Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

British prime minister. Born on 30 November 1874 in England, at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, he was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst military schools. After receiving a commission in the 4th Hussars, he fought at the battle of Omdurman in 1898, and then became a war correspondent in the Boer Wars.

Having satisfied his taste for adventure, he stood as a Conservative party candidate in 1900, but joined the Liberal party four years later in support of free trade. As president of the Board of Trade (1908-10), he improved working conditions, but as home secretary (1910-11), he sent in troops to break up strikes. He then became first lord of the Admiralty, and prepared the navy for the war he foresaw.

During World War I, he resigned from the government after being blamed for the Gallipoli fiasco, but was soon back, holding a number of posts. In 1922, he made his first moves to a return to the Conservative party, gradually becoming convinced that the Soviet Union was a threat to Britain.

By 1924, he was back in government, and organised measures against the General Strike. From 1929, he was out of office because he was seen as an unreliable hothead by many of his colleagues – which explains why his warnings about Nazi Germany were ignored.

In May 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, he became prime minister. His speeches and bluff bulldog personality helped maintain public morale, especially before the entry into the war of the Soviet Union and the United States in 1941.

Churchill had a close relationship with the United States, but overestimated his influence on American policy. After the war, he was surprised and angered to lose the 1945 election. During his temporary retirement, he wrote a six-volume history, The Second World War, for which he won the Nobel prize for literature in 1953.

He became prime minister again in 1951, but had a stroke two years later and retired in 1955. His death on 24 January 1965 was followed by a state funeral, the details of which he himself had decided.

Despite his rhetoric about national glory and his status as an icon of victory in war, Winston Churchill presided over a period in which Britain's importance in the world declined.

In November 2002, the British public voted Churchill the ‘Greatest Briton’, following a nationwide poll that attracted over a million votes.

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