It is with incal­cu­la­ble sad­ness that we announce the pass­ing of Richard M. Lang­worth CBE, who died peace­ful­ly in the ear­ly morn­ing hours of Feb­ru­ary 20th, 2025, at the age of 83.

Sum­ma­riz­ing the life of a man who accom­plished so much and pos­i­tive­ly affect­ed so many is an impos­si­ble task. For­tu­nate­ly, he doc­u­ment­ed much of it him­self — 726 blog posts remain as a tes­ta­ment to his pas­sion for his­to­ry, auto­mo­biles, and the endur­ing lega­cy of Sir Win­ston S. Churchill. His work extend­ed beyond this site with dozens of books, writ­ten or edit­ed, and hun­dreds of pub­lished mag­a­zine and jour­nal arti­cles. Fit­ting­ly, his final blog post was titled Life and Liv­ing — an apt reflec­tion of a man who lived with pur­pose and determination.

Alas, I am unqual­i­fied to pro­vide even the small­est biog­ra­phy. His con­tri­bu­tions about clas­sic Eng­lish and Amer­i­can cars are too numer­ous, and his ded­i­ca­tion to Churchill’s lega­cy defies sum­ma­ry. I can only ges­ture towards his 2005 speech at the Pritzk­er Mil­i­tary Muse­um & Library, in which he dis­cuss­es Churchill’s The Dream. That speech exem­pli­fies his best traits: pas­sion for his work, ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge, and a sense of humor that usu­al­ly land­ed. But beyond his work, he was a father, a hus­band, and a friend.

I will always remem­ber my father in his true habi­tat: in an office, hunched over a key­board, typ­ing with pro­fuse con­cen­tra­tion and sur­round­ed by the hun­dreds of books, mag­a­zines, and oth­er mem­o­ra­bil­ia that inspired and helped define him. His office wasn’t messy, just crammed full of metic­u­lous­ly orga­nized knowl­edge with every ref­er­ence at his fingertips.

How I wish to see him at home and hap­py once again, whether feet up and cig­ar in hand on the deck of his house in Eleuthera, or feel­ing proud and exhaust­ed after return­ing from anoth­er bike ride, or grin­ning tri­umphant­ly after a deci­sive roll in Set­tlers of Catan. I’ll for­ev­er retain my fond mem­o­ries of the room-sized mod­el train set we built in the barn, or the tall plumes of snow fir­ing from his trac­tor as he cleared the dri­ve­way in New Hamp­shire win­ters, or bik­ing with him through the hills of California’s wine coun­try. I’ll sore­ly miss shar­ing a dram of Scotch, a hearty snack, and recall­ing a scene from one of our favorite movies.

I have been, and always shall be, your friend. Live long and pros­per, Dad.

— Ian Langworth

Richard M. Lang­worth is sur­vived by his wife, Bar­bara; his son, Ian (Emi­ly); and his grand­chil­dren, Michael and Aiden.