British parties. He lost his seat there again in the 1945 election. As a major in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, Churchill took part in the war as a staff officer at the British headquarters for the Middle East. In 1944 he was parachuted over Yugoslavia with Frederick Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead , and Evelyn Waugh as part of the Fitzroy Maclean mission to support the local partisan leader Tito .

In the following years Randolph Churchill worked frequently as a journalist and reported for British newspapers and magazines, among other things, on the relationship between his cousin Unity Mitford and Hitler.

personality

Churchill is described as a very moody and temperamental person in practically every testimony from people who knew him. Even in his youth he was considered overly talkative and precocious. John Colville, his father's private secretary, called him in retrospect "one of the most objectionable people I have ever met" (... one of the most unpleasant people I have ever met).

A not insignificant role in connection with Churchill's notorious fits of rage is ascribed to his excessive alcohol consumption, which began in his early years. As a eighteen-year-old he used to drink several double brandies a day. Winston Churchill disapproved of his son's vices, but resignedly said: “Young people will do what they like. The only time parents really control their children is before they are born. After that their nature unfolds remorselessly petal by petal. "(" Young people do what they want. The only time when parents really have their children under control is before they are born. After that, their nature unfolds mercilessly, step by step. “) The relationship with his father was restless for his entire life: the older Churchill always showed his son unconditional affection, but was also often very angry with him.

Many Churchill biographers, such as William Manchester or Christian Graf von Krockow , also emphasize that Churchill spoiled Randolph too much. With a view to Churchill's family life in the 1920s and his inability to "hold back" Randolph, Krockow said: "One day he will reap a storm here."

Randolph did not have his father's political talent, but he was an able writer and speaker from a young age. He was also a passionate, if sometimes obstructive, supporter of his father's political concerns.

In the 1960s he began to write the mammoth project of the official biography of his father, the first two volumes of which he was able to complete by his death. The remaining six volumes, which cover the years 1914 to 1965, were finally completed by his research assistant Martin Gilbert .

It is widely alleged that Winston Churchill turned down the nobility in order not to thwart his son Randolph's chances for a political career (since 1911 it had been the custom for British Prime Ministers to come from the House of Commons rather than the House of Lords ). If Winston Churchill had been ennobled, his son Randolph Churchill would have become a member of the House of Lords after his death.

Randolph Churchill died of a heart attack in 1968 at the age of 57.

family

Randolph Churchill was married twice: first marriage to Pamela Digby (later known as Pamela Harriman). From this marriage the son Winston Churchill was born. The daughter Arabella Churchill came from his second marriage .

Randolph's godfather was British Foreign Secretary Edward Gray , who was in the government with Winston Churchill at the time of Randolph's birth.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Winston Churchill stayed in southern Germany for a few weeks in the summer of 1932 to research his biography about his ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough . According to Hanfstaengl's information in his memoirs, Hitler “canceled” the meeting at short notice after he was told a critical remark by Churchill about his, Hitler's, anti-Semitism .
  2. ^ Colville: The Fringes of Power. Downing Street Diaries, 1939-1955, 1985, p. 177.
  3. ↑ According to the ODoNB, he had a fortune of £ 70,597 at the time of his death.

Works

  • What I Said About the Press (1957)
  • The Rise and Fall of Sir Anthony Eden (1959)
  • Lord Derby: King of Lancashire (1960)
  • The Fight for the Tory Leadership (1964)
  • Youth, 1874–1900 (1966, biography of his father)
  • Young Statesman, 1901–1914 (1967, biography of his father)
  • The Six Day War (1967) (German: "... and won on the seventh day" Scherz, Munich 1967)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Churchill, Randolph Frederick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Spencer-Churchill, Randolph Frederick Edward (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist and politician, Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH May 28, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1968
Place of death East Bergholt , Suffolk