Number 10 Downing Street

Winston Churchill served as Conservative Prime Minister twice, from 1940-45 and from 1951-55. Churchill led Britain to victory in the Second World War, before being defeated in a General Election by the Labour leader Clement Attlee in 1945. He returned for a second term as Prime Minister in 1951-55.

Winston Churchill was of rich, aristocratic descent. Although suffering from dyslexia and achieving poor grades at school, his early fascination with militarism saw him join the Royal Cavalry in 1895. As a soldier and part-time journalist, Churchill travelled widely, including trips to Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt and South Africa. He went on to be elected as Conservative MP for Oldham in 1900, before defecting to the Liberal Party in 1904 and spending the period prior to 1914 climbing the ranks of the Liberal government. He was First Lord of the Admiralty, the civil/political head of the Royal Navy, by the time of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, of which he was the architect. Heavily criticised for this error, he resigned from this position and travelled to the Western Front to fight himself.

The inter-war years saw Churchill again ‘cross the floor’, from the Liberals back to the Conservative Party. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924, when he controversially opted for Britain to re-join the Gold Standard. Following the Tory electoral defeat in 1929, Churchill lost his seat and spent much of the next 11 years out of office, mainly writing and making speeches. Although he was isolated in his staunch opposition to Indian Independence, his warnings against the Appeasement of Nazi Germany were proven correct when the Second World War broke out in 1939. 
Following Neville Chamberlain’s resignation in 1940, Churchill was chosen to succeed him as Prime Minister of an all-Party coalition government.

Churchill, who also adopted the self-created position of Minister for Defence, was active both in an administrative and diplomatic capacity in prosecuting the British war effort. Some of his most memorable speeches were given in this period, and are credited with rousing British morale during periods of great hardship. 
However, Labour’s unexpected General Election victory in 1945 saw Churchill out of office and once again concentrating on public speaking. In his 1946 speech in the USA, the instinctive pro-American famously declared that ‘an iron curtain has descended across the Continent’, and warned of the continued danger from a powerful Soviet Russia.

By his re-election in 1951, Churchill was, in the words of Roy Jenkins, ‘gloriously unfit for office’. Ageing and increasingly unwell, Churchill often conducted business from his bedside, and whilst his powerful personality and oratory ability endured, the Prime Minister’s leadership was less decisive than during the war. His second term was most notable for the Conservative Party’s acceptance of Labour’s newly created Welfare State, and Churchill’s impact on domestic policy was limited. His later attempts at de-escalating the developing Cold War through personal diplomacy failed to yield significant results, and poor health forced Churchill to resign in 1955, making way for his Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Anthony Eden. Winston Churchill died in 1965, and was honored with a state funeral.

 Ben Draper and Jak Brown, Mile End Group