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Portrait of Winston Churchill

Prime Ministers · 20th century

Winston Churchill

1874–1965 · British

Conservative (Liberal 1904–1924)

In office: 1940–1945; 1951–1955

Sir Winston Churchill led Britain through the Second World War as prime minister of a coalition government from May 1940, rallying the nation with celebrated speeches during Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain. Defeated in the 1945 election, he warned of an "iron curtain" in 1946 and returned as Conservative prime minister from 1951 to 1955. A prolific historian, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 and received a state funeral in 1965.

How to spot them

  • ▸'Blood, toil, tears and sweat'; 'We shall fight on the beaches'; 'their finest hour'
  • ▸Born at Blenheim Palace; home at Chartwell, Kent
  • ▸Nobel Prize in Literature (1953); honorary US citizen (1963)
  • ▸Gallipoli, Sidney Street, return to the gold standard; crossed the floor twice
  • ▸'Iron curtain' speech at Fulton, Missouri (1946)

In office

'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat' (1940)

First Commons speech as prime minister, 13 May 1940

'We shall fight on the beaches' (1940)

Speech of 4 June 1940 after the Dunkirk evacuation

'This was their finest hour' (1940)

Speech of 18 June 1940 after the fall of France

'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' (1940)

Tribute to RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain, 20 August 1940

The Atlantic Charter (1941)

Joint statement of war aims with Roosevelt at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland

First British atomic bomb test (Operation Hurricane) (1952)

Detonated in the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia

Coronation of Elizabeth II and the end of wartime rationing (1953–1954)

Food rationing finally ended in July 1954

Key ideas

  • Defiant refusal to negotiate with Hitler in 1940
  • The 'special relationship' with the United States and the 'iron curtain' framing of the Cold War
  • Advocated a 'United States of Europe' in his Zurich speech of 1946

Quick-fire facts

  • •Born at Blenheim Palace on 30 November 1874; his mother, Jennie Jerome, was American
  • •Escaped from a Boer prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria in 1899
  • •As First Lord of the Admiralty he championed the disastrous Gallipoli campaign (1915)
  • •As Chancellor he returned Britain to the gold standard in 1925
  • •Won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953; works include The Second World War and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
  • •Made the first honorary citizen of the United States in 1963
  • •Given a state funeral in January 1965; buried at Bladon, near Blenheim
  • •Appeared on the Bank of England's first polymer £5 note (2016)

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources