Winston Leonard
Spencer-Churchill
Sir Winston, ÒThe LionÓ
Compiled by D. A.
Sharpe
Sir Winston Churchill,
November 30, 1874 - January 24, 1965, officially born as Winston Leonard
Spencer-Churchill, is the eleventh cousin, once removed to United States
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, my half eighth cousin. The ancestor in common to President
Roosevelt and Sir Churchill is the English Vicsount Anthony Browne III (1527-1592). Viscount Browne is the tenth great grandfather of President Roosevelt and is the eleventh great
grandfather of Sir Churchill.
Described another way, Churchill's
relationship to our family is he is the 8th cousin, four times removed of John Lloyd Aspinwall,
Jr. (1774-1847), the husband of Susan Howland (1779 - 1852) who was the fourth
great granddaughter of Alice Carpenter, my 7th great grandmother. Alice is historically famous as the
wife of Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford.
There
is data on the ancestry of Churchill, going back to John
Neville who lived in the 1400s (17 generations back from Churchill).
Churchill was a British statesman, army
officer, and writer. He served as Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom
from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. As a Member of Parliament (MP), he represented five
constituencies over the course of his career. As Prime Minister, Churchill led
Britain to victory during the Second World War. He led the Conservative Party for fifteen years from 1940 to 1955.
The ceremony for
which he became known as Sir Winston Churchill was on April 24, 1953 when Queen
Elizabeth II knighted him. Being knighted is an honorary title conferred by a monarch or other
political leader for service to the monarch and country.
Churchill was born
into an aristocratic family, the son of an English politician and American socialite. Joining the British Army, he saw action in British India, the AngloÐSudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing
books about his campaigns. Moving into politics, before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty as part of Asquith's Liberal government. During the war, Churchill departed
from government following the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign. He briefly resumed active army service on the Western Front as a battalion commander in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned to government under Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, then Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he
served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Baldwin's Conservative government of 1924Ð1929, controversially returning
the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating
deflationary pressure on the UK economy.
Sir Winston was born the very same
month that the 15-year-old Republican Party was symbolized as an elephant for
the first time, in a cartoon by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly magazine on
November 7, 1874.
Source:http://cartoons.osu.edu/nast/off_year.htm
Winston Churchill married Clementine Hozer September 12, 1908. She lived April 1, 1885 till December
12, 1977, dying at age 92. Her
resting place is in St. MartinÕs Church, Bladon, the
same as WinstonÕs.
Sir Winston Churchill is so widely
known across the world that it hardly is necessary to describe here about him. He is the lion that was England's
leader through the dark hours of World War II and perhaps more than any other
individual was the spark that enabled the English and the Allies to be victorious
in the end. He is a giant of Englishman.
We are honored greatly in our family merely to claim that distant
indirect relationship that we have defined here.
On May 13, 1940, Winston Churchill
told the British House of Commons in his first speech as prime minister,
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
On December 25, 1941, Winston
Churchill became the first British prime minister to address the American
People at the lighting of the Christmas tree on the White House lawn as a guess
of the President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
On December 26, 1941, Winston Churchill became the first British prime
minister to address a joint meeting of the United States Congress.
On January 24, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a wartime conference in
Casablanca, Morocco. On November
28, 1943, Franklin and Winston met again.
This time, it was at Tehran where they met with Soviet Dictator Joseph
Stalin. So, it maybe said that we had the biggest guns of our family dealing
with Stalin, and it took quite a while for the earth to be rid of his murderous
rampage.
On March 5, 1946, Sir Winston Churchill
delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech as the commencement
speaker for graduation at the small Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri,
accompanied by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. It was the first time the term, ÒIron
Curtin,Ó was applied publicly to the wall erected in Berlin by the Communist
Socialist Russian government. It may be
regarded as the most important delivered as a leader of the Opposition
(1945-1951), containing a a vast compilation of
emotion-moving phrases in the fact of the Russian GovernmentÕs erection of an
almost impenetrable high wall to separate West Germany from East Germany. Here is its text in the entirety:
Our niece, Carol Jumper Robertson,
and her family spent their adult lives living nearby Westminster College on
their farm. Carol was a career
teacher in high school and her husband, Bruce, had a veterinary medicine
practice, in addition to the agricultural activities pursued on their farm.
In our modern world, one of the
great controversies and issues is that how do we, as Christians and as
Westerners (culturally) relate to the religion of Islam. As a young military officer and
journalist, Winston Churchill delivered a speech in 1899 revealing his views on
Islam, which subsequently was repeated in his second published book:
"How dreadful are the curses
which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which
is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful
fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident
habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and
insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or
live.
"A degraded sensualism
deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and
sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man
as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay
the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a
great power among men.
"Individual Muslims may show
splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social
development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists
in the world. Far from being
moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already
spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and
were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the
science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern
Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
(Source: The River War, first
edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London )
The book provides a history of the
British participation in the Sudan during the conflict between the British and
the Dervish forces led by Khalifa Abdallahi
ibn Muhammad, the heir to the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad, who had
embarked on a campaign to conquer Egypt to drive out the non-Muslim infidels.
It can be realized that Sir Winston
Churchill, known as "The Lion," served not only all of England, but
really served the annals of the whole world with his insights of governance and
of military effectiveness.
As to the Christian faith embraced
by Sir Winston, such is described in the book, "God and Churchill,"
written by Churchill's great grandson, Jonathan Sandys and journalist Wallace
Henley affirms that Churchill had a personal believe in God and in Jesus
Christ.
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant
figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and wider Western world, where he
is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in
defending liberal
democracy from the spread of fascism. He was decorated with
a wide range of awards, including the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature. Conversely, he was
accused of warmongering and human rights abuses and his imperialist and racist
viewsÑcoupled with actions surrounding the Bengal famine of 1943 and suppression of anti-imperialist movementsÑhave
generated considerable controversy
On April 7, 1955, Churchill resigned
as Prime Minister, due to declining health. However, his title did remain as PM
until his death January 24, 1965 at age 90, due to a stroke. He died at Kensington, London,
England. His resting place is St.
MartinÕs Church in Bladon, with his wife, Clementine Hozer.
They were a prolific family, having
produced five children: Diana, Randolph, Sarah,
Marigold (who died after living only a few months) and Mary.
It is a great honor and privilege to
be associated with the likes of Sir Winston Churchill as a relative, distant
though he be to our family. Bless
be God our Father!
Compiled by:
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