August 10, 2021

On Sunday 10 February 1901, Winston Churchill returned from a lecture tour of Britain, the United States and Canada. His heroic escape from the Boer POW camp in South Africa in 1899 had propelled him to worldwide fame. He wrote London to Ladysmith via Pretoria about his exploits and he was in high demand on the lecture circuit.
Upon his return to London, he gave his maiden speech in the House of Commons.

David Lloyd George made an inflammatory speech just before him. Churchill later wrote in My Early Life that, as Lloyd George continued, he felt ‘a sense of alarm and even despair … Then Mr Thomas Gibson-Bowles whispered to me, “You might say instead of making his violent speech without moving his moderate amendment, he had better have moved his moderate amendment without making his violent speech”.’ The advice came just in time and the speech was a success.