Man of the 20th Century, and Greatest Briton Ever!
This page is dedicated to the greatest man of the twentieth century, and indeed, one of the greatest
"Britishmen" of all time.
Please follow the links below to get to the best
Churchill sites on the net. I have tried not to list
everything on the web, as this
is just duplicating other people's sites. I have just put down those that
are of particular use or merit. However, by exploring the links pages
below, you should find pointers to everything of interest and relevance.
Happy reading!
Latest
News, Updates and Main Stories
SITE
NOTE:
Churchill Online has
been relaunched, deleting old, non-working links and updating the pages
referred to. As always, there are many new pages on Churchill being
published on the web every month: if you see any that you think should be
included here, please email
your suggestions.
Of particular interest is the new schools
and universities section, detailing websites of particular use to
those studying Winston Churchill in formal education, plus introducing you
to the schools and universities membership category of the International
Churchill Society (UK).
Coming soon: separate
Quotations, Frequently Asked Questions and Books pages.
With all the recent press coverage
of the row between the UK government and the media recently, this article
has some interesting points to make. Click here
for the whole article, but below is an extract:
"A
July 23 editorial in London's Daily Telegraph points out that "BBC
journalism exhibits the same 'agenda-setting' mentality… The BBC's bias
against the war led it into grotesque distortion of reality." History
repeats itself. Winston Churchill's access to the radio broadcasting state
monopoly in the 1930s was blocked by John Reith, the BBC director, who was
an admirer of both Hitler and Mussolini. Radio broadcasting was then the
only way Churchill could reach the masses and inform Britons about the
growing Nazi threat. But Reith was an appeaser, like Prime Ministers
Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. Reith wrote in his diary that the
Nazis "would clean things up," and about Churchill: "I
absolutely hate him." He must have turned in his grave when, last
November, it was announced that Churchill was the winner of BBC's poll on
the greatest Briton ever."
A new addition to this site. Please
see this section for sites of particular interest to teachers and
students. Also, do not miss the special offer to UK Schools of membership
of the International Churchill Society (UK) at a discounted rate, and the opportunities
for visiting the Cabinet War Rooms.
Recently, a sceptical correspondent
sent an article by the above gentleman. It is of the opinion that
Churchill was one of the most mendacious and self-seeking people who ever
lived. The article is, this website submits, a very poor piece of work
that qualifies not as history, but as a controversy-seeking tirade.
However, as it propagates some old myths and complaints about Churchill
(see Christopher Hitchens' Atlantic piece
for more), it has been included on the website, as these pieces should not
go without rebuttal. Click here to read
the original piece, together with Churchill Online's response to each
point made.
The Cabinet War
Rooms in London has recently opened some previously unseen sections of
Churchill's wartime command centre in London, and includes a new museum on
the PM.
Winston
Churchill - A Beginner's Guide - accompanying Britain's Channel
4 series, presented by Max Hastings, this series deals with the
relationship between Churchill and his generals during World War 2. This
excellent accompanying site is a set of links pages, well organised into
different sections to show you where to find the most useful web resources
and gives you a guide to them: it is obvious they have put some good
research in. Includes a guide to the different books by and about Churchill,
the main websites, different viewpoints, words of wisdom, Churchill places
and even a "Weird Winston" collection of unusual stories. Highly
recommended.
As part of the recent Battle
of the Atlantic series, the BBC have produced this excellent site
about Churchill. In addition to a mini-biography, it includes articles by
some of the foremost Churchill historians, including Geoffrey
Best, Andrew
Roberts, Sir
Martin Gilbert, and to present the anti-case, John
Charmley. Also includes a good audio
library of Churchill speech extracts. Not only is this site worth a
visit, the BBC's World
War II site contains more excellent articles on related topics.
General and Links Pages
- The
Winston Churchill Home Page
- "Official Site" - the definitive Churchill website, with articles, quotes,
speeches, books, even a discussion forum,
all maintained by the Churchill Centre in Washington DC. This site covers
all the topics listed below, so it really should be your first port of
call. Highly recommended: just go and explore!
- read something about Churchill in
the news and not sure if it is true, or just want to find out more?
Responding to the recent plethora of Churchill-related news stories, the
Churchill Centre has put up this new page, which is the definitive place
to look for authoritative answers. It acts
as a rapid-response tool not only to counter the factual errors that we
have all heard so much about but to promote Churchill's appearances in the
media. Highly recommended.
- The BBC
recently ran a nationwide competition to "elect" the UK's
"Greatest Briton". Not only did Churchill come first in the
initial poll by a vast majority, he comfortably won the live televised
poll. Here is the BBC
biography. The Greatest Briton.
- associations
in the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK, thousands of members throughout
the world, a quarterly magazine, "Finest Hour", this is
where to go if you want to learn more about Sir Winston Churchill.
- accompanying
Britain's Channel 4 series,
"Winston's War", presented by Max Hastings, this series
deals with the relationship between Churchill and his generals
during World War 2. This excellent accompanying site is a set of
links pages, well organised into different sections to show you
where to find the most useful web resources. Includes a guide to the
different books by and about Churchill, the main websites, different
viewpoints, words of wisdom, Churchill places and even a "Weird
Winston" collection of unusual stories.
- you may be
interested to go to this site, enter "Churchill" in the
search and find the Presentation and Acceptance speeches, along with
photos and a brief bio.
- a wonderful idea, developed by Neil Coates - a
timeline of Churchill's life, showing his political allegiances, what
office he held, which Monarch and Prime Minister he served under,
including mini-biographies of each. Downloadable as an
Excel file, and extremely useful.
- lots of pictures of
Churchill and his life: go to this site and type "Winston
Churchill" into the search engine.
- more
pictures.
- one of the web's best image searches:
results for "Winston Churchill". There's nearly four thousand,
most of which are actually related to Sir Winston, which is not always the
case with internet searches!
- debunks the story
that Winston Churchill's father paid for the education of the discoverer
of penicillin ...
A
Little-Known Fact.....
Have you seen this picture
before? Probably the most famous picture of Winston Churchill, this
picture of the indomitable Prime Minister was taken in 1941, by Yousef
Karsh. It remains today what it has always been: a forceful portrait of
the charismatic leader of an embattled nation: a countenance oozing stern,
warlike courage.
Less well known, however, is how difficult it was for Karsh to take
this picture. Sir Martin Gilbert ("In
Search of Churchill", Harper Collins, P.294ff,) points out that
the PM was, at the time, in a rather good mood, having just made a very
successful speech to the Canadian Parliament ("Some chicken...some
neck"). As a result, he was not offering the stern, warlike visage
that Karsh wanted, but a benign, puckish grin. Karsh solved this problem
by marching up to the PM, and snatching the cigar out of his mouth. By the
time he got back to his stand, Karsh recalled, "he looked so
belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took
the picture".
Lady Churchill disliked this photograph, as she felt it was "not
real", an untrue portrayal of her husband's mood at this
period of the war. There was, she informed Sir Martin, a
"happy" photograph that had never been used, which is the one
seen to the bottom left, and which can be seen on the cover of Sir
Martin's book.
This photograph,
as Sir Martin says, is a better representation of the real, human
Churchill, not the man of myth and legend. There is much more to Winston
Churchill than blood, toil, tears and sweat, as I hope these pages show.
As Sir Martin said: "it is the unused, smiling photograph that
represented the man I had heard so much about, who certainly could be
stern and severe, but was also, and often, a smiler; the Churchill seen in
good times, and even in bad, by his family, friends and
contemporaries".
- from the
Churchill Centre, related to the 18th International Churchill
Conference, but this is probably the best Churchill quote page on
the net. Lots of quotes, and because they come from the people who
know, you can rely on them being from Churchill!
- Mark Weber's first
class Churchill bookstore. Specialising mainly in secondhand books, this
is the premier site on the web for rare, collectable and all secondhand
books by and about Churchill.
- a big New
York store specialising in Churchill books, now incorporating Richard
Langworth's Churchillbooks.com
- Abebooks.com
are one of the largest second-hand booksellers on the web, selling
through individual shops. There are therefore a lot of Churchill books
for sale, but if you are after Churchill expertise, you may find the
above three sellers more helpful.
- a recent
review of Churchill's "The River War", in context with
September 11th, for which it provides a lot of useful thoughts. Useful
to help us understand Churchill's continuing relevance to today's
problems.
- A great collection of the first lines
of many of Churchill's books, plus memorable ones from historians. A great
bite-sized exhibition of a first class author.
- Churchill's secret operations room right in the heart of
London. Recently opened: some previously unseen sections of
Churchill's wartime command centre in London, and includes a new museum on
the PM.
- Churchill's wartime
correspondence with the Head of Special Operations Executive is now
available on-line via the Public Record Office's web page. These are
scans of original documents, and what is more, they are free!
-
site
by the people who have restored the boat that took Sir Winston to his
final resting place, looking at both the vessel itself and the State
Funeral that spelled the end of an era.
- a
living memorial to Sir Winston offering 100 annual Travelling
Fellowships for British Citizens to travel overseas - to the benefit
of the individual and his or her community on return.
- a personal tribute, still under
construction but features an excellent collection of "first
lines" - lines with which Churchill started his books, and historians
started theirs.
- well
worth a visit, as it offers a valuable different perspective on
Churchill. Inder Dan Ratnu, an Indian author, believes that Churchill
saved freedom for the world, and lectures in English to schools
across India to this effect. Author of "The Ultimate Defense",
"Layman's Questions about Churchill" and "Alternative to
Churchill - Eternal Bondage", he is seeking to expand
his lecture tours to abroad. Offering a rare Asian view on Churchill, this
site offers photographs and commendations of his lectures.
- this
film site gives brief biographies on actors, directors and their
work. Quite amusingly, there was one Winston Churchill listed there:
it gives details of films he has appeared in as an "actor"
(archive footage, obviously!!), and even writing credits (e.g.
"Young Winston") and as a consultant ("The Conquest
of the Air", 1936). Actually a very useful resource, and not as
unexpected as one might think.
- this US film company have just
released a new film dealing with Churchill's "Wilderness Years"
in the 1930s, when he was politically alone and his warnings about Nazism
went unheeded. Click
here to go to the homepage of the film, which stars Albert Finney as
Winston and Vanessa Redgrave as Clementine.
USS
Winston S Churchill
-
official website of one of the US Navy's most powerful new ships, the
guided missile destroyer named after the famous Briton. Temporarily
offline, so here is a news
story on the ship.
This section is designed to
be of particular use to those who are researching Winston Churchill as part of
full-time education, perhaps as part of the National Curriculum. Below is a
collection of school-related sites, plus details of opportunities available from
the Cabinet War Rooms and the International Churchill Society (UK).
UK Schools and
Universities:
Have
you considered a school or faculty membership of the International Churchill
Society (UK)? This is now available, at a special discounted rate of £20
per year, which is an "at cost" sum - the Society will not make any
profit from your subscription. An important part of the Society's aims is
"teaching the next generation", and we are therefore looking to
increase our student membership, and involvement with schools and universities.
For your subscription, you will receive:
Four
copies of "Finest Hour" the quarterly journal of the Churchill
Centre and Societies, per year, for the school or faculty library.
A copy of "Churchill Proceedings", the talks given
at the annual Churchill conference, as it is published.
The chance for your students to participate in these annual
conferences, which are attended by the cream of Churchill scholars. What
better way to learn? Please see below for detail of the next conference,
in Portsmouth, UK, in 2004.
Special
discounts when buying books from The Churchill Centre Book Club
If you would like to take advantage of this wonderful
opportunity, or if you have any questions, please email,
or print off an application form and post it to:
This complex, buried
deep underneath Whitehall in London, was Churchill's underground HQ for
the nights when it was too dangerous to be using 10 Downing Street above
ground. It is a fascinating day out, and can form a stimulating part of
study of World War II.
The War Rooms have
recently opened the "Churchill
Suite", which have lain undisturbed and unseen since the end of
the war in 1945. These rooms were some of the Churchill family's private
quarters, and give an insight into the daily working life of Britain's
high command at some of the most dangerous times of the war. In 2005,
the Cabinet War Rooms will open the Churchill
Museum, which will contain chapters on Churchill's life, which will
bring the great war leader vividly to life.
The Cabinet War Rooms
Education department has recently been refitted with some
state-of-the-art electronic learning facilities, and offers unrivalled
scope for engaging learning. If you would like to learn more about the
education opportunities offered by the Cabinet War Rooms, and how to
book a visit for your school, please visit their education
website.
- from
the Churchill Archives Centre, you can look at a number of different
documents to find out about the great events that shaped the modern
world. Although more about Churchill's time than the man himself,
this site is of great use: it includes exercises for students, and
information for teachers.
-
website from the UK's Public Record Office. Gives brief commentary on
events surrounding this famous raid, and then presents documents for the
reader to study. Once they have looked at the evidence on display, they
are asked to offer a
reasoned opinion as to whether Churchill was a hero or a villain
(admittedly a somewhat simplified choice for such a complicated and
difficult event,) as far as
the bombing of Dresden was concerned. The reader is asked to consider
topics such as Churchill's responsibility vis a vis "Bomber"
Harris, the necessity
for
the raid and the results it achieved. The process of looking at primary
sources on the internet, assessing them, and coming to a conclusion
makes this a particularly useful resource for schools. Highly
recommended.
I update this site every time
I become aware of a Churchill site on the net that deserves a mention. Do you know of a website that
I have missed here and that you think should be included?
Are any links suggested here
broken or otherwise not working?
Or do you have any questions
about Winston Churchill that you cannot find an answer to?
