Winston Churchill Notes Those He Considered the “Great Contemporaries” He Had Personally Known

He also discusses topics of his articles then coming out on science and technology, and on Britain’s Parliamentary institutions, which he considered “precious beyond…almost beyond compare”

Winston Churchill’s main source of income was not his salary as a Member of Parliament, but as an author. He was a journalist as early as the mid-1890s, and then reported from captivity during the Boer War. As a serving MP he began publishing pamphlets containing his speeches or answers to key parliamentary questions. Beginning with Mr Winston Churchill on the Education Bill (1902), over 135 such tracts were published over his career. He wrote 43 book length works in 72 volumes, including his 6-volume history of the Second World War. His first book was printed in 1898, and the last in 1958, a remarkable span of 60 years. Four of the works were fiction, showing the breadth of his writing genius. There were 28 books published containing collections of his speeches. He also wrote some 10,000 articles for newspapers and magazines over a period of decades on a broad variety of subjects.

In many cases, these newspaper articles were for-hire, commissioned by such publications as Colliers, News of the World, the Daily Mail, and the Sunday Dispatch. The News of the World was so fond of his work that from 1936 and 1939, they paid him £400 for article, which would be £12,000 (or over $15,000 ) in today’s money. Quite a sum to pay a columnist during the Depression, and enough to keep Churchill in his Pol Roger champagne and Romeo y Julieta brand cigars. Major Percy Davies was director of the News of the World, and Sir Emsley Carr was the editor in the 1930s. When Carr died in 1941 Davies ascended to the editorial position. It was with these men that Churchill dealt.

In early 1936, and ending in April of that year, Churchill contracted to write a series on “Great Men I Have Known”, and he and the News of the World executives discussed subjects. Articles were written by Churchill on Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Admiral Fisher of World War I note, King George V, General Sir John French, General Douglas Haig who was the senior British commander during World War I, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Lord Curzon, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau, among others.

In April 1936 Churchill wrote Davies with another idea, a way to continue and expand the concept. His new idea: “Great Men of All Time,” and he included a list of proposed subjects in his letter. The list contained 27 names, and in 25 cases it gave fascinating and insightful reasons the men were chosen. Here is Churchill’s list of the “Great Men of All Time”, from his April letter. Confusius – Explains China; Buddha – At the root of the Oriental; Mahomet – Splendid action, the counter-drive to Christianity; St. Patrick – Action and leadership. The symbol of Ireland’s action of the world for 1,500 years; St. Francis – The most influential of Saints. The 13th century incarnate; Julius Caesar, Hadrian – Action and Statecraft, and Marcus Aurelius – Power and Philosophy; Plato and Aristotle – Every man since has been either a Platonist or Aristotelian in thought; Alcibiades and Alexander – Great Greeks; Cicero – Greatest all-around Roman. Law – orator – letters; Demosthenes – Invented the demagogue; Soloman and St. Paul – Biblical contrasts; Homer and Moses – Mythic but influential. One on all literature and the other on religion; Leonardo da Vinci and Michaelangelo – Renaissance artists as great as the Greeks; Sir Isaac Newton and Darwin – Science; Charlemagne and Pope Innocent III – Middle Ages; Benjamin Franklin and Washington – America; and Napoleon, who seemed to need no justification. Churchill and Davies finalized the list in May.

Carr enjoyed these articles so much he signed up Churchill for a series in 1937. This was to include a segment on “Great Contemporaries.” These articles were so popular that they were collected, and with some earlier essays, published as a book in 1937. Great Contemporaries profiled towering figures ranging from Franklin Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Lawrence of Arabia, Arthur Lord Balfour, and Leon Trotsky, to Kaiser Wilhelm, Marshall Foch, Charlie Chaplin, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Kings George V and Edward VIII. The book was a sensation.

At the end of 1937, Churchill again approached Davies about some upcoming articles, and more importantly, to suggest a new series of articles on contemporaries. His list of additional contemporaries included Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, King Edward VII, and Robert Baden-Powell, among others. His inclusion of Twain is particularly interesting, as it is noteworthy how the two were personally acquainted. On Churchill’s first lecture tour to the United States in 1900, he and Twain were slated to debate the Boer War at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and it was Twain who introduced Churchill to America, saying : “By his father he is English, by his mother he is American—to my mind the blend which makes the perfect man. We are now on the friendliest terms with England. Mainly through my missionary efforts I suppose; and I am glad. We have always been kin: kin in blood, kin in religion, kin in representative government, kin in ideals, kin in just and lofty purposes; and now we are kin in sin, the harmony is complete, the blend is perfect, like Mr. Churchill himself, whom I now have the honor to present to you.”

Typed letter signed, on his Chartwell letterhead, two pages, Westerham, November 6, 1937, to Davies, mentioning some of the articles already set to appear in late 1937 and 1938, and proposing a new series on great men he had known. “I now send you eight of the twelve articles for the 1938 series and I hope to let you have the other four before the end of the month. The scientific facts quoted in the Inventions article have the authority of Professor Lindemann [Churchill’s prime scientific adviser], and therefore are not likely to be overset. If you think the end a little recondite, let me know and I will have it modified.

“I had a charming letter from Sir Emsley Carr praising very much the Scientific article which appeared last Sunday, and generally expressing great satisfaction with my work. Perhaps therefore your readers will like the future forecast of Invention, in spite of its being a little stiff and startling at the end.” In fact, an article on inventions and technology ran in the November 14 issue of the paper, just eight days after this letter was written.

Churchill continued, “The article on Parliamentary institutions [in which he wrote, “I regard these Parliamentary institutions as precious to us almost beyond compare.”} reproduces parts of as article I wrote four years ago for Pearson’s monthly magazine. These passages can be recast if you desire it, but personally I think it reads extraordinarily well as it is. I hope you will feel that the series is lively and varied, but if you can suggest any improvements I will immediately attend to them.”

“Confidential. I may possibly leave for the United States on December 1, and hope to leave this all behind me satisfactorily settled before then. It would be a great convenience to me if I could hear from you, as I did last year, that you will want another series for 1939. I have to try to parcel out my work as well as possible in the year, and as you know it might in certain circumstances be a help to me to say ‘the contract is already made’.

“The success of Great Contemporaries makes me wonder whether you might not care to have another batch. I have never done Admiral Beatty, General Botha, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Edward Grey, King Edward VII, Sir Austen Chamberlain, or Baden-Powell. These men I knew, and no doubt I could think of others.” He adds in holograph, “But of course we can settle the others later.”

A letter of historic importance, that led to articles linking Churchill with Twain and King Edward VII, epitome of the Edwardian Age, with science and invention, and with Britain’s sacred Parliamentary institutions.