June 23, 2015

Finest Hour 114, Spring 2002

Page 07

QUOTATION OF THE SEASON

“Think of the long, wearying months in which we have been tramping fruitlessly on the bloodstained treadmill in Palestine, because ministers could not make up their minds either to act or to go….Solutions that were possible two years ago have been swept away.”
—WSC, ALBERT HALL, 21 APRIL 1948

Off to a Flying Start

LONDON, JANUARY 6TH—Winston Churchill comfortably beat “William Shakespeare (second) and Lord Nelson (third) in a BBC poll of the greatest Briton of all time. While figures such as John Lennon made it into the top ten, Churchill, Shakespeare and Nelson saw off a challenge led by a contingent of world-renowned scientists. Programmes about the top ten will be broadcast by BBC radio this year.

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The presence of two war heroes in the top three partly reflects the timing, according to the BBC. The September 1 lth terrorist attacks were uppermost in public consciousness. [Notice how quick the BBC is to imply that, of i course, war heroes wouldn’t rate so high in a “normal” situation… —Ed.] Well before the survey closed on December 31st Churchill was so far ahead that he could not be beaten.

Despite Churchill’s undisputed greatness, however, his latest biographer, Lord Jenkins, is uncertain that he deserves the title of greatest-ever Briton: “When I was writing my Gladstone biography, I summarised that he had the edge on Churchill,” said Jenkins, a former home secretary and chancellor. But when I did Churchill I put him slightly ahead of Gladstone. I suppose I tend to think whoever I’m writing about at the time is best.”

Jenkins said he would have plumped for Shakespeare at the top.
—Condensed from an article by Richard Brooks

Statue-itis

LONDON, MARCH 28TH—Not only is there controversy over the brooding Ivor Roberts-Jones statue of Churchill in Parliament Square, particularly since it became a target for celebrants of freedom | of expression (FH 107:5). From the beginning, former Minister of Public Buildings Charles Pannell detested the Nemon statue of Churchill at the entrance to the House of Commons. In documents recently made public, Pannell said that Churchill was too large, towering over Lloyd George and making them look like “man and boy.” Others said the size was in proportion to their significance. The rule that a politician must be dead for ten years before getting a statue in Parliament was waived for the Churchill bronze—which today has a highly polished shoe. MPs entering the Commons like to touch it for luck, which maintains the shine.

Churchill himself didn’t think much of statues. Asked if he wanted one to commemorate his efforts after World War II, he said he would prefer a park in the blitzed East End for children to play in. Hundreds of statues later we’re still waiting for the park.

Ignoratio Elenchi (2)

FINEST HOUR 113, p. 7—The example we cited of “Ignoratio Elenchi” (obfuscating the real issue with a side issue) was directed at David Irving’s book, Churchill’s War, and not at Andrew Roberts, who reviewed the book in FH 112. We regret any confusion.

Easton: Nyet on Companions, Essays

NORWALK, CONN., JANUARY 11TH—We did everything but get down on our knees and sing “Mammy”—even offered to help finance—a six-volume version of the three ultra-rare Companion Volumes to Vol. 5 of the Official Biography, which contain all the significant documents compiled by official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert for Churchill’s life from 1922 to the outbreak of war in 1939. We also asked Easton to consider reprinting the now-scarce Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, published only in a 1975 limited edition—the only collection of Churchill’s periodical articles ever published in volume form. But Easton’s executive vice-president and trade books manager, Michael Hendricks, sent a disappointing reply:

“As you know, the audience for leather-bound books is a limited one due to the high prices. While the works you suggest are clearly worthy of leather-bound treatment, at this point we cannot project sufficient sales to our general audience to warrant going forward with them.”

We will keep knocking on doors until these two jobs get done. If any benefactor would like to sponsor, with a tax-deductible donation (or as a recoupable investment) either or both these two admirable projects, we are looking at costs in the range of $20,000 for either the Companions or the Essays. Please contact the editor.

Freeman to “Journals”

FULLERTON, CALIF., JANUARY 11TH—Following the untimely death of Chris Hanger, Finest Hour is pleased to announce that David Freeman of California State University, Fullerton, will continue Chris’s popular column of article abstracts, “Inside the Journals.” The first installment is in this issue, a major abstract of Prof. Larry Witherell’s “Lord Salisbury’s Watching Committee and the Fall of Neville Chamberlain, May 1940,” English Historical Review, November 2001. Chris left us with a small backlog, which will appear in due course under his own byline.

Stamps on the Web

The “WSCstamps” list has been up for about six months now and is off to a good start. The group has fifteen members from the United States, Canada, Sweden, and Denmark. If you’re even slightly interested in Churchill philately, visit their homepage. Most recently added is a database link to the page, which lists all new Churchill stamps issues since 1998 (forty-one entries): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WSCstamps.

Archives on the Web

CAMBRIDGE, NOVEMBER—The Churchill Archives Centre has made a pilot version of the electronic catalogue of the Churchill Papers is now available online at: http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/churchill_papers/ The Churchill Papers, comprising original documents sent, received or composed by Winston S. Churchill during the course of his long and active life, contain everything from his childhood letters and school reports to his final writings. They include his personal correspondence with friends and family, and his official exchanges with kings, presidents, politicians and military leaders. Some of the most memorable phrases of the twentieth century are preserved in his drafts and speaking notes for the famous war speeches. The Churchill Papers, purchased for the nation in 1995 with Heritage Lottery funds and a grant from the John Paul Getty Foundation, include an estimated one million documents.

Unable to locate Churchill’s 1956 correspondence with Eisenhower (see review of Eisenhower and Churchill this issue), we queried Churchill Archivist Natalie Adams about whether it was possible actually to read documents on the web. “The catalogue is a finding aid to the files which are held,” she explained, “so it is not possible to access images of the documents online. The catalogue’s main function is to enable researchers to plan their research far better than they were able to previously, and to gauge the amount of relevant material.” Thus the website is not a complete resource in itself, but an important and vital tool which will save reserchers many hours when they actually set out on their research.

Some direct access is possible, Ms. Adams continues: “Visitors to our site, http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/ can access some images of actual documents by viewing online educational resources, the “Churchill Era” (http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/churchill_era) and “Churchill: the Evidence” (http://www.churchill.nls.ac.uk/), or by visiting the website’s image gallery area (http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/gallery/). Most of the Churchill papers have been described at file level so the catalogue descriptions cover a whole file of papers (the precise extent of the file is indicated in the ‘physical’ field at the bottom of the descriptive record). This is the case, for example, for all the references retrieved by a search for Eisenhower between 1955 and 1956.

“The catalogue does, however, contain descriptions of about 64,600 individual documents in key classes where research interest is likely to be extremely high. These sections of the catalogue are rich in detail. A search for ‘Eisenhower’ (without a date range of 1955-1956) retrieves many references to individual documents (mostly contained in Churchill’s wartime Prime Ministerial material, references beginning ‘CHAR 20’).

“One of these entries is a description of Eisenhower’s report as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force to the Combined Chiefs of Staff on the operations in Europe of the Allied Expeditionary Force, 8 June 1944 to 8 May 1945—a key document for Second Word War historians (reference CHAR 20/244/2).

“The cataloguers have taken account of documents which have been published by Martin Gilbert in the Official Biography and its Companion Volume or speeches which were published by Rhodes James in Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches” Ms. Adams continues, “so the catalogue can also be used as ‘way-in’ to published documents. For example, references in CHAR 9 and CHUR 5 (Churchill’s speech notes) include references to the relevant pages of Rhodes James.”

Rafal Heydel-Mankoo of Ottawa, Ontario is one satisfied member who has used the new website: “Researching Churchill’s dealings with the Polish Government-in-Exile, I was able to find eighty documents dealing with, or mentioning, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk in less than thirty seconds. Each document is accompanied by a descriptive paragraph and a citation/reference.

“This is a very encouraging start and will undoubtedly be of profound assistance to researchers outside England. The search engine is user-friendly and, most importantly, fast. Too often pilot projects utilizing search mechanisms are slow and awkward. This does not appear to be the case for the Churchill Papers catalogue.”

On a parallel project, the Churchill Papers are being microfilmed and published by the Gale Group, Inc. (For detailed information visit their website http://www.galegroup.com/ and search for “Churchill.”) Gale’s first unit is shortly to be published on microfilm and should mean that the papers become a great deal more accessible to those who are not able to consult the originals at the Archives Centre.

The cataloguing of the Churchill Papers has been going on now for over six years. The catalogue now contains over 70,000 entries and the pilot Internet version allows you to search for catalogue descriptions using “free text,” “keyword” and “date range” fields. Searching methods will be improved and refined over the forthcoming months but the Centre is interested in Comments and suggestions.

Comments are most welcome by Natalie Adams, Archivist/Information Services Manager, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge CB3 ODS, England, email Natalie. [email protected], telephone (01223) 336222, fax (01223) 336135.