Events

Conference Philadelphia
26 February 2026

The International Churchill Society’s forty-third conference

The International Churchill Society’s forty-third conference will be held from October 15 to 17, 2026. This year, we recognize the 250th Anniversary of America and commemora...

About this event 2026 International Churchill Conference

Events

Clementine Churchill (neé Hozier)

11 December 2017

Speaking for Herself

Chartwell, Sir Winston Churchill’s home in Kent, has opened a new exhibition Clementine Churchill: Speaking for Herself, focusing on the extraordinary life of Churchill’s belo...

ChartwellClementine Churchill (neé Hozier)FamilyPersonal & Family
The young Winston and Clementine Churchill 29 November 2017

The Engagement

Churchill proposed marriage to three women in his twenties, all of whom said ‘no’ (although all of them remained his friends). He met Clementine Ogilvy Hozier, ten years his junior, at a party, the Crewe House ball, in 1904 but the meeting wasn’t a success. Unusually for him, Churchill was tongue-tied and they hardly spoke. When they met again, however, at a dinner party in 1908 (Clementine had been invited at the last minute, to fill a gap at her great-aunt’s table), they clearly got on rather better. Impressed by her beauty, her intelligence and her ability to talk politics (she was an earnest Liberal and supporter of greater rights for women, Churchill began an ardent courtship. They became engaged only a few months later, on Tuesday 11 August, when Churchill proposed to her while they were both staying at Blenheim Palace (Churchill had encouraged the Duke of Marlborough to invite her to a small house party). After failing to appear in the morning, and almost blowing his chance, Winston took Clementine for a walk in the afternoon to the Rose Garden and, sheltering from a shower in the Temple of Diana, he asked her to marry him. She agreed. Less than a month after their engagement was announced, they were married at St Margaret’s Church in Westminster, London (the parish church of the House of Commons), on 12 September 1908, with Lord Hugh Cecil as best man and David Lloyd George as one of the witnesses. So began one of the most enduring marriages in politics. The bond forged in 1908 was to remain unbroken until Churchill died in 1965 and was to be the firm foundation of a life of many ups and downs. Here you can read the .

Blenheim PalaceClementine Churchill (neé Hozier)Family
19 April 2017

The Woman He Loved: How Clementine and Winston Churchill Came to Be Married

Finest Hour 175, Winter 2017 Page 17 By Sonia Purnell Sonia Purnell is the author of First Lady: The Life and Wars of Clementine Churchill (2015). All quotations in this […]...

Clementine Churchill (neé Hozier)FamilyMarriagePersonal & Family
31 March 2017

‘To-day’s wedding’, Daily Graphic, 12 September 1908

copyright: Churchill Archives Centre...

Clementine Churchill (neé Hozier)EdwardianLoveMarriageRelationshipsWinston S Churchill
31 March 2017

‘Je t’aime passionement – I feel less shy in French’: Clementine’s letter to Churchill after their engagement at Blenheim Palace, August 1908

copyright: Reproduced from the Baroness Spencer Churchill Papers with the permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London, on behalf of the Master, Fellows and Scholars of Churchill C...

Blenheim PalaceClementine Churchill (neé Hozier)EdwardianLoveMarriageRelationshipsWriting
31 March 2017

The bride, in the Daily Graphic, 12 September 1908

copyright: Churchill Archives Centre...

Clementine Churchill (neé Hozier)EdwardianLoveMarriageRelationshipsWinston S Churchill
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