20th Century Portraits Catalogue

Born at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire and educated at Harrow and Sandhurst; he passed out of Sandhurst and received his commission as a cavalry officer in the Queen’s Own hussars in 1895; between 1897 and 1900 he fought in three of Queen Victoria’s wars, doubling as a war correspondent and turning all three of his experiences into books; in 1900 Churchill stood as the Conservative candidate for Oldham and won but went on to join the Liberal Party in 1904; he became the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911; he resigned in 1915 after the failure of the Dardanelles expedition; Churchill saw active service in 1916; in 1924 he returned to the Conservative Party, representing Woodford, Epping, until 1964; became Chancellor of the Exchequer but resigned in 1931, opposing his party’s policy of self-government for India; he opposed appeasement with Hitler, and challenged Chamberlain's leadership in 1940, succeeding him as Prime Minister; he lead throughout the Second World War but resigned in 1945, when Labour achieved a landslide victory at the general election; he returned to power as prime minister during peacetime in 1951, but was no longer the dynamic force he used to be; at the age of eighty, Churchill tendered his resignation, but remained an MP until 1964; he suffered a number of strokes towards the end of life and died in London in January 1965.