Clementine Churchill

Clementine Churchill was the wife and closest personal confidante of Winston Churchill. During a marriage spanning more than half a century, she advised him privately, managed family and political relationships and challenged him when she believed his judgement or conduct was at fault.

She also undertook public and charitable work during both world wars, including support for aid to the Soviet Union. Her correspondence offers an important perspective on the pressures, ambitions and domestic life surrounding one of Britain’s most prominent political careers.

Sarah Gristwood’s Churchill and Margaret Gaskin follow his development from soldier and war correspondent to parliamentarian, minister and wartime prime minister, while showing how family life, painting, writing and financial pressure shaped the man behind the public image. Chartwell provides a vantage point from which to examine Churchill’s triumphs and failures: Gallipoli, opposition to appeasement, leadership during the Second World War, electoral defeat in 1945 and return to office. Photographs, objects and rooms connect national events with daily routines and relationships, especially his partnership with Clementine Churchill. In Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile, Clementine Churchill, their youngest daughter Mary, private secretary John “Jock” Colville and other family members and advisers move between Downing Street, Chequers and Ditchley as raids, romances, quarrels and official decisions overlap. Diaries and wartime records show how Churchill’s leadership was experienced daily by those closest to him during Britain’s most dangerous year.