Clementine churchill7/29/2023 ![]() She steadfastly supported her husband, even when he risked nearly everything to become prime minister. “She once said early in life she would have loved to have been a statesman in her own right if only she had been born with trousers rather than petticoats,” Clementine’s biographer, Sonia Purnell, told NPR.Ĭlementine never became a statesman, but she helped create one. He wanted a career in politics, and he clawed his way into Parliament with a series of dramatic wartime exploits that brought him more and more fame and controversy.Ĭlementine was ambitious, too-but, cleaving to the social customs of the early 20th century, she poured those instincts into her husband instead of herself. A spendthrift, Winston was perpetually in debt, but his ambition went further than money. His parents were cold and distant, leaving him at school for long periods of time and neglecting him his closest childhood relationship was with his nanny. Like Clementine, Winston had survived a lonely childhood. After a few months of courtship, they married in 1908. This time, she liked him more-and he liked her. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)įour years later, Clementine ran into Winston at a dinner party. The engagement picture of Winston Churchill and Clementine Hozier. “He never uttered one word and was very gauche.” “Winston just stared,” she recalled later. Clementine was not impressed, especially when he did not ask her to dance. Already a member of parliament, Winston was best known for his noticeable ambition and his dramatic escape from captivity during the Second Boer War. In 1904, when Clementine was 19, she attended a dance at which 29-year-old Winston Churchill was present. The incident-and the effects of an unhappy, neglected childhood-stayed with her for the rest of her life. Clementine was sent to stay with an aunt during Kitty’s illness, and did not realize she was saying goodbye forever. The tragic death of Clementine’s 16-year-old sister, Kitty, from typhoid fever, also affected her deeply. In a 2002 interview, Clementine’s daughter Mary blamed that period for her mother’s lifelong anxiety and lack of confidence. Though it was customary for women of Clementine’s class to become debutantes, Blanche, fearing her bad reputation could harm her daughter, hesitated to launch her into society. This presented not just financial problems, but social ones. He left Blanche when Clementine was six years old, plunging her mother-a notorious gambler-into relative poverty. Clementine’s parents, Lady Blanche Hozier and Henry Montague Hozier, despised one another and were so famously unfaithful that associates assumed none of their children were fathered by Henry. ![]() Born to aristocratic parents, her early life was lonely and marked by rumor and scandal. Ĭlementine’s life is a success story in and of itself. Though she kept a low profile, she was the driving force behind the seemingly bulletproof British prime minister-and Winston himself credited her as the primary driver behind his astonishingly successful life.Ĭlementine Churchill outside the Royal Academy in Piccadilly, London. During the course of their 57-year-long marriage, Clementine helped her husband get out of political and personal trouble repeatedly. It wasn’t the only time Clementine Churchill would whisk her husband out of danger. The attacker shoved him toward a moving train-but Clementine pushed through a pile of luggage and literally grabbed him by the coattails, saving his life. Clementine watched in horror as her husband grappled with the woman. He had previously taken a public stance against votes for women, much to his wife’s chagrin. A militant suffragist came out of nowhere and began to attack Winston. Their task was to greet local party members during a routine political stop.īut suddenly, the low-key event turned deadly. ![]() It was 1909 and Winston Churchill, a British member of parliament, had just arrived in Bristol with his new wife, Clementine. ![]()
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