No More Champagne

by David Lough

  17. 22 Aug 1907 LyRC ltr to WSC, 2C1:670–1.

  18. 24 Sep 1907 JSC ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/66/30.

  19. 27 Sep 1907 JSC ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/66/32. Scrivier had distinguished himself briefly in racing circles when he bought the filly Sceptre, which won four classic races before he sold her for £25,000. See CHAR 1/64/4–5.

  20. 30 Sep 1907 JSC letter to WSC, CHAR 1/66/34.

  21. 25 Oct 1907 JSC letter to WSC, CHAR 1/66/41.

  22. 6 Nov 1907 WSC letter to LyRC, 2C2: 692–4.

  23. 17 Nov 1907 WSC ltr to JSC, 2C2:699–700.

  24. 17 Dec 1907 East Africa Protecorate account, CHAR 1/85/7. Churchill’s share came to £38; the remainder was allocated to the governor’s ‘travelling account’.

  25. 22 Apr 1908 British East African Protectorate ltr to EHM, CHAR 1/85/6; Elgin Papers, cited 2C2:797.

  26. 14 Nov 1908 JSC ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/66/48.

  27. 13 Jan 1908 WSC ltr to JSC, CHAR 28/152/214.

  28. 21 Dec 1908 E. Manisty account as Receiver to Norwich Union, CHAR 28/124/1.

  29. 13 Feb, 6 Apr 1908 NM ltrs to WSC, CHAR 1/80/14, 38.

  30. 18 Jul 1908 Nelke Phillips Lord Randolph Churchill will trust schedule, CHAR 1/79/1. Bank rate had fallen to 3 per cent in March and 2½ per cent in May 1908.

  31. M. Soames, Clementine Churchill, p. 31.

  32. 12 Aug 1908 WSC ltr (unsent) to Hozier, 2C2:801.

  33. In the absence of the bank statements that Churchill did not keep regularly until 1908, the author estimates that Churchill’s income from 1900–8 totalled approximately £13,000 (from his father’s biography, limited journalism, investment dividends and ministerial salary). His private expenditure and tax payments (documented by his secretary and tax adviser) over the period were of a similar order. In mid-1901, Churchill’s investment balance with Sir Ernest Cassel was £6,000, but between 1901–5 he used the account to fund most of his living expenses. His net balance with Cassel was low by early 1906 when he topped it up by transferring to Sir Ernest £6,000 of his advance for Lord Randolph Churchill. Through other advisers, Churchill also bought shares worth £1,000–2,000 between 1901–6. He deposited most of them at Cox & Co. to act as security for his overdraft and loan of £1,000 from the bank.

  34. M. Soames, Clementine Churchill, p. 71.

  35. 17, 18 Aug 1908 NM ltrs to WSC, CHAR 1/80/47, 51.

  36. 19 Aug 1908 WSC ltr to NM, CHAR 1/80/52.

  37. 20 Aug 1908 NM ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/80/56.

  38. 2 Sep 1908 NM ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/80/61; NM account 1/81/2.

  39. 18 May 1909 NM summary, CHAR 1/89/38. Both policies were insured through Phoenix Assurance Company, the main policy costing £138 a year for five years, followed by £261 a year; the ‘reverse annuity’ policy cost £43 a year.

  40. 29 Oct 1908 NM ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/81/6.

  41. 12 Sep 1908 W. Blunt, My Diaries, p. 618.

  42. Mackenzie N, & J, eds The Diaries of Beatrice Webb, 3:100.

  43. Dec 1908 Catchpole & Williams account, CHAR 1/92/6. The ring cost £1.3s.6d. Churchill paid the account in 1911.

  7. The HMS Enchantress Years, 1909–14

  1. 14 Jan 1909 T. Lumley ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/89/1. The letter gave the annual income from the Garron Tower estate as at least £3,650 a year.

  2. 1914 WSC schedule, CHAR 1/86/2; Randolph Payne & Sons. Ltd. accounts 1/86/3 et seq; in July 1914 the outstanding balance was £530 per 1/115/128.

  3. J. Grunebaum & Sons account, CHAR 1/92/74.

  4. 20 Sep 1908 WSC ltr to LyRC, 2C2:819–20.

  5. 9 Mar 1909 T. Lumley ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/89/9.

  6. 9 Mar 1909 Maple & Co. survey, CHAR 1/89/11.

  7. 27 Apr 1909 CSC ltr to WSC, SFT:21. The establishment included a cook, two maids and a manservant.

  8. Hodder & Stoughton Papers, CLC/B119/MS16318/001, London Metropolitan Archives; R. Cohen, Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill. 4,000 copies were printed: Churchill presented 350; 3,140 were sold in Britain; and 465 were sent to the US. Later in 1909 Hodder & Stoughton paid an advance of £100 for The People’s Rights Defended, a collection of Churchill’s speeches made in Lancashire. 30,000 copies sold at 1s. each alongside newspapers such as the Yorkshire Observer and Liverpool Daily Post.

  9. Dec 1911 Carrington account, CHAR 1/106/14.

  10. Jan 1909 N. Rothschild ltr to Rothschild Paris, cited D. Kynaston, The City of London 2:494.

  11. 30 Jul 1909 D. Lloyd George speech, 2:325.

  12. 4 May 1909 WSC speech Budget debate, House of Commons, printed in Liberalism and the Social Problem, pp. 290–1.

  13. 22 Nov 1909 J. Baring, Lord Revelstoke speech to House of Lords, cited D. Kynaston, The City of London 2:498.

  14. Cox & Co. statement, CHAR 1/94. Churchill was borrowing £1,000 through a twelve-month loan and £1,162 on overdraft. He had a £670 deposit balance on his ‘Special Account’ (for constituency expenses) and a £48 deposit on his ‘C’ Account.

  15. 20 Dec 1909 et seq Cox & Co. passbook, CHAR 2/61/19–20.

  16. 1 Apr 1911, ibid.

  17. 16 Jan 1911 R. Davies ltr to R. Walden, CHAR 1/87/17–9.

  18. 19 Dec 1910 WSC ltr to CSC, SFT:41–2.

  19. 14 Oct 1910 W. Blunt, My Diaries, p. 735.

  20. 19, 20 Dec 1910 WSC ltr to CSC, SFT:41–2.

  21. 30 Apr, 5 May 1910 HM Inland Revenue ltr to EHM, CHAR 1/96/12, 13; A. Atkinson, Top Incomes in the United Kingdom over the 20th Century (University of Oxford Discussion Papers, Economic and Social History 43, Jan 2002), p. 6. The number of super-tax payers in 1911–12, the tax’s third year of operation, was 11,554.

  22. 1910 Cox & Co. statements, CHAR 1/94. In 1910 Churchill spent £6,145 from his main bank account, including £1,050 sent to his election agent (to whom he sent another cheque for £500 from his Special Account); he also transferred £980 to Clementine for household spending.

  23. Feb, Mar, Nov 1911 Maple & Co., Bretell, Muntzer & Son, J. P. Lowter & Co., Randolph Payne & Sons and Grunebaum & Sons accounts, CHAR 1/101/15, 18, 53.

  24. 20 Mar 1911 Cox & Co. ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/100/3.

  25. 11 Aug 1911 S. F. Edge account, CHAR 1/101/49, 49, 54. The car was bought from S. F. Edge Ltd of New Burlington Street at a 10 per cent discount off the list price of £620; it cost over £600 after Churchill added extras.

  26. 19 Jun 1912 Punch, p. 473, cited G. Searle, Corruption in British Politics 1895–1930.

  27. 16 Dec 1911, 12 Jan 1912 Cox & Co. passbook, CHAR 2/61/19–20.

  28. 14 Sep 1912 WSC ltr to A. Murray, CHAR 2/61/13. For a summary of the Marconi scandal, see note 33 below.

  29. 21, 25 Sep WSC corresp with J. Caird, CHAR 2/61/18, 21–3.

  30. 1 Nov 1912 P. Illingworth ltr to WSC, CHAR 2/61/24.

  31. June 1915 Cox & Co. statement, CHAR 1/121/11.

  32. 5 Aug 1916 Cox & Co statement, CHAR 1/126/11–2.

  33. Two years earlier the British government had begun supposedly secret negotiations to build eighteen long-distance wireless stations at points around the empire with Britain’s Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. Marconi’s managing director Godfrey Isaacs was the brother of Sir Rufus Isaacs, the government’s senior legal official and a personal friend of David Lloyd George. By the time a successful outcome to the negotiations was announced on 7 March 1912, British Marconi’s share price had doubled. A month later, on 19 April, London dealings were to begin in new shares issued by a separate but associated American Marconi Company, of which Geoffrey Isaacs was also a director. Isaacs had travelled to New York before the issue with a well-known London trader, Percy Heybourn, who obtained a supply of the new shares - he paid $1¼ each for most of these. Just before dealings began, American Marconi signed an attractive contract with Western Union and Canada’s Great Northwestern Telegraph. Aware of these contracts, Isaacs’ brother Sir Rufus bought 10,000 new American Marconi shares from Geoffrey and sold on 1,000 each of these to Lloyd George (chancellor of the exchequer) and to the the Master of Elibank (the government’
s chief whip). The shares started trading shortly afterwards at $3¼ each. Lloyd George sold and then bought back most of his batch of shares, finishing with a small loss. It was another two months before a journalist voiced suspicions of insider trading. W. R. Lawson wrote in The Outlook: ‘The Marconi Company has from its birth been a child of darkness. Its finance has been of a most chequered and erratic sort. Its relations with certain Ministers have not always been purely official or political’. Forced to make a parliamentary statement, Sir Rufus denied any dealings in the shares of ‘that company’, meaning the British company, without disclosing his dealings in the American company. When they became aware at the end of 1912 that further revelations were imminent, Sir Rufus and Lloyd George offered their resignations to Prime Minister Asquith, who refused to accept them. Leo Maxse, the proprietor of the right-wing National Review, drew a parliamentary investigatory committee’s attention to the fact that neither Isaacs nor Lloyd George had denied owning American Marconi shares. When Paris’s Le Matin reported his evidence, but inaccurately, Sir Rufus took the chance to sue for libel. See G. Searle, Corruption in British Politics 1895–1930, D. Kynaston, The City of London 2:552–5.

  34. May, Jun 1913 WSC corresp with Lord Northcliffe, Northcliffe Papers, M/s Add 62156/40–53, BL.

  35. 8 Jan 1913 D. Lloyd George ltr to CSC, CSCT 3/13/10, Spencer-Churchill Papers, CAC.

  36. G. Cornwallis-West, Edwardian Hey-Days, pp. 264–5.

  37. 13 Apr 1911 WSC ltr to G. Cornwallis-West, CHUR 2/519/456–7.

  38. 16 Sep 1911 LyRC ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/392/4.

  39. 17 Feb 1912 JSC ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/108/2.

  40. 29 Nov 1913 WSC ltr to LyRC, CHAR 28/28/11.

  41. 3 Dec 1913 LyRC ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/392/17.

  42. 4 Apr 1914 LyRC ltr to G. Cornwallis-West, CHAR 28/39/19.

  43. Mar 1914–Feb 1915 NM account 1914–5, CHAR 28/124/1; 1913 LyRC note, 28/79/136.

  44. 10, 13 Feb 1914 T. Lumley corresp with WSC, CHAR 1/114/33–4, 35.

  45. 14 Feb 1914 JSC letter to LyRC, CHAR 28/33/5.

  46. 23 Apr 1914 WSC letter to CSC, SFT:85. The Churchills’ Easter holiday in Madrid cost £51 for travel and £130 for their hotel, per April 1914 Cox & Co. statement, CHAR 1/111.

  47. 27 Apr 1914 WSC ltr to CSC, SFT:86. During this period of financial strain, her daughter Mary suggests, Clementine took aunt Cornelia’s wedding present, an ‘exquisite’ diamond necklace, to pawn at the jeweller’s to raise money to pay household bills. According to the story, Churchill rushed out to try to reclaim it from the jeweller, but it was already too late. Ibid., p. 109.

  48. 1 May 1914 R Cox ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/114/53.

  49. 1 Jun 1914 WSC ltr to CSC, SFT:90.

  50. 18 Jun 1914 High Court Judgement: Churchill v. Churchill, Justice Sargent, CHAR 28/79/18.

  51. 9 Jul 1914 Cox & Co. ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/114/97. On commencement of his £7,000 loan, Churchill’s £3,000 promissory note to Cox & Co. was cancelled; his Special Account was closed; and its balance was transferred to his main account, which then held £1,512.

  52. 29 Sep 1914 Randolph Payne & Sons account, CHAR 1/115/128.

  8. The Legacy of War, 1914–18

  1. 6 Jul 1914 N. Rothschild ltr to Rothschild Paris, cited D. Kynaston The City of London 2:594.

  2. 31 Jul 1914 WSC ltr to CSC, 2:714–5. The account for use of HMS Enchantress was £65.

  3. 4 Aug 1914 WSC cable to British fleet, 2C3:1999.

  4. D. Kynaston, The City of London 3:4.

  5. 2, 9 Sep 1914 EHM ltrs to Phoenix Assurance Co., CHAR 28/142/23, 35.

  6. 31 May, 19, 24 Jun 1915 F. Smith, Randolph Payne & Sons accounts, CHAR 1/122/21–2; 1/122/55, 58. Churchill ordered 1,600 cigars during the first six months of war.

  7. 29 Mar 1915 A. P. Watt Archives 11036, folder 37.18 NYPL; R. Cohen, Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill A1.5, p.26. Churchill conceded 25 per cent of his fee to Longmans, Green & Co. which pointed out that it still owned the copyright. Sales of 6,449 copies over the next ten years failed to cover Churchill’s advance.

  8. 9 Jun 1915 WSC ltr to A. Sinclair, cited Winston & Archie, ed. I. Hunter, pp. 12–14.

  9. 18 Jun, 17 Jul 1915 Cox & Co. ltr, E. Cassel account, WSC ltr to CSC, CHAR 1/121/11, 21, 42, SFT:111. Sir Ernest looked after two American bond holdings for Churchill; net of margin loans, their value to him was no more than £1,500. Churchill secured his bank overdraft through another £1,000-worth of shares, mainly in the Witbank Colliery; he overlooked another £1,000-worth of shares that he still owned in Pretoria Cement.

  10. 19 Jun 1915 WSC ltr to JSC, 3C2:1041–3.

  11. EHM, A Number of People, p. 248. Churchill spent £23 in August and September. D. Coombs with M. Churchill, Sir Winston Churchill: Life through his Paintings, p. 12.

  12. 17 Jul 1915 WSC ltr to R. Cox, CHAR 1/142/71. Churchill accepted the quote of £147 from the Phoenix Assurance Society, on condition that it included ‘risk from the fire of the enemy, so long as I do not serve as a soldier or take an active part in the hostilities’.

  13. 17 Jul 1915 WSC ltr to CSC, SFT:111.

  14. 20 July 1915 EHM ltr to R. Cox, CHAR 1/142/80.

  15. 28 Sep 1915 WSC ltr to A. Sinclair, 4C:8–9.

  16. 12 Oct, 22 Nov 1915 Cox & Co. promissory note, WSC Lloyds Bank statement, CHAR 1/120/64, 28/142/118; 1/123.

  17. 19 Nov 1915 WSC letter to JSC, WSC LlBk statement, 3C2:1279–80, CHAR 1/123. Sir Ernest Cassell sent Churchill £125 a month for the next eight months, even after Churchill’s net balance with him had been exhausted.

  18. 11 Dec 1915 WSC ltr to CSC, SFT:124.

  19. 21, 23 Nov 1915 WSC ltrs to CSC, SFT:115, 116–7.

  20. Edward Hakewill Smith (later a Second World War general), who recounted the story to Churchill’s official biographer – see Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill III 1914–1916, p. 632.

  21. 11 March 1916, The Spectator.

  22. May 1916 Cox & Co. statement, CHAR 1/123.

  23. 11 Jul 1916 H. Greenhaugh Smith, ltr to WSC, CHAR 8/30/4.

  24. 15 Jul 1916 WSC ltr to JSC, CHAR 28/152/221, John Churchill Papers, CAC.

  25. 16 Feb 1916 CSC ltr to WSC, SFT:211.

  26. 15 Sep 1916 WSC ltr to A. Sinclair, cited Winston & Archie, ed. I. Hunter, p. 40.

  27. 17 Oct 1916 Lumley & Lumley ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/126/21; 1 Dec 1916 NM ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/122/25; 8 Feb 1917 Cox & Co. statement, CHAR 1/123; loan schedule CHAR 1/130/41.

  28. 11 Aug 1916 Cox & Co. ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/121/22. In 1917 Churchill had to pay £77 super-tax on his 1914–15 income of £4,778 (£4,500 salary as First Lord of the Admiralty, £282 dividend income). During the war the super-tax threshold had been reduced to £2,500 and the starting rate of tax increased to 9d. in the £. Churchill was allowed to deduct £349 of interest from his income, leaving £1,978 of qualifying income for super-tax.

  29. 23 Mar, 15 Apr 1917 E. Wheater ltrs to WSC, CHAR 1/128/15, 17, 18; Cox & Co. schedule, 1/130/41. Churchill acquired 400 Barnsley Smokeless Fuel debentures, 400 British Coalite debentures plus extra share options and 375 Low Temperature Combustion shares. There is no evidence any of them produced a return.

  30. 20 Jul 1917 Cox & Co. ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/130/22.

  31. 5 Jan 1918 Cox & Co. schedule, CHAR 128/143/2; 14 Jan 1918 NM ltr to WSC, 1/130/1; Jan, Feb 1918 Cox & Co. corresp with WSC, 1/130/4, 6, 15.

  32. 27 Feb 1918 Godstone District War Agricultural Committee report, CHAR 1/131/16. Churchill claimed to have tried three German prisoners, but found their work poor.

  33. 25 Apr 1918 G. Partridge receipt, CHAR 1/131/55; June 1918 CSC note to EHM, 1/131/69.

  34. 4 Apr 1918 WSC ltr to WHB, CHAR 1/130/28; Cox & Co. schedule, 1/130/41.

  35. 9 Apr 1918 WHB ltr to WSC, CHAR 28/143/10; 10 Apr 1918 EHM ltr to WHB 28/143/12.

  36. Jun 1918 WSC schedule, CHAR 1/130/43.

  37. 13, 15 Jul 1918 WSC corresp with WHB, CHAR 28/143/53, 55.

  38. 24 Sep 1918 WHB schedule, CHAR 28/143/77.

/>   39. 27 Sep 1918 EHM ltr to R. Cox, CHAR 28/143/79.

  9. A Timely Train Crash, 1918–21

  1. Loelia, duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour, p. 94.

  2. 9 Jan 1919 D. Lloyd George ltr to WSC, 4C:450.

  3. 27 Mar 1919 WHB schedule, WSC shareholdings at Cox & Co., CHAR 28/143/124. Churchill’s share portfolio provided the security of c.50 per cent of his bank borrowings; the rest came from a mixture of inheritance prospects and life insurance policies.

  4. 1923 LlBk statement, WSC receipts 1919–21, CHAR 1/130/118. In addition to his ministerial salary, Churchill earned £2,600 from journalism during 1919: £500 from the Sunday Pictorial (15 Jan), £500 from Associated Newspapers (7 Jul) and £1,600 from E. Hulton Co., owners of the Daily Sketch and Evening Standard (25 Nov, 24 Dec).

  5. 27 Mar 1919 WHB note of mtg with WSC, CHAR 28/143/123. ‘Marking the yellow strip’ was an internal Cox & Co. procedure for formal authorization of banking facilities such as an overdraft.

  6. 24 Mar 1919 WSC ltr to I. Hamilton, CHAR 1/133/7.

  7. 13 Apr 1919 Lady Hamilton Diary, Hamilton Papers, cited C. Lee, Jean, Lady Hamilton, p. 206.

  8. 21 May 1919 I. Hamilton ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/133/19.

  9. 1923 LlBk statement, WSC receipts 1919–21, CHAR 1/130/118.

  10. 15 Nov 1923 I. Hamilton ltr to Wood & Walford, Hamilton Papers.

  11. 30 Jul 1919 NM ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/132/25. The trustees had paid capital costs of £6,978; the Churchills (technically Clementine as leaseholder) kept the profit of £3,022.

  12. 15 Aug 1919 Lycett, Jepson & Co. ltr to NM, CHAR 1/134/30–31.

  13. 19 Sep 1919 NM draft ltr to WSC, CHAR 1/134/40–43.

  14. 10, 18, 21 Oct 1919 WSC corresp with Foster, NM, CHAR 1/134/50, 15, 61.

  15. 7 Oct 1919 WSC schedule, CHAR 1/134/81. The largest rise in value had come from shares in Pretoria Cement (up from £2,125 on 1 Jul 1918 to £4,500 on 7 Oct 1919).

  16. 15 Oct 1919 WHB schedules, ltrs to WSC, CHAR 28/143/55, 129–31, 139, 144. Churchill raised £2,100 by halving his holding of Pretoria Cement shares, but asked Bailey to reinvest £500 while sending Cox & Co. £1,600 to reduce his overdraft.

  17. 25 Oct 1919 WHB ltr to WSC, CHAR 28/143/133. The payment of £5,497 for Lullenden was made up by £3,022 of profit on the property sale, approximately £2,000 for extra ‘commodities’ and an unexplained further component.