June 3, 2019

Andrew Roberts Delivers Annual Kemper Lecture

America’s National Churchill Museum celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in style last month with its annual Fellows Weekend. Located on the campus of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the museum commemorates the life of Sir Winston Churchill on the site of where he made his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946.

The idea of establishing a permanent memorial to Winston Churchill in the United States began in 1961 when Westminster President Dr. R. L. “Larry” Davidson and members of the St. Louis Branch of the English-Speaking Union hatched a bold plan to move the war-damaged church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury from London to Fulton. After nearly five years of construction, The Times of London called the effort “perhaps the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the history of architecture.”

On 7 May 1969, the church was re-hallowed by the Right Rev. Anthony Tremlett, the Bishop of Dover. Former United States Ambassador to Britain Averell Harriman and the Earl Mountbatten of Burma gave the principal addresses. Special guests at the dedication included Churchill’s youngest daughter Mary Soames and her eldest son Nicholas, now Sir Nicholas Soames MP.

The central feature of the museum’s annual Fellows Weekend is the Enid and R. Crosby Kemper Lecture. This year it was delivered by Andrew Roberts, author of the best-selling new biography Churchill: Walking with Destiny. To watch the complete video, please CLICK HERE.