Winston Churchill Turns 150
November 30 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Winston Churchill. Few individuals have been as lauded and lambasted both during their lifetime and after their death. As both a person and a symbol, Churchill has evoked many powerful feelings and reactions. More than 1,100 books and thousands of articles have been written about the English statesman, examining every facet of his character, career, and accomplishments. Throughout 2024, the International Churchill Society has been hosting events around the world to celebrate Churchill’s milestone birthday.
On the one hand, Churchill is frequently credited with almost single-handedly slaying the dragon of totalitarianism and saving Western civilization from the diabolical plans of Adolf Hitler. On the other, he is accused of numerous flaws and failures, most notably for espousing racism and imperialism. In recent years, critics have sought to besmirch his reputation and have called for cancelling Churchill.
Born prematurely on November 30, 1874, at his family’s ancestral home—Blenheim Palace—in Oxfordshire, England, to American Jennie Jerome Churchill and Englishman Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston was one of the world’s last Renaissance men: a courageous soldier, talented artist, exceptional journalist, best-selling historian, spellbinding orator, and renowned statesman. Speaking for many Brits, the Spectator claimed when he died in 1965, “we are a free people” because of Churchill. Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill His stirring addresses during World War II strengthened the morale of the British people and steeled their determination to withstand Nazi bombing blitzes and fight valiantly in the face of tremendous odds. After the war ended, Churchill denounced dictators, asserted the moral and spiritual superiority of democracy, and helped fortify the West’s resolve to resist the spread of Communism.
Few individuals, especially ones who have spent their lives in public service, have written so voluminously. Frequently dictating eight thousand words a day to a secretary, Churchill penned more than eight hundred articles for magazines and newspapers, three short stories, one hundred fifty pamphlets, a movie script, and fifty books, including a novel, two biographies, three memoirs, and numerous historical surveys. He is one of the few pundits to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. His life has been the subject of numerous movies and television shows, including the BBC’s series “The Crown,” which began in 2016, and the motion picture “Darkest Hour” (2017). Public fascination with Churchill’s exploits and legacy is almost insatiable.
Nevertheless, Churchill has been widely castigated. During his life, he was criticized for opposing women’s suffrage, mishandling the Tonypandy Riots in 1910 that led many in southern Wales to despise him the rest of his life, initiating the disastrous Dardanelles Expedition during World War I, and deploying the controversial “Black and Tans” to fight the Irish Republican Army in 1919. He was also denounced for accepting bribes from Royal Dutch Shell and Burmah Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later BP), taking Britain off the Gold Standard in 1925, and supporting King Edward VIII during the Abdication Crisis in 1938. (The 10 Greatest Controversies of Winston Churchills Career)
During the last decade, many have denounced Churchill as a white supremacist who affirmed racial hierarchies, viewed the British as the pinnacle of the social Darwinist struggle, and approved of eugenics. Critics deplore his negative descriptions of Mahatma Gandhi and opposition to Indian independence and accuse him of latent anti-Semitism. He allegedly advocated using poison gas against the Afghans and Kurds and has been assigned the principal blame for a famine in Bengal in northeastern India that killed three million people in 1943. The 10 Greatest Controversies of Winston Churchill's Career
In the last several years, both scholars and activists have intensified the assault on Churchill’s vaunted reputation. They defaced a mural of Churchill at a London café with “IMPERIALIST SCUM,” Winston Churchill Blasted as Imperialist Scum spray painted a name-plaque of his effigy in Parliament Square with the words “Churchill was a racist,” Winston Churchill Statue Daubed with "was a racist" During Black Lives Matter and demanded that statues of the statesman be torn down. Priyamvada Gopal, a teaching fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, complains in a Guardian article,“Why Can’t Britain Handle the Truth about Winston Churchill?” that nothing apparently is “allowed to complicate, let alone tarnish, the national myth of a flawless hero,” who, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson claims, “saved our civilisation,” or “humanity as a whole,” as his predecessor David Cameron alleges. Mention Churchill’s views “on race or his colonial policies,” Gopal adds, “and you’ll be instantly drowned in ferocious and orchestrated vitriol.”
In September, podcaster Daryll Cooper created a firestorm on social media when he called Churchill “the chief villain of Second World War” in an interview with Tucker Carlson. Cooper labeled Churchill a childish, psychopathic drunk whose bombing raids on German cities constituted “rank terrorism.” US Historian Tears into Tucker Carlson Guest Who Denounced ‘villain’ Winston Churchill: ‘He was a Hero!’
Churchill’s supporters counter that many recent biographies, scholarly articles, and journalist pieces clearly do not present a “reverential” portrait of the statesman; numerous detractors instead are seeking to destroy his reputation. His defenders argue either that most of the charges against Churchill are false, that critics misrepresent his views, that his positions were typical of most leaders of his era, or that his actions were consistent with the ethical standards at the time. Stephen Tucker accuses Churchill critics of trying to dishonestly transform “Britain’s greatest war-hero into a genocidal far-right murderer.” Cancelling Churchill: Did Sir Winston Cause the Bengal Famine? While acknowledging that many of Churchill’s action can be validly criticized, British historian Andrew Roberts, author of one of the best biographies of the statesman, “Churchill: Walking with Destiny” (2018), faults “two great British institutions”—the BBC and the National Trust—for their “ahistorical and highly prejudiced attacks on Churchill.” Cancel-Culture: We Expected Better from the National Trust and the BBC
Competing assessment of Churchill’s life will undoubtedly continue. Setting these aside to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth, I conclude on a positive note. Despite all his idiosyncrasies, indulgences, and occasional childishness, Roy Jenkins, a politician and chancellor of Oxford University, avowed, Churchill’s genius, tenacity, and persistence in the face of adversity made him “the greatest human being to ever occupy 10 Downing Street.” Review of Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins (2002).
Churchill was indeed an extraordinary statesman and a consummate speechmaker who sometimes sounded like an Old Testament prophet. His World War II speeches inspired, comforted, and empowered the British people. Welch journalist Goronwy Rees argued that Churchill was transformed overnight “in the eyes of his countrymen and the world” into a “colossal figure whom the nation mourned at his death, the equal . . . of the almost mythical heroes of the past, an Alexander, a Caesar, a Napoleon.” Churchill, insisted Labour politician Michael Foot, was the “foremost performer in British and world politics for a longer period than almost any rival in ancient or modern times.” During World War II, British historian Paul Addison asserted, “patriotism and propaganda combined to create the legend of [Churchill as] a statesman of almost superhuman qualities: the prophet in the wilderness, genius of grand strategy, and saviour of his country.” Certainly, this is a legacy worth celebrating. Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill
Gary Scott Smith is the author of Duty and Destiny: The Life and Faith of Winston Churchill” (2021)