The BaronessSpencer-Churchill | |
|---|---|
 Spencer-Churchill in 1915 | |
| Member of theHouse of Lords | |
| In office 17 May 1965 – 12 December 1977 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Clementine Ogilvy Hozier (1885-04-01)1 April 1885 London, England |
| Died | 12 December 1977(1977-12-12) (aged 92) London, England |
| Resting place | St Martin's Church, Bladon |
| Political party | Crossbencher |
| Spouse | |
| Children | |
Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill,[1]GBE (néeHozier; 1 April 1885 – 12 December 1977) was the wife ofWinston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and alife peer in her own right. While she was legally the daughter of SirHenry Hozier, her mother Lady Blanche's known infidelity and his suspected infertility makes her paternity uncertain.
Clementine met Churchill in 1904 and they began their marriage of 56 years in 1908. They had five children together, one of whom (namedMarigold) died aged two fromsepsis. During theFirst World War, Clementine organised canteens for munitions workers and during theSecond World War, she acted as Chairman of theRed CrossAid to Russia Fund, President of theYoung Women's Christian Association War Time Appeal and Chairman of Maternity Hospital for the Wives of Officers,Fulmer Chase,South Bucks.
Throughout her life she was granted many titles, the final being a life peerage following thedeath of her husband in 1965. In her later years, she sold several of her husband's portraits to help support herself financially. She died in her London home aged 92.
Although legally the daughter of SirHenry Hozier and Lady Blanche Ogilvy (a daughter ofDavid Ogilvy, 10th Earl of Airlie), her paternity is a subject of debate, as Lady Blanche was well known for infidelity. After Sir Henry found Lady Blanche with a lover in 1891, she managed to avert her husband's suit for divorce because of his own infidelities, and thereafter the couple separated.
Clementine's biographer, Joan Hardwick, has surmised (due in part to Sir Henry Hozier's reputed sterility) that all Lady Blanche's "Hozier" children were actually fathered by her sister's husband,Bertram Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale (1837–1916), who is also known as the grandfather of the famousMitford sisters. While Mitford is considered the most probable candidate, it has also been asserted thatBay Middleton was her father. Whatever her true paternity, Clementine is recorded as being the daughter of Lady Blanche and Sir Henry.[1]
In the summer of 1899, when Clementine was 14, her mother moved the family toDieppe, a coastal community in the north of France. There the family spent an idyllic summer, bathing, canoeing, picnicking, and blackberrying.[2] While in Dieppe, the family became well acquainted with 'La Colonie', or the other English inhabitants living by the sea. This group consisted of military men, writers and painters, such asAubrey Beardsley andWalter Sickert. The latter came to be a great friend of the family.
According to Clementine's daughter, Mary Soames, Clementine was deeply struck by Sickert and thought he was the most handsome and compelling man she had ever seen.[2] The Hoziers' happy life in France ended when Kitty, the eldest daughter, was struck withtyphoid fever. Blanche Hozier sent Clementine and her sister Nellie to Scotland so she could devote her time completely to Kitty. Kitty died on 5 March 1900.
Clementine waseducated first at home, then briefly at the Edinburgh school run by Karl Fröbel, the nephew of the German educationist,Friedrich Fröbel, and his wife Johanna[2] and later atBerkhamsted School for Girls inBerkhamstedHertfordshire (The School has now evolved into Berkhamsted School) and at theSorbonne in Paris. She was twice secretly engaged to SirSidney Peel, who had fallen in love with her when she was 18.[3]
_with_fianc%25C3%25A9e_Clementine_Hozier_(1885-1977)_shortly_before_their_marriage_in_1908.jpg)
Clementine first metWinston Churchill in 1904 at a ball in Crewe Hall, the home of theEarl and Countess of Crewe.[4] In March 1908, they met again when seated side by side at a dinner party hosted byLady St Helier, a distant relative of Clementine.[5] On their first brief encounter, Winston had recognised Clementine's beauty and distinction; now, after an evening spent in her company, he realised she was a girl of lively intelligence and great character.[6] After five months of meeting each other at social events, as well as frequent correspondence, Winston proposed to Clementine during a house party atBlenheim Palace on 11 August 1908, in a smallsummer house known as theTemple of Diana.[7][8]
Winston and Clementine were married on 12 September 1908 inSt Margaret's, Westminster. Theyhoneymooned inBaveno,Venice andVeveří Castle inMoravia[9][10] before settling into a London home at 33Eccleston Square.[11][9] They had five children:Diana (1909–1963),Randolph (1911–1968),Sarah (1914–1982),Marigold (1918–1921) andMary (1922–2014). Only Mary, the youngest, shared their parents' longevity (Marigold died aged two and Diana, Sarah, and Randolph died in their 50s or 60s). The Churchills' marriage was close and affectionate despite the stresses of public life.[12]
During theFirst World War, Clementine organisedcanteens for munitions workers on behalf ofYMCA in the North East Metropolitan Area of London, for which she was appointed aCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1918.[13]
Clementine travelled to Dundee in 1922, campaigning on behalf of her husband in the1922 general election while he was incapacitated after having his appendix removed.[14]
In the 1930s, Clementine travelled without Winston aboardLord Moyne's yacht, theRosaura, to exotic islands:Borneo,Celebes, theMoluccas,New Caledonia, and theNew Hebrides. During this trip, many believe that she had an affair with Terence Philip, a wealthy art dealer seven years her junior. However, no conclusive evidence of this has been produced: indeed, Philip was believed by many to have been homosexual. She brought back from this trip a Bali dove. When it died, she buried it in the garden atChartwell beneath a sundial. On the sundial's base, she had inscribed:
HERE LIES THE BALI DOVE
It does not do to wander
Too far from sober men.
But there's an island yonder,
I think of it again.[15]
Clementine edited and rehearsed Churchill's speeches, as well as managing and attending high-level diplomatic summits.[16]
As the wife of a politician who often took controversial stands, Clementine was used to being snubbed and treated rudely by the wives of other politicians. However, she could take only so much. Once, traveling withLord Moyne and his guests, the party was listening to a BBC broadcast in which the speaker, a vehemently pro-appeasement politician, criticised Winston by name.Vera, Lady Broughton, a guest of Moyne, said "hear, hear" at the criticism of Churchill. Clementine waited for her host to offer a conciliatory word but, when none came, she stormed back to her cabin, wrote a note to Moyne, and packed her bags. Lady Broughton came and begged Clementine to stay, but she would accept no apologies for the insult to her husband. She went ashore and sailed for home the next morning.[17]
During theSecond World War, she was Chairman of theRed CrossAid to Russia Fund, the president of theYoung Women's Christian Association War Time Appeal and the Chairman ofMaternity Hospital for the Wives of Officers, Fulmer Chase. While touring Russia near the end of the war, she was awarded theOrder of the Red Banner of Labour.[18]
In 1946, she was appointedDame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire,[19] becomingDame Clementine ChurchillGBE.
She was awarded honorary degrees by theUniversity of Glasgow,University of Oxford andUniversity of Bristol.
After more than 56 years of marriage, Clementine was widowed on 24 January 1965 when her husband died aged 90.
After Sir Winston's death, on 17 May 1965, she was created alife peer asBaroness Spencer-Churchill, ofChartwell in theCounty of Kent.[20] She sat as across-bencher, but her growing deafness precluded her taking a regular part in parliamentary life.
In her final few years, inflation and rising expenses left Lady Spencer-Churchill in financial difficulties and in early 1977 she sold at auction five paintings by her late husband.[21]
Lady Spencer-Churchill died at her London home, at 7 Princes Gate,Knightsbridge, of a heart attack on 12 December 1977. She was 92 years old and had outlived her husband by almost 13 years, as well as three of her five children.
She is buried with her husband and children[a] atSt Martin's Church, Bladon, nearWoodstock inOxfordshire.
The Clementine Churchill Hospital inHarrow,Middlesex, is named after her.
A plaque on the Berkhamsted house where the young Clementine Hozier had lived during her education at Berkhamsted School for Girls was unveiled in 1979 by her youngest daughter,Baroness Soames.[22] Ablue plaque also commemorates her residence there.[23]
Clementine was played byVirginia McKenna in the 1974 television biopicThe Gathering Storm oppositeRichard Burton. She was played byVanessa Redgrave in the 2002 biographical television movieThe Gathering Storm. DameHarriet Walter portrayed her inthe first series ofPeter Morgan's Netflix dramaThe Crown,[24] and she was played by DameKristin Scott Thomas in the 2017 filmDarkest Hour.[25]
She was played byMiranda Richardson, oppositeBrian Cox, in the 2017 filmChurchill directed byJonathan Teplitzky.[26]
She was also featured inJack Thorne's 2023 playWhen Winston Went to War with the Wireless, played byLaura Rogers.[27]
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Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata
