Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born 30 November 1874 at Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough. His father, second son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, inherited neither title nor property. Winston grew up with social status, privilege, and a keen sense of heritage, but little money. In the custom of the day, he was raised by a nanny and sent to boarding schools. It was a lonely and hard life for a sensitive and imaginative child.
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill's ancestors were both British and American. Winston's father was the British Lord Randolph Churchill, the youngest son of John, the 7th Duke of Marlborough. Lord Randolph's ancestor John Churchill made history by winning many successful military campaigns in Europe for Queen Anne almost 200 years earlier.
His mother was the American Jennie Jerome. The Jeromes fought for the independence of the American colonies in George Washington's armies.
Winston's father and mother were both socially active and politically prominent. Their affairs - social and intimate - occupied them constantly. As with many of their social class and standing, child rearing and education were left to others.
Lord Randolph Churchill's political career was meteoric. In 1886, at age thirty-seven, he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, the youngest to hold the office in over a hundred years. In less than six months, he resigned from the Cabinet over a matter of principle - his insistence on reducing defense spending. He never held high office again. "One could not grow up in my father's house... without understanding that there had been a great political disaster," said Winston.
Winston revered his father as a great statesman. The feelings of respect and affection were not reciprocated. Lord Randolph frequently expressed harsh disappointment in Winston.
Winston's mother, American heiress Jennie Jerome, was by universal agreement a great beauty. She threw herself completely into the English upper-class social whirl. While fond of her children, her social role with her husband always came first - sometimes to the point of not permitting Winston to come home for holidays or going on extensive travels without him.
Winston adored her - "She shone for me like the evening star. I loved her dearly - but at a distance."
Lady Randolph hired Mrs. Elizabeth Everest as a nanny to care for Winston. Winston fondly called Mrs. Everest "Woomany." Later Winston Churchill would say that "My nurse was my confidante. Mrs. Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants. It was to her that I poured out all my many troubles..."
"Mrs. Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants."
Winston formed his strongest childhood emotional attachment to his nanny, Mrs. Elizabeth Everest, and to her he "poured out my many troubles." She was his constant companion in childhood and they wrote to each other regularly while he was at school.
Winston was deeply distressed when she left the household, even though he was then a young man, a budding Army officer, and the household had no further need for a nanny.
In 1895, within six months, first Winston's father, then Mrs. Everest, died. Winston now faced the world without his idolized father and without his primary emotional support and mother figure.
Winston's father had been in declining health and increasing dementia for several years. But, his erratic behavior and his dissatisfaction with Winston remained robust. Winston was not told the diagnosis - thought to be syphilis - and for many years believed that he too would die young. "Is it forty and finished?" he pondered.
Even in death, Winston's father remained a force to be reckoned with; "All my dreams of comradeship with him, of entering Parliament at his side and in his support, were ended. There remained for me only to pursue his aims and vindicate his memory."
When Winston learned that Mrs. Everest was gravely ill he rushed to her beside. He was the only member of his family to attend to her, and upon her death provided the tombstone for her grave. "She had been my dearest and most intimate friend during the whole twenty years I had lived." "I shall never know such a friend again."
"I was no more consulted about leaving home than I had been about coming into the world."
Boarding school was the routine for boys of Winston's class, and he was packed off in 1881 at age seven. He hated every minute of it.
His first school, St. George's, was brutal - "Flogging with the birch... was a great feature in its curriculum." Of school Winston would write, "It appears that I was to go away from home for many weeks at a stretch in order to do lessons under masters... After all I was only seven, and I had been so happy in my nursery with all my toys. I had such wonderful toys: a real steam engine, a magic lantern, and a collection of soldiers already nearly a thousand strong. Now it was to be all lessons..." He lasted less than a year when he withdrew for health reason.
He entered his second school in 1882, Brighton, which was more benign and he finished his elementary education there. Winston enrolled at Harrow in 1888 with very poor entrance exam scores, effectively placing him at the bottom of his class. This was a humiliating position for a proud boy, and an irritation to his father.
Winston possessed a keen mind, but also a spirit not suited to school regiment. However, he excelled in subjects that appealed to him - English and History. He also showed athletic ability by winning the Public Schools' fencing championship. The school newspaper reported, "His success was chiefly due to his quick and dashing attack, which quite took his opponents by surprise."
Winston's school days were deeply frustrating. "...I had hardly ever been asked to learn anything which seemed of the slightest use or interest, or allowed to play any game which was amusing. In retrospect those years form not only the least agreeable, but also the only barren and unhappy period of my life."
"For years I thought my father, with his experience and flair, had discerned in me the qualities of military genius. But I was told later that he had only come to the conclusion that I was not clever enough to go to the Bar."
For young gentlemen of Winston's social class only certain professions were considered suitable. The university was the gatekeeper to all but the military, and Winston's poor performance at school closed the university's doors to him.
Winston's lack of attention to studies nearly ended his military career before it began. He took three attempts to pass the entrance exams for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, scoring just enough points to be admitted to the Cavalry, but not the Infantry.
Lord Randolph had hoped for at least an infantry career for his son, and was deeply disappointed.
The Cavalry became a source of both joy and tension for Winston. Riding became a passion and he proved exceptionally good at it. However, since the British Officer had to pay for his own uniforms and horses, Cavalry service taxed his family's financial resources.
But, at Sandhurst Winston finally hit his stride, applying himself to subjects that interested him and earning good marks. Sandhurst's eighteen months of practical studies concluded Winston's formal education, and he graduated 20th out of 130.
“Leave the past to history especially as I propose to write that history myself.”
