No More Champagne

by David Lough

  Churchill then had to put aside the Cornwallis-West’s difficulties and turn to another branch of the family: his Londonderry cousins in Ireland. His great-grandmother Frances Vane, marchioness of Londonderry, had died forty-two years ago, leaving her money and land in Co. Antrim to her younger children, because her eldest son was to inherit the main Londonderry estate. To prevent her Garron Tower estate from being broken up, the marchioness’s will established a strict order of precedence among her inheritors: first, her second son Lord Herbert Vane-Tempest and his heirs; failing whom, her third son Lord Henry Vane-Tempest; failing whom Lord Randolph Churchill, the son of her daughter Frances and the 7th duke of Marlborough. When Lord Herbert inherited the Garron Tower estate in 1864, its land, loans and investments had been valued at £72,874, even without one of its most attractive components, the marchioness’s jewellery.11

  The chances of Lord Randolph’s heirs ever succeeding must at first have seemed remote, but now a letter had arrived from the Londonderry family’s solicitors announcing that Churchill was the next in line: Lord Henry had just died childless in 1906, while Lord Herbert remained unmarried at the age of forty-four.

  Worried at the increasing risk that the estate would eventually pass to the English branch of the family, the Londonderrys wished to buy their mother’s jewellery out of the estate and now required Churchill’s formal approval as the next in line. Churchill’s solicitor suggested that the jewels should be independently valued (the Londonderrys’ adviser had suggested a price of £4,420) and that Churchill should reserve the right to buy back the jewels later, a move unsurprisingly resisted by the Londonderrys, as it would have defeated the whole object of the exercise.12

  Family harmony was tested again in the autumn when the duke of Marlborough asked for Churchill’s help in bringing his six-year marriage to an end. Personally sympathetic towards Consuelo Vanderbilt (who had not only produced the necessary heir but also used a considerable slice of the Vanderbilt fortune to help modernize Blenheim), Churchill was exasperated by his cousin’s obstinacy, which defied his attempts to broker an amicable separation.

  Churchill’s family relations survived this test, but there was a growing political estrangement. The Liberal government of which Churchill was a member had begun to put into practice its philosophy that the state should play a greater role in combating poverty among children, the sick and the elderly. On his holiday during the summer of 1906 Churchill read H. G. Wells’s A Modern Utopia (1905), in whose parallel world the state owned all land and subsidized motherhood.13 Churchill publicly declared his support for a radical programme in a speech at Glasgow soon after his holiday. ‘The cause of the Liberal Party is the cause of the left-out millions,’ he declared, adding: ‘I should like to see the state embark on various novel and interesting experiments.’14

  Churchill overcame his immediate ministerial challenges in southern Africa and, after helping to host a Colonies’ Conference in London during April 1907, he decided to make a trip to eastern Africa. The plan, partly to inspect territories for which he was responsible and partly to travel for private pleasure, was approved by Lord Elgin, the secretary of state, who hoped that the absence of his hyperactive young minister might lead to a quieter Scottish summer. In order to forestall any possible suggestion of impropriety, Churchill offered to pay his own travel expenses and asked his former agent A. P. Watt to arrange a series of five articles with The Strand Magazine at £150 each to offset part of the cost.15 For additional contributions Churchill asked his mother to let his house and find alternative employment for his secretary: ‘I do rely upon you dear Mamma to help me in arranging these affairs; for wh[ich] I am not at all suited by disposition or temperament.’16 Jennie could not understand why he had offered to pay his way: ‘C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre,’ she told him. ‘And no one will thank you for it.’17

  At Malta Churchill met his travelling party: his uncle by marriage, Colonel Gordon Wilson, his private secretary Edward Marsh and his manservant Scriving. They embarked on HMS Venus, a light cruiser detailed to carry them in style through the Suez Canal to Aden and then on to Mombasa in the British East Africa Protectorate. Jennie had failed to let the Mount Street home, but Jack reported success soon after taking over the task. ‘Who do you think?’ he asked. ‘Mr Bob Scrivier!’18 Seldom out of the newspapers, Scrivier was one of the racing world’s rogues, recently banned from the sport for a spell. Churchill cabled home twice, protesting at the risk to his reputation,19 but Jack held his ground, accusing his brother of double standards:

  You have made great friends with Frank Harris whose reputation in the City, where they have some experience and are fairly good judges – is only equalled by Scrivier’s renown on the turf... You are always having fits of economical fervour but it all evaporates the moment there is any sign of any retrenchment, or of any of your luxuries being curtailed.20

  As HMS Venus sailed down the east African coast, Jack sounded a note of triumphalism about a sudden crisis in New York’s financial markets:

  It has been raging for three days and is not over. A year ago all the New York millionaires were telling us that they were the only people on the earth and that New York was the centre of the financial world. Well most of them are ruined today and money is 100% in New York while it remains 4½% here. I think the slow and sure system of Threadneedle Street has survived their jeers... Our finances are not looking their best. I fear we shall have to borrow when you come back.21

  Churchill disembarked at Mombasa and proceeded in style up the new railway line to Nairobi: ‘Everything moves on the smoothest of wheels for me – a special train with dining and sleeping cars was at my disposal all the way; wherever I wished to stop, it stopped,’ he told his mother. ‘We sat in front of the engine with our rifles & as soon as we saw anything to shoot at – a wave of the hand brought the train to a standstill.’22

  A good deal of business had been transacted ‘in the intervals of these field sports’,23 Churchill claimed, but it proved a challenge to apportion the unexpectedly high expenses for the trip between various governments and Churchill’s private purse. The protectorate’s bill for half the visitors’ costs in Nairobi remained unpaid for six months; it was only cancelled when Marsh brokered a deal that Churchill would pay thirty shillings a day, while the other members of his party were treated as officials.24 ‘The Tour... originally was intended to be a pure sporting and private expedition,’ Lord Elgin mused to his successor the following year, ‘& I really don’t know how it drifted into an official progress.’25

  The governor and his staff joined Churchill for the onward journey along the new railway line to Kisumu on Lake Victoria, from which the visitors crossed Uganda on a luxury steamer. While Churchill was there, a letter from Jack broke the news of his romance with Lady Gwendoline, the daughter of Lord and Lady Abingdon. The couple had decided six months earlier that marriage was impossible because of the Churchill family’s shortage of money, but Goonie (as she was universally known) had changed her mind: ‘She said that she would sacrifice anything for her love,’ Jack wrote excitedly, ‘that her ambition for riches and everything else had vanished and that she would wait for me until I could come and fetch her.’ Jack had no savings of his own, but was going to try to arrange for a guarantee of £1,000 a year from his firm, Nelke Phillips, where he had just been made a partner. ‘In moderate times I ought to get 2 thousand and in good times 3, 4 or even 5 thousand,’ he explained to Churchill. ‘It is just my luck that this should happen in a year which for financial disasters is a record in any living memory.’

  He went on to share an unwelcome discovery that he had made during the course of researching his marriage prospects: it concerned their father’s will. ‘I am rather disturbed to hear that the American property*3 and the English “Will”*4 are settled on our children and we have only a life interest in these things. The only thing which we absolutely have for our own are the “settlements”*5 amounting in all to about £13,000.�
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  Churchill did not react to this news, but encouraged Jack to tackle Goonie’s father head-on and hold out the likelihood that he would earn more than his minimum of £1,000 a year: ‘£1,400 a year is quite enough for two sensible people who care about one another. Of course to go the London pace it is a wisp of straw.’27

  Returning to England in mid-January 1908 Churchill found his mother’s finances once again vying for attention next to a pile of ministerial papers. The family solicitors, Lumley & Lumley, had proved poor administrators of his father’s will trust – unable to police Jennie’s spending or to produce proper accounts for the trustees. Before Churchill left for Africa, George Curzon had tried to retire as a trustee, arguing that the two Churchill brothers were now old enough to act themselves, alongside their mother; but as a co-trustee, the duke of Marlborough wanted reassurance from an independent firm of solicitors that all was well before any change of trustees took place.

  The solicitors employed for the purpose, Nicholl, Manisty & Co., advised that the Churchills should not take over as trustees until proper accounts had been prepared. The consequent delay prompted Curzon to refuse to sanction any further transactions, including the sale of the trust’s main asset, the freehold of 12 St James’s Square, which had fallen into the trust from the estate of the 7th duke of Marlborough after the dowager duchess’s death. The property was let for £1,500 a year to a Mr Long, who had offered to buy the freehold for £37,500, comfortably above its professional valuation; but the sale had to wait while Nicholl Manisty prepared new accounts.

  These accounts greeted Churchill on his return. Their contents were serious enough for the trust’s lender, Norwich Union, to insist on the formal appointment of Edward Manisty as Receiver to the trust, charged with keeping future accounts and approving any movements of money from it. On these conditions, it approved the appointment of the Churchill brothers as trustees alongside their mother.28

  Churchill rapidly made his presence felt, insisting that he would agree a price of nothing less than £45,000 for 12 St James’s Square. A furious Mr Long took six weeks to raise his offer grudgingly to £39,500, but Churchill stood out for £42,000, offering to draft the lawyer’s letter for them when they proved reluctant to accept his instruction; three weeks later Mr Long paid £41,000.29 Churchill then caused further waves by rejecting Wheater, Cornwallis-West’s ideas as to how best to invest the money; instead he awarded the business to his brother Jack’s stockbroking firm Nelke Phillips.30

  During Churchill’s absence, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s health had deteriorated to the point where he had temporarily given up his duties as prime minister. An attempt to return to work in February 1908 proved unsuccessful and Edward VII asked Herbert Asquith to start planning to take over in March, although Sir Henry did not resign until April. Churchill was offered promotion to the cabinet at either the Admiralty or the Local Government Board; he chose the latter, for he was reluctant to displace his uncle, Lord Tweedmouth, at the Admiralty. However, at the last minute Asquith made Churchill the president of the Board of Trade. It was a full cabinet position at the heart of his Liberal government’s legislative programme, but the post held one distinct disadvantage for Churchill: for historical reasons, it paid only half of a secretary of state’s £5,000 salary. Asquith promised to ask Parliament to address the anomaly, but it emerged that the present post-holder could not benefit from any change.

  Churchill’s appointment was announced on the same April weekend that he had asked his mother to invite to Salisbury Hall the twenty-three-year-old Miss Clementine Hozier. Clementine was the second of four children of the divorced Sir Henry Hozier and Lady Blanche Ogilvy, the eldest daughter of the earl of Airlie. After army service, Sir Henry had become secretary of Lloyd’s Corporation in London, but he was not a rich man; and, although a grand Scottish family, the Airlies were not rich either.

  The Hoziers’ marriage had been unhappy since the start. Their first child, Kitty, had arrived after five years, followed by Clementine in 1885 and the twins Nellie and Bill in 1888. Lady Blanche was considered promiscuous by the standards of the day and it is generally accepted that Sir Henry was not the father of the twins, or probably Clementine, or possibly Kitty.*6

  Clementine’s parents separated when she was seven and her mother took the children to live in a series of rented lodgings and eventually across the Channel to Dieppe, after Sir Henry began to default on the small allowance he was supposed to pay and threatened to claim custody of the elder children. Following Kitty’s death from typhoid, they returned to live in Hertfordshire, where Clementine attended Berkhamsted High School for Girls, unsurprisingly winning the school French prize and supplementing her small allowance by giving language lessons for 2s.6d. an hour.

  Churchill had first met Clementine at a London ball four years earlier. He had asked to be introduced, but then is supposed to have stared at her, struck speechless, without asking for a dance. Clementine had been engaged three times since then, twice secretly to Viscount Peel’s third son Sidney, and once officially to Lionel Earle, a civil servant almost twice her age. Her sister Nellie had suggested that a file of ‘Proposals to Clementine’ should be kept, with subdivisions: ‘Discussed’, ‘Answered’ and ‘Pending a decision’.31

  Clementine met Churchill again two months after his return from Africa, at a dinner party organized by Lady St Helier, her great-aunt, who had invited her to make up the numbers at the last minute. Churchill arrived late to fill the gap next to Clementine only because his private secretary Eddie Marsh had persuaded him to honour an obligation to Lady St Helier, who had helped arrange Churchill’s posting to the Sudan a decade earlier.

  This time the conversation had flowed freely enough for Churchill to ask his mother to issue the weekend invitation to Salisbury Hall, before Clementine left for six weeks abroad with her mother. The couple met several times at social occasions, always with others present, during June and July, but agreed to meet more privately early in August.

  A few days beforehand, Churchill was staying in a Rutland house rented by the Guest family when a fire broke out. It destroyed a whole wing early in the morning, but he escaped unharmed, earning a telegram of relief from Clementine who had read about the incident in the newspapers. Given the signal he needed, Churchill moved their planned meeting to Blenheim, ostensibly on the grounds that it was closer to Jack’s wedding celebrations the next weekend.

  Jennie had forecast that Churchill would ‘pop off’ in the wake of his brother’s marriage and she was correct: just three days after Jack’s wedding Churchill proposed to Clementine in the gardens at Blenheim. She accepted. He planned to carry on working at Blenheim the next day, sending Clementine to London with a letter from him to obtain her mother’s blessing, but he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to go with Clementine.

  ‘I am not rich nor powerfully established,’ his letter read.32 In 1900 Churchill had calculated his own net worth (the value of his assets less the amounts owed to the bank and tradesmen) at £4,000 and it remained of the same order in 1908, with the important difference that £2,000 was now sunk into the Bolton Street house’s lease and fittings, reducing his ‘free’ assets (his net bank and investment balances) to the other £2,000.33

  His future mother-in-law’s blessing nonetheless obtained, Churchill visited the London offices in the Strand of the solicitors Nicholl, Manisty & Co., where he had three weeks earlier signed documents as a trustee of his brother’s marriage settlement. This time it was to arrange his own. Marriage settlements were designed to provide wives and children with greater financial security in an era of limited life expectancy. Traditionally, they drew contributions from the parents of both the bride and the groom, but Churchill knew that his mother’s situation meant that he was on his own. At least the Hoziers were not expected to set the bar too high: Clementine may have attracted other suitors, but emphatically she was not his aunt Cornelia’s hoped-for rich heiress. ‘Never talk rich, never talk poo
r; never talk money,’ had been Lady Blanche’s sound advice under the circumstances.34

  Churchill accepted Nicholl, Manisty & Co.’s plan to leave the Garron Tower estate out of the equation, basing his contribution instead (as Jack had done) on the future inheritance of his mother’s American settlement.35 That, however, left a gap should he die before Jennie, who was still only in her early fifties. The solution (as in Jack’s case) was for Churchill to pay for a life insurance policy, to be held in the settlement, which would pay out £10,000 on his death. Appointing his brother and cousin, the duke of Marlborough, as trustees, Churchill set a ‘pin money’ allowance for Clementine of £300 a year (for her personal spending) and instructed his lawyers to send their draft to Lady Blanche’s solicitor Mr Humbert of Taylor & Humbert:

  This gentleman – a Mr Humbert – is now in Scotland on his holidays, but I have telephoned to him this evening to ask him to London so as to be able to meet you in conference with me here at the Board of Trade on Saturday next at noon.36

  Mr Humbert proved understandably reluctant to break off his Scottish holiday. After a meeting at a more junior level, Churchill’s solicitors reported the not unexpected news that Clementine would arrive at the altar ‘absolutely entitled’ only to a sum of £2,000 plus a further £20,000 on her mother’s death.37 Nevertheless, Churchill’s own offer had to be improved when Humbert returned from Scotland: he asked for Churchill’s life assurance policy to be trebled to more than £35,000, so that his widow could enjoy ‘a clear income of £1,000’ if he died first. It was left to Nicholl Manisty’s senior partner to pay a visit to Mr Humbert to explain that £35,000 was ‘out of the question’.38