Barbara F. Langworth: The Right Parent Survived

Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother, by Anne Sebba (London, Murray, 2007).  American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill), (New York: Norton, 2007). 

It may seem a new story to many readers, since the previous biographies of Lady Randolph Churchill date back up to eight decades. Jennie published her own memoirs in 1908. Readers familiar with the Churchill saga wish to know if this latest book offers anything new. To some extent it does. Sebba writes well, accesses the latest sources, and punctures some myths.

Jennie’s influence in Winston’s life was considerable. She educated him, spent more time with him than most realize, and advanced his career as a writer and war correspondent. Much beloved, she died at 67.

In the 1990s we twice visited Sir Winston’s nephew, Peregrine Churchill, and his wife Yvonne, at their home in Hampshire. There we discussed the current raft of Jennie gossip. A lot of “neglected Winston” chatter was going round. Peregrine snorted at all that. He pulled out a box of Jennie’s diaries and letters to Winston, and began reading aloud. “Played all afternoon with Winston…” It was touching to hear her own words—hardly those of an uncaring, distant mother.

Anne Sebba’s book pulls together facts, discussions and controversy from previous books, adds new letters, and discusses recent Jennie historiography, producing informed conclusions about this ethereal, alluring being.

A fabled persona

There is a rounded mural of Jennie and her sisters, American girls in search of titles, who met British aristocrats in search of money. She was one of the most stunning women of her time, a “professional beauty.” (Victorians would collect photographs of lovely women.) Educated in France, she regaled London society.

Anne Sebba portrays Jennie as sexy, innovative and literate, her flirting persona irresistible to men. She was a concert pianist, artist, playwright, interior decorator. editor and author. (I had erroneously supposed that a famous sketch of Jennie by Singer Sargent was for a later portrait. Apparently it was done for the cover of a piano concert program she gave for charity.) Her rich life is the stuff of an outstanding seven-hour biography (see below).

The book mentions Jennie’s controversies, skirting conclusions when there are none to make. It is a near-certainty that Lord Randolph Churchill died of something besides syphilis—a brain tumor is the leading possibility. (See John Mather, “In Search of Lord Randolph Churchill’s Purported Syphilis.”) Indisputably, he was diagnosed with syphilis. So Sebba’s take is practical: He was told he had it. He believed he had it. His wife and son thought he had it. All their actions were based on the supposition that he did have it. Ergo, he might as well have had it.

This avoids a conclusion but does not challenge the truth in the way that vindictive or ignorant writers do, by referring, say, to “Winston’s syphilitic father” and moving on. As Dr. Mather has shown, Randolph’s malady was misdiagnosed from the start. Sebba’s thesis is not daring and her medical evidence inconclusive, but it is a safe position to take.

Is this fun for you?

Imagine what young Jennie must have felt. You meet this fantastic fellow. The sparks are potent, marriage is certain. Both sets of parents resist, but give in. Your first-born comes quickly. You then learn that your politician-husband is a flawed genius. At first brilliant and respected, Randolph excels in baiting the opposition. Self-willed and vindictive, he is withal not a very nice man. He quarrels with the Prince of Wales, “a great personage” in his son’s biography. That is not wise. A few years into your marriage, you find yourself ostracized from polite society. You end up in Ireland, in a kind of luxurious exile.

Another son, Jack, is born in Dublin, and speculation is rife. Is he Randolph’s son? Arguing strongly in favor of Jack’s legitimacy is his close resemblance to his grandfather, the 7th Duke of Marlborough. Arguing against is that he looks and acts nothing like his brother Winston. Why is this important? Surely what matters is that Winston and Jack were devoted to each other, enjoying a fond and close-knit family life.

Back in England, you’re told that Randolph has a sexually transmitted disease. You do much of his political campaigning, since he is perpetually ill. A few years pass and (diseased or not) he reaches one of the highest offices in the land, a step below prime minister—only to cast himself from the ladder in an ill-considered resignation, never to rise again, and to spend the rest of his life “dying by inches in public.” Not only that, he is hardly ever home, and when he is has a violent temper. Is this fun for you?

Jennie revelations

Unsurprisingly Jennie had numerous admirers—and lovers, whose number is hotly disputed by historians and seekers of the prurient. The author discusses Jennie’s one serious romance, with Karl, Count Kinsky, while she was still married. As Randolph neared death in 1894, she learned that Kinsky had become engaged—he needed the finances and progeny. She had hoped he would wait until Randolph had died (though there had been talk of divorce). Anne Sebba asks: what would have been the consequences for Winston? Suppose Jennie had married Kinsky, and put her energies into that relationship, instead of devoting herself to her son? Her efforts to advance his youthful career are well documented.

Given extant literature, it is encouraging to find new material in this book. One revelation was that Jennie had a serious illness and almost died in 1892. She had severe abdominal pains and was diagnosed with peritonitis and perhaps a tumor or cyst. Miraculously, it healed on its own. Think of the aftermath if Jennie had not been there to launch Winston on his career.

At the time of publication there was an intriguing publicity-rumor that Jennie had a snake tattoo on her wrist. There is a well-known photo of Jennie holding Peregrine. Her arms are bare, no sign of a tattoo. Nor is there on any other photo I have examined. The author duly displayed a snake on her arm in at least one of her book signings. I’m sure she meant it as a tribute, but it’s like Martin Gilbert at  a book signing wearing a siren suit and homburg.

Salacious speculation

It is a shame that the publicity surrounding this biography focused so hard on the salacious. How many men did Jennie sleep with? Did Lord Randolph die of syphilis? Who was Jack Churchill’s father? Flyspeck issues obscuring what really matters is a feature of our age. What matters is that Jennie Churchill was a notable woman at a time when woman were mainly considered to be trophies, concubines or breeders.

She slept with men, though the number is vastly exaggerated. But while others of her class indulged in primping and fripperies, she raised the statesman of the century, produced a literary magazine, displayed multiple talents, raised money for charities, wrote literate memoirs, aided troops on the scene of battle, and set new standards in dress and manners. Anne Sebba suggests perceptively that while Randolph lived, he stood in the way of Winston’s aspirations. His death in 1895 was as crucial for Winston as the other things that happened that fateful year. 

Jennie didn’t have the vote and didn’t want it. Yet she knew politics inside out, and probably influenced more votes than many in Parliament. If she were alive and sentient today, she could easily gain elective office. Her influence on her son, her efforts to launch him on his twin careers of writing and politics, far exceeded those of the father Winston held awe. For Winston Churchill, the right parent survived.

The author

Barbara Langworth was publisher of Finest Hour from 1982 to 2014 and contributed twenty installments of “Recipes from Number 10 for the modern kitchen.” She is the author of “Churchill and Polo” (2018), appearing in two parts for the Hillsdale College Churchill Project.

The Jennie bibliography

Mrs. George Cornwallis-West, The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. London: Edward Arnold, 1908. A charming memoir, but discreet and circumspect. Victorian society as seen by a participant.

Kraus, René, Young Lady Randolph, New York: Putnam, 1943. A capable biography by a journeyman writer, who also produced a wartime biography of Winston and the men around him.

Leslie, Anita. Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, London: Hutchinson, 1960. A competent biography by a member of the family who stands for no nonsense or salacious rumors.

Ralph Martin, Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph (2 vols.). New York: Prentice Hall, 1969-71. Widely acclaimed at the time, but withdrawn in Britain after Peregrine Churchill objected to its characterization of him as a bastard son.

Peregrine Churchill & Julian Mitchell, Jennie: A Portrait with Letters. London: Collins, 1974. Written mainly to dispel Martin’s reflections on Jennie’s alleged reputation, well backed by letters from Lady Randolph’s own archives.

Charles Higham, Dark Lady: Winston Churchill’s mother and Her World. London: Virgin, 2006. “Disappointing, perplexing and decidedly odd…a soup bowl of scandals and a forest of family trees.” —Finest Hour 135

Anne Sebba, Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother. London, Murray, 2007)  American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill), (New York: Norton, 2007).

Video and related books

ITV and Thames Television, “The Life and Loves of Lady Randolph Churchill.” Lee Remick received a  Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her role as Jennie in this brilliant, seven-part television documentary. Ronald Pickup played Lord Randolph and Warren Clarke was young Winston.

Celia and John Lee, Winston and Jack: The Churchill Brothers. London: Celia Lee, 2007. The only work on the long filial relationship, with much on Jennie, by accomplished researchers relying on Churchill family archives.

Richard M. Langworth, “Jennie’s Indiscretions, Jack’s Parentage,” Chapter 2 in Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What He Actually Did and Said. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2017. Other chapters discuss the myths of Jennie’s Iroquois ancestors, young Winston’s education, and Lord Randolph’s illness.

“I’ve been using microphones before you were born”

Commander Larry Kryske USN was our toastmaster for the 1988 Mount Washington Churchill dinners. I remember particularly his naval declaration after dinner: “The smoking lamp is lighted.” (How odd that sounds now! In my experience, group smoking stopped almost dead around 1990.) Larry sends this amusing memory of that night, 27 August:

During his address, Sir Alistair appeared to be having trouble with the mic. As toastmaster, I was sitting next to him at the head table and noticed the volume knob was turned way too low. As I reached over to adjust it, he said, “Don’t touch that. I’ve been using microphones before you were born.”

In those days, as you notice from the old photo, we had snooty head tables. The record audience of 400 stood as we very important poohbahs marched in. My friend Bill Ives was following the late John Edison, a distinguished Canadian—whose braces broke. So Bill had to walk close behind him holding his trousers up until we sat down. (To both their credits, nobody noticed, and the word didn’t escape until John embarrassingly confessed while seeking a new pair of braces, i.e., suspenders.)

Alistair and “The Scream”

I loved and admired Alistair Cooke. Politically (though it wasn’t too apparent) he was a liberal Democrat until late in life, when he grew more conservative. But on our last visit in December 2003, another election was looming, and he was keen about Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Alistair thought he was a sure-thing nominee against President Bush the Younger. Almost exactly a month later, Dean committed political harakiri by giving the famous “scream” after the Iowa Caucuses. Alas, Alistair died in March, so I never found out if he changed his mind about Governor Dean.

Not the President….

That Churchill conference was a two-night affair, so the question arose: Whom would we get for the other night? Thanks to former Ambassador to Canada Paul Robinson, we almost got the President. Ronald Reagan was a great admirer of Alistair Cooke, and it never occurred to us to wonder: He wouldn’t spare us two nights, so then what? Would AC have introduced him? But we didn’t worry about those things. If you get the President of the United States, you work around it.

The White House appointments staff tried hard to arrange it. I still have President Reagan’s letter sending his regrets. As we later learned, it was lucky for us. The Secret Service cased the Mount Washington ballroom. They said they’d need a finished partition for RR to walk to his seat unobserved. Its construction, along with travel and accommodation for agents, would be on us. We had about $300 in the bank, so we breathed a sigh of relief.

…but the Governor

Our speaker was then-New Hampshire Governor John H. Sununu, who gave a nice address, under the gun by having to follow Alistair Cooke. He was proud that New Hampshire had made Churchill an honorary citizen before the USA. I asked him what it’s like running a state with (still) no income or sales tax. “You can’t take your eyes off he ledger for a day,” he said. “If you do, you’ll lose your shirt.”

Governor Sununu has a Churchill-like, ecumenical sense of political humor.  He was thanked by Ambassador Robinson, a stalwart Republican. The 1988 presidential election was on, so Paul blithely proceeded to endorse Vice-President George H.W. Bush. Canada’s federal election was coming up too, and our audience included many from north of the border. Paul peered out at them. “As for Canadians present, I don’t have to say I hope you’ll all vote Conservative on behalf of my dear friend Brian Mulroney.”

The Governor remarked, not quite sotto voce: “There goes the 5000-mile undefended border.”

It was all in good fun though I’m sure I heard from every Democrat, Liberal and NDP supporter at the Mount Washington that night.

Mary at the Mount

Our last and best Mount Washington memory involves Sir Winston’s daughter, Lady Soames. By 2005 we knew that at 83, the Quebec Churchill Conference might be her last abroad. “Do come,” we said. “We’ll drive you down to New Hampshire amid the autumn colo(u)rs and get you to Boston for your flight home.”

She came. In Quebec, everyone wanted to shake her hand. Clusters of people trailed in her wake. As usual she took a rather more detached view than some of our conference speakers. We were seated together when Professor Warren Kimball suggested that the Second Quebec Conference in 1944 produced “nothing of significance.” She leaned over and gave me a very earthy synonym for “rubbish.” I told Warren later, and he has dined out on it ever since.

Here in New Hampshire she was one of our first houseguests, up early in her dressing gown, sipping coffee. Over Barbara’s stellar breakfasts, she helped plan every day of the 2006 Churchill Tour of England, our next-to-last. We are an easy drive from the Mount Washington, so we booked dinner there. I asked the hotel if they might arrange a private tour for Winston Churchill’s daughter. “How soon?” they replied.

* * *

On the way up I suggested diplomatic strategy: “The Mount Washington believes your father stayed there in 1906. Of course it was the ‘other’ Winston Churchill, the American novelist. But don’t spoil their fun.” “Certainly not,” she said primly.

Immediately upon meeting the Mount Washington’s manager, Lady Soames spoke up. “I understand you think my Papa was here in 1906. I’m sorry, dear, that is just not possible. That was, you know, the American Churchill. I’m told he was running for Congress at the time. I believe he lost.”

I groaned. She grinned.

The Mount Washington bought us a bottle of wine but made me pay for dinner, which I thought a bit chintzy. They did promise to change their official history to name the American Churchill as a visitor. (I wonder if they ever did?) Mary Soames thought it “an amazing hotel.” If her father actually had visited, she said, he’d have liked it fine. She returned home anxious to see her dog Prune and her dear private secretary Nonie Chapman. Quickly came the usual long letter in her “own paw,” expressing thanks we didn’t deserve. It was she whom we needed to thank, for giving us such delight for so many years.

============== Continued from Part 1…

Part 2: Dislocations

On 18 December 1898 Winston Churchill wrote to his friend Aylmer Haldane. “I am leaving the army in April. I have come back merely for the Polo Tournaments.”  He told his mother he would stay at Government House. He was “playing polo quite well now. Never again shall I be able to do so. Everything will have to go to the war chest.”

Fortune interfered: “Everything smiled until last night—when I fell downstairs and sprained both my ankle and dislocated my right shoulder,” he wrote his brother Jack in February.

In his autobiography three decades later, Churchill wrote that he first dislocated his shoulder on arriving in India in 1896. At the Bombay quayside he had grabbed an iron hand-hold ring when the boat fell with a sudden surge and he wrenched his shoulder. Thereafter, he wrote, he had to play polo with his arm strapped to his side.

* * *

His letters at the time make no mention of this incident. It was his habit to mention injuries—an injured knee in December 1896, for example. In the first version of this article (1991), I suggested that Churchill’s first dislocation likely occurred after falling at Government House in 1898, rather than the much more romantic quayside episode in 1896. Upon reflection and expert advice, I believe Churchill’s version is correct. After describing the Bombay accident he writes: “Since then, at irregular intervals my shoulder has dislocated on the most unexpected pretexts; sleeping with my arm under the pillow, taking a book from the library shelves, slipping on a staircase, swimming, etc.” (Emphasis mine.) This makes it clear that Bombay was the initial incident, although his staircase fall two years later certainly aggravated his condition.

Even with his arm immobilized, Churchill managed to play well. His team beat the 5th Dragoon Guards 16-2, and the 9th Lancers 2-1, in the first round on 23 February. “Few of that merry throng were destined to see old age,” Churchill ruminated sadly. “Our own team was never to play again. A year later Albert Savory was killed in the Transvaal, Barnes was grievously wounded in Natal, and I became a sedentary politician increasingly crippled by my wretched shoulder.”

Playing on

Despite his departure from the home of polo, Churchill continued to play. An appointment book for 1901, his first year in Parliament, showed ten dates in May and June. Listed for Saturday July 6th was “House of Commons versus Guards.” The games on Monday-Wednesday August 5th-7th were marked “Windsor.” 

In 1902 Churchill wrote a long letter to Secretary of State for War St. John Brodrick. He argued against a proposed prohibition of inter-regimental polo tournaments. He attributed the increasing cost of ponies to the English gentry’s participation in the game. Polo, he wrote, contributed to building a soldier’s character and skill. Two years later (after opposing Brodrick over the latter’s army estimates), Churchill left the Tories for the Liberal Party. As a consequence, he felt obliged to alter his club membership. It is often said that Churchill was unaware of the political animus he engendered. But in May 1905 he remarked to Liberal MP Alexander Murray (later Baron Murray of Elibank):

I foolishly allowed myself to be proposed for Hurlingham as a polo playing member; & was of course at once black-balled. This is almost without precedent in the history of the Club—as polo players are always welcomed. I do not think you and your Liberal friends realize the intense political bitterness which is felt against me on the other side.

Polo in later life

Pushing fifty, polo was still very much Churchill’s sport. In the summer of 1921, for example, he and his wife were looking for a family summer cottage. Clementine rented one of the houses at Rugby School, near Ashby St Ledger. “The plan was that Winston would stay with them all,” her biographer wrote, “and be diverted by polo with his Guest cousins.” This the same year Clementine cautioned Winston against speculating in stocks…. “Politics are absolutely engrossing to you…and now you have painting for leisure and polo for excitement and danger.”

At Chartwell, which he bought in 1922, Churchill would sometimes embark on a well-meant but briefly kept economy programs. In 1926 he suggested that Chartwell be rented and that all livestock—except the two polo ponies—be sold. The ponies were still sacred! Many photographs exist of the mature Churchill at play, always with his right arm strapped to his side. A group picture taken on 18 June 1925 shows WSC with fellow players Capt. G.R.G. Shaw, Captain Euan Wallace and Captain the Hon. Freddie Guest, after Churchill’s Commons team defeated the House of Lords. Winston and Clementine are seen at Hurlingham the same year, to watch the British Army play polo against an American team.

Last chukka

Winston’s last game had the longest gestation of all. Plans for it began in the autumn of 1926, when Admiral Sir Roger Keyes invited Churchill, who was taking a holiday cruise in the Mediterranean, to inspect the fleet. They were old friends, having met during polo around 1904, according to Keyes’s biographer. In those days young Keyes and his friends “would drive down to Wembley and play polo on hired ponies from 8 to 9 am. Often, before they finished, a party of young Members of Parliament would arrive to play from 9 to 10 am. It was at Wembley that [Keyes] first made the acquaintance of Winston Churchill.”

Responding to Keyes’s invitation, Churchill replied on 15 November:

As to Polo, of course I should love to have a game. It is awfully kind of you to offer to mount me. It would have to be a mild one as I have not played all this season. However I will arrange to have a gallop or two beforehand so as to ‘calibrate’ my tailor muscles [sartorius]. Anyhow I will bring a couple of sticks and do my best. If I expire on the ground it will at any rate be a worthy end!

Taken at a gallop, he must have reasoned, and would later write in My Early Life, it would be a very good death to die.

* * *

The enthusiastic Sir Roger replied immediately. “Don’t bother to bring polo sticks—you will find all kinds and lengths here. What is your Hurlingham handicap? We’ll get up a four chucker [sic] match for one day after you’ve had a bit of practice. I expect 4 would be about enough if you haven’t been playing—also where do you like playing?”

On 24 December 1926 Churchill wrote Keyes in Malta. “I shall be with you in plenty of time to play on Saturday afternoon [8 January]. I do not think one day’s practice would do me much good; in fact it would only make one stiff. I hope to do a little hacking in the next few days, if the snow which now overlays us should permit.”

Evidently, Churchill managed his final game without mishap. From Admiralty House, Malta, 10 January 1927 he wrote Clementine: “I got through the polo without shame or distinction & enjoyed it so much.”

At age 52, that was the last recorded occasion when Winston Churchill played polo.

Author’s note

Barbara F. Langworth is a New Hampshire publisher and editor. “Churchill and Polo” was first published in 1991. This updated, amended version is published by kind permission of the author in response to reader requests for more information on Churchill’s favorite team sport. The article incidentally demonstrates the rich store of material available in The Churchill Documents, published by Hillsdale College Press.

Endnotes

Barbara Langworth is a bacteriologist, editor and publisher in New Hampshire. Multi-talented, she runs everything.

In 1927, Winston Churchill wrote to his wife Clementine, “I am becoming a film fan.” He installed projection equipment for movies at Chequers, the country home of British prime ministers, in 1943, and at his family home Chartwell in 1946.

“Churchill and the Movies” is the final event by Hillsdale’s Center for Constructive Alternatives in the 2018-19 academic year. It explores two movies regarded as Churchill’s favorites and two biographical movies in historical context. My lecture addresses Henry V with Laurence Olivier. We will discuss Churchill’s understanding of Shakespeare, and application of the lessons of The Bard’s plays.

The venue for this event is the Searle Center, which seats 800. It includes a new spacious entrance and lobby and a completely renovated kitchen. The facility also boasts an escalator, the first one in Hillsdale County.For current information click here.

In 2019, Hillsdale completes the final volume of Churchill’s official biography.  The largest biography in history, it began under Randolph Churchill, fifty-six years ago. Hillsdale also houses the Sir Martin Gilbert Papers, and sponsors Churchill seminars, publications, tours and online courses. Though located in Michigan, Hillsdale is certified as a charity by Revenue Canada as well as the IRS.

In 2014 I joined joined Hillsdale College as Senior Fellow for the Churchill Project, an endowed, permanent center for Churchill Studies. The culmination of my Churchill work over the years, it is an honor to be associated with this preeminent institution. I have now been with its students on many occasions. Inspiring work. I have never met such uniformly learned, thoughtful young people, able to converse on, and seriously to debate, a myriad of topics. They give us the feeling that Churchill was right: Never despair. There is hope yet.

The Freshman Pledge

We, the students of Hillsdale College, commit ourselves to diligent study and patient reflection. Having come to learn, we are proud to do so with integrity and will conduct ourselves with exemplary honor. As sacrifices past and present make possible our education, we too become stewards of this College for the generations yet to come. We pledge ourselves to the pursuit of truth, the love of the good, and the cultivation of beauty, for the sake of our minds and hearts and for an ennobled society. By so doing, we embrace the high calling of liberal education.

* * *

See also “Churchill Bio-Pics”

Ottawa, Nov 30—

Richard M. Langworth CBE, spoke to the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. The venue was Earnscliffe, the Residence of the British High Commissioner. The subject was “Winston Churchill, 144 Years On: The Perspective of History.ˮ

Langworth is a leading writers on Sir Winston. In 1968 he founded the Churchill Study Unit and its journal, Finest Hour. In 1982 he resurrected the journal from inactivity and edited it for thirty-five years. Five years ago he joined Hillsdale College (in Hillsdale, Michigan) as Senior Fellow for the Churchill Project, an endowed, permanent center of Churchill Studies in North America. In 1998, Richard was appointed by Her Majesty the Queen as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His citation was “for services to Anglo-American relations and the memory of Sir Winston Churchill.ˮ

In 2019, Hillsdale completes the thirty-first and final volume of Churchillʼs official biography. The project began under Sir Winstonʼs son, Randolph Churchill, fifty-seven years ago. Hillsdale also houses the Martin Gilbert Papers and sponsors Churchill seminars, publications, tours and online courses. And despite its Michigan location, Hillsdale maintains a Canadian link via its recognition by our CRA.

* * *

“Along the wayˮ Richard published the first American edition of Churchill’s 1931 volume India (1990) and the extremely scarce and otherwise inaccessible 1924 essay Shall We Commit Suicide? (1994). Later he produced ten more Churchill books. They include: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Books of Sir Winston Churchill (1998). Churchill by Himself (2008). The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill (2009). The Patriot’s Churchill (2010). All Will Be Well: Good Advice from Winston Churchill (2011). Churchill in His Own Words (2012). Churchill and the Avoidable War (2015). Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality (2016). His current project is expanding Churchill by Himself by adding hundreds of new quotations. Many were inspired by his work with the Hillsdale volumes.

Richard and Barbara Langworth have hosted eleven Churchill Tours in England, Scotland, France and Australia (1983-2008) and were Churchill specialist booksellers (1984-2004). In March Langworth will lecture at Hillsdale on “Churchill and the Movies.ˮ Next June he is a speaker on the Hillsdale College cruise around Britain.

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Churchill loved polo, which he called “The Emperor of Games.” A contemporary writer’s description of his polo tactics is remindful of much else in the statesmen’s approach to life and politics:

He rides in the game like heavy cavalry getting into position for the assault. He trots about, keenly watchful, biding his time, a matter of tactics and strategy. Abruptly he sees his chance, and he gathers his pony and charges in, neither deft nor graceful, but full of tearing physical energy—and skillful with it too. He bears down opposition by the weight of his dash, and strikes the ball. Did I say strike? He slashes the ball.

Sandhurst

Churchill first mentions polo in a letter to his father, seeking permission to ride in September 1893. He had just arrived at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. In the entrance exam, his final test score was too low for him to be accepted in the infantry and qualified him only for the Cavalry. This was a disappointment to his father Lord Randolph, who was troubled by the expense: “In the infantry one has to keep a man; in the cavalry a man and a horse as well.” His son recalled later: “Little did he foresee not only one horse, but two official chargers and one or two hunters besides, to say nothing of the string of polo ponies!”

In the spring of 1894, Colonel J.P. Brabazon expressed interest in having Winston join a cavalry regiment. He wrote his mother, Lady Randolph: “How I wish I were going into the 4th [Hussars] instead of those old [60th] Rifles. It would not cost a penny more & the regiment goes to India in 3 years which is just right for me.” Following Lord Randolph’s death in January 1895, Winston duly joined the 4th Hussars. On 12 February 1895 he received his commission as a second lieutenant.

Polo at Aldershot

At Aldershot the same month, Churchill began intensive training as a cavalry officer. As his father had feared, finances were a problem. It was a stretch for their mother to maintain Jack, Winston and herself in the way they would all like. And by now young Winston had discovered polo. In April 1895 he wrote his mother,

Everyone here is beginning to play as the season is just commencing. I have practised on other people’s ponies for 10 days and am improving very fast. If therefore, as I imagine—you have some ready money do lend me a hundred pounds…. I cannot go on without any for more than a few days unless I give up the game, which would be dreadful.

Churchill played regularly during his eighteen months at Aldershot. By May 1896 he was hoping to make the regimental team. “I am making extraordinary progress at Polo,” he wrote his mother, “but I want very much to buy another pony, I wish you would lend me £200 as I could then buy a really first class animal which would always fetch his price.”

It bears mentioning, in those far off days, that £200 had the purchasing power of £20,000 today. It is like your son asking for a loan to buy a car…

For six months he lived in London and played polo at Hurlingham in Essex and Ranelagh. As summer ended the 4th Hussars gave up their cavalry chargers to a returning regiment, and sailed for India.

India

In Bombay a native regiment, the Poona Light Horse, was thought to have the best ponies. In what Churchill called an “audacious and colossal undertaking,” the 4th Hussars bought a complete polo stud of twenty-five horses. This gave them a huge advantage of well-trained ponies immediately upon arrival at their duty station, Bangalore in the south of India.

The Hussars were out to win, and Winston’s letters home were full of the sport. “I get up here at 5 o’clock every morning…ride off to parade at 6. At 8 o’clock breakfast and bath and such papers as there are: 9.15 to 10.45 Stables—and no other engagement till Polo at 4.15.″

A polo game lasts an hour and is divided into periods or chukkas of seven minutes each. Churchill played in every chukka he could get into. His prodigious efforts soon came to the notice of the Aga Khan. “It was at Poona in the late summer of 1896 that our paths first crossed,” the Khan wrote later:

A group of officers of the 4th Hussars, then stationed at Bangalore, called on me…. none was a better judge of a horse, than a young subaltern by the name of Winston Spencer Churchill. He was a little over twenty, eager, irrepressible, and already an enthusiastic, courageous, and promising polo player.

“Give your son horses”

In November 1896 Churchill’s team won a tournament at Hyderabad, a 24-hour, 700-mile train journey. Winston told his mother that the entire population turned out to watch, not infrequently betting thousands of rupees:

This performance is a record: no English regiment ever having won a first-class tournament within a month of their arrival in India. The Indian papers express surprise and admiration. I will send you by the next mail some interesting instantaneous photographs of the match — in which you will remark me—fiercely struggling with turbaned warriors….

Churchill was fond of other horse sports; he participated in steeplechases, point-to-points and pleasure riding. In a letter to Jack in November 1896, he proudly noted that their father’s racing colors, chocolate and pink, would appear on Indian soil for the first time at a pony race meeting. In his 1930 autobiography Churchill would advise parents:

Don’t give your son money. As far as you can afford it give him horses. No one ever came to grief— except honourable grief—through riding horses. No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle. Young men have often been ruined through owning horses, or through backing horses, but never through riding them; unless of course they break their necks, which, taken at a gallop, is a very good death to die.

Expanding horizons

During leave in 1897, Churchill traveled in Europe and then went home to England. By September he was back in India, chasing fame and notoriety as a war correspondent with Sir Bindon Blood and the Malakand Field Force. From Nowshera he wrote polo team-mate Reginald Barnes, “Best luck at Poona. It is bloody hot.”

Lt. Churchill returned to Bangalore—“to polo and my friends”—in October 1897. But the success of his writing, and the realization that it could be a serious source of income, had taken the edge off his consumption with polo. “I am off to Hyderabad on Sat for a polo tournament,” he wrote his mother. “It is a nuisance having to go when I am so busy.” He referred to the writing of his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. Hoping for more action in the Sudan, where General Kitchener had been appointed to reconquer that territory on behalf of Britain and Egypt, was later attached to the 21st Lancers. This adventure provided material for his second book, The River War.

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Before he left India he got “rid of every polo pony I possess…. I hope to get rid of them all soon. They eat.” Churchill would not return to India again, and would soon leave the army. The Malakand Field Force “earned me in a few months two years’ pay as a subaltern.” He was about to publish his novel Savrola and had offers to write biographies of his father and his ancestor the First Duke of Marlborough. Above all, however, Churchill hungered for a seat in Parliament.

Concluded in Part 2.

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Barbara Langworth is a bacteriologist, editor and publisher in New Hampshire. Multi-talented, she runs everything.