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Articles
Churchill’s Official Biography: Origin, Methodology and Concordance
- By LARRY P. ARNN
- | March 6, 2020
- Category: Official Biography Resources
Never Flinch, Never Weary, 1951-1965 is the twenty-third volume of documents in the official biography of Winston Churchill. Together with the narrative texts, the work comprises thirty-one volumes in all. It is the last step in a journey that began over half a century ago, but prepared for decades earlier. One will find in this volume a letter that Churchill wrote to his son Randolph in 1960:
I think that your biography of Derby 1 is a remarkable work, and I should be happy that you should write my official biography when the time comes. But I must ask you to defer this until after my death.
I would not like to release my papers piece-meal, and I think that you should wait for the time being and then get all your material from my own Archives and from the Trust. In any case I do not want anything to be published until at least five years after my death.2
Here Churchill finalizes a suggestion he had made years earlier. His son was to be his biographer. The official biography would begin a year later in 1961. Randolph hired the young historian Martin Gilbert in 1962 as his research assistant. They would inherit a treasure trove of information and then proceed to add to its volume and value over the ensuing decades.
The written word
Documents within the official biography come from hundreds of archives, but mostly that of Churchill himself. Not only did he live the large life that the work describes. He also began early to preserve the evidence of it. Churchill’s firm practice, even principle, was to conduct business in writing. When he became Prime Minister he directed that no instruction from him would be binding unless it were written down. In 1946 he wrote to his successor, Clement Attlee:
An unusually large proportion of my work was done in writing, i.e. by shorthand dictation, and there is therefore in existence an unbroken series of minutes, memoranda, telegrams, etc., covering the whole period of my Administration, all of which were my own personal composition, subject to Staff or Departmental checking. 3
Churchill was a fluent writer, from 1921 often by dictation, which enabled him to move rapidly and to discharge the public business on an immense scale. He thought that doing business in writing helped to ensure clarity of purpose and consistency in action. The official biography reflects this.
In contrast to recent practices, most things written and said by Churchill were composed by him. Martin Gilbert told of a conversation he had with three prime ministers, current or former. One 4 asked who wrote Churchill’s speeches. The question came naturally in the 1970s. One of the others knew enough about Churchill to find this amusing.
“True history”
Randolph’s successor, Sir Martin Gilbert, wrote the last six narrative volumes of the official biography and edited most of the document volumes. He believed in the reality of history as shown in the evidence for it: the more evidence, the more real. He explained the idea behind the histories he wrote in this telling passage:
On the tomb of the nineteenth century Church historian Bishop Mandell Creighton are inscribed the words: “He tried to write true history.” Like the bishop—who was a member of my own college at Oxford—I believe that there is such a thing as “true history.” What happened in the past is unalterable and definite. To uncover it—or as much of it as possible—the historian has several tools. Among them are chronology, documentation, memoirs, and the vast apparatus of scholarly work in which others have delved and laboured in the same vineyard. 5
In this deconstructionist age, many view history as little more than a mirror for our own views and influences. Churchill and his biographers agreed with Agathon, quoted by Aristotle, that “Of this power alone is even a god deprived, To make undone whatever has been done.” In this view the task of the official biography is to recover what happened and make it available for others to understand. In doing this he exhibits aspects of the nature of human life that we can grasp today.
Order and permanence
To use old language, one might say that the material cause of this official biography is the evidence, mostly documentary, from which it is written. The efficient cause is the two men who wrote it. Later, my colleagues and I have done a lesser but important work in editing and completing the document volumes. Also, Hillsdale College is keeping the whole biography in print. All of these factors combine to enable the story of Churchill to be told in detail.
Churchill was also careful in keeping the written evidence of his life in an orderly fashion. For example, on 23 January 1925, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill wrote to Sir Warren Fisher, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury and Official Head of the Civil Service. He had prickly relations with Fisher. In this correspondence they have a disagreement about how to organize papers within files. The method Churchill proposed was the product of “long, and I think unequalled, experience in Public Offices.”
It entailed the distinction between minutes (documents intended to record brief steps toward decisions) and memoranda (documents of an informative and argumentative character). The two were to be separated: “A clear distinction is needed between the terseness and precision which are required in Minutes and the necessary more expansive forms of argument which are suitable to Memoranda.” [6] Both were to be arranged within their folders in reverse chronological order. This, Churchill wrote, would be advantageous both to department heads and those who advise them. This was the method Churchill followed to organize his own files.
Method and organization
When I began work on the biography in 1977, most of the papers were still in Oxford. They resided on the third floor below ground of the New Library, part of the Bodleian Libraries. The papers were still in the filing cabinets that Churchill preferred. In a memo entitled “The Filing Cabinet,” which I remember distinctly but cannot find, he described one manufactured by Chubb & Son’s Lock & Safe Co. Ltd. It was fireproof, large, and heavy—hard to damage or to steal.
Within these cabinets, the file folders were organized most always in accordance with the scheme he described above. Filing cabinets contained related items. So also file drawers; so also file folders. In the upper left of each file folder and of each page within it a hole was punched. Through these holes, string fasteners with metal ends, known as “Treasury tags,” were threaded to hold the papers in place. As public business was carried on, it was quick and easy to add additional pages. The new ones would go right on top.
For the historian and researcher, this arrangement was not quite so convenient. It was difficult to remove a page from its place, for example to photocopy it, and then put it back. Martin Gilbert was careful—as was I, under his direction—to preserve the original order in removing and replacing the documents. There was a lot of this, for Martin wanted the documents arranged in chronological, not reverse chronological order, and he did not want the papers grouped by subject matter.
Chronological strictness
The evidence from which Martin wrote the biography was arranged entirely according to a single timeline. The first document was when Churchill was an infant (or even before). The last one was when he died (or even after). Martin wanted to see the documents in the sequence in which they were generated, one after another. He wanted to see them together because events are not presented to any statesman, or any of us, grouped tidily by subject matter.
Given Randolph’s and Martin’s devotion to documentary history, one might wonder why they wrote history at all? Why not just read the documents? Martin’s answer was that not everyone can. And this would be true even now, when most of the documents are available online. Nor can everyone develop the skill to absorb the evidence and render it faithfully in an entirely different form.
If the material and efficient causes of the biography are the documents and the biographers, the form of the biography is eight volumes of narrative history and twenty-three volumes of documents. This is a vast work, and yet it is only a fraction of the all the records that survive from the period. For all its magnitude, it is a selection.
The Official Biography defined
This work is, then, a kind of middle way between learning from the original documents alone and reading a narrative. In the official biography of Winston Churchill, we have a long and careful narrative written by two people. Both believed not only in following the evidence, but also in walking side by side with it. And then we have the documents from which they wrote, reproduced and available, most of them in full. They are indexed, annotated, and uncensored. The reader may use the biography either as the great story it is, or as a tool for historical research. The narrative volumes are a guide to the document volumes; the document volumes are evidence for the narrative.
In these last six document volumes, we have followed the practices that Randolph and Martin established. I never met Randolph Churchill, but I knew and worked with Martin Gilbert for almost four decades. He combined a sweeping knowledge of modern history with a meticulous attention to detail and citation. Becoming famous and eventually a knight, he did not forget that his job was not the same as Churchill’s. Churchill wrote that you must “nail your life to a cross of thought or action,” and then he did both. Martin, a thinker, undertook to represent the thought and action of Churchill as it was. He was aware of his advantage over Churchill or anyone of the past: the historian looks back on a series of events fixed in time, and he knows their outcome. Martin’s awareness of this is one of the reasons he was never given to second-guessing or smugness.
At the finish
We, at Hillsdale College, became the publishers of the official biography in 2004. Sir Martin Gilbert finished document volumes 6–16 while he lived. When he died, volume 17 was mostly done, and we completed it. After that, we have done the rest, volumes 18–23. Since Martin’s death, the work has been done by me and an able staff led by the young, but now experienced Soren Geiger, assisted by a rather older colleague with long experience, Richard Langworth. We have selected, formatted, and annotated 14,000 pages of documents and 14,800 footnotes. Now, for the first time in these fifty-eight years, the entire biography, narrative and documents, is in print and available electronically as well.
Endnotes
1 In 1959 Randolph published Lord Derby,“King of Lancashire,” The Official Life of Edward, Seventeenth Earl of Derby, 1865–1948.
2 Winston S. Churchill to Randolph S. Churchill, The Churchill Documents, vol. 23, Never Flinch, Never Weary, 1951-1965, 2285.
3 WSC to Attlee, 29 May 1946, in The Churchill Documents, vol. 22, Leader of the Opposition, August 1945 to October 1951, 354–55. 4 I will not say which one, for Martin would probably not have wished it.
5 Martin Gilbert, “On History.”
6 WSC to Sir Warren Fisher, 23 January 1925, in The Churchill Documents, vol. 11, The Exchequer Years, 1922–1929, 353
The Official Biography, 1966-2019: A Concordance
By Antoine Capet
Note: Hillsdale College Press editions retain the original pagination. Pagination of book club editions and Minerva paperbacks is not included.
The Narrative Volumes
Volume I. Winston S. Churchill: Youth, 1874-1900, by Randolph S. Churchill.
London: Heinemann and Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966; Houghton Mifflin for the Literary Guild, 1966; London: Minerva, 1991; Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2006.
Hardbound: i-xxxvi, 608 pp., [32] pp. of plates; illustrated with facsimiles, maps and portraits; index [+two Companion or Document volumes].
Volume II. Winston S. Churchill: Young Statesman, 1901-1914, by Randolph S. Churchill.
Heinemann, Houghton Mifflin and Houghton Mifflin for the Literary Guild, 1967; London: Minerva, 1991; Hillsdale College Press, 2007.
Hardbound: i-xxx, 776 pp., [34] pp. of plates; ill., facsimiles, maps, portraits; index [+three Companion or Document volumes].
* * *
Volume III. Winston S. Churchill: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916, by Martin Gilbert.
Heinemann, Houghton Mifflin and Houghton Mifflin for the Literary Guild (2 vols.), 1971; Minerva, 1990; Hillsdale College Press, 2007.
Hardbound: i-xxxviii, 988 pp. [34] pp. of plates; ill., facsimiles, maps, portraits; index [+two Companion or Document volumes].
Volume IV. Winston S. Churchill: The Stricken World (Hillsdale subtitle World in Torment) 1916-1922, by Martin Gilbert.
Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1975; Minerva, 1990; Hillsdale College Press, 2008.
Hardbound: i-xvi, 968 pp., [32] pp. of plates; ill., maps, portraits; index [+three Companion or Document volumes].
Volume V. Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922-1939, by Martin Gilbert.
Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1976; Minerva, 1990; Hillsdale College Press, 2009.
Hardbound: i-xxviii, 1168 pp., [32] pp. of plates; ill., portraits; index [+ three Companion or Document volumes].
Volume VI. Winston S. Churchill: Finest Hour, 1939-1941, by Martin Gilbert.
Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1983; Toronto: Stoddardt, 1983; London: Book Club Associates, 1990; Minerva, 1989; Hillsdale College Press, 2011.
Hardbound: i-xx, 1308 pp., [26] pp. of plates; ill., portraits; index [+three War Papers or Document volumes].
Volume VII. Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, 1941-1945, by Martin Gilbert.
Heinemann, Houghton Mifflin and Stoddardt, 1986; Minerva, 1989; Hillsdale College Press, 2013.
Hardbound: i-xx, 1418 pp., [24] p. of plates; ill., maps, portraits; index [+five Document volumes].
Volume VIII. Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair, 1945-1965, by Martin Gilbert.
Heinemann, Houghton Mifflin and Stoddardt, 1988; Minerva, 1990; Hillsdale College Press, 2013.
Hardbound: i-xxviii, 1438 pp., [24] pp. of plates; ill., maps, portraits; index; [+two Document volumes].
The Churchill Documents
(Earlier “Companion Volumes” and “War Papers”)
Hillsdale volumes 1-16 use same pagination as the sixteen originals through 1941.
Electronic editions are in process of publication.
For Volume I (two volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 1, Youth, 1874-1896, edited by Randolph S. Churchill. Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2006.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume I: Companion. Part 1: 1874-1896. London: Heinemann and Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.
Hardbound: i-xxi, 678 pp.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 2, Young Soldier, 1896-1901, edited by Randolph S. Churchill. Hillsdale College Press, 2006.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume I: Companion. Part 2: 1896-1900. Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1967.
Hardbound: 612 pp.; index.
For Volume II (three volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 3, Early Years in Politics, 1901-1907, edited by Randolph S. Churchill. Hillsdale College Press, 2007.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume II: Companion. Part 1: 1901-1907. Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1969.
Hardbound: i-xxix, 676 pp.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 4, Minister of the Crown, 1907-1911, edited by Randolph S. Churchill. Hillsdale College Press, 2007.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume II: Companion. Part 2: 1907-1911. Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1969.
Hardbound: i-viii, 698 pp.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 5, At the Admiralty, 1911-1914, edited by Randolph S. Churchill. Hillsdale College Press, 2007.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume II : Companion. Part 3 : 1911-1914. Heinemann and Houghton Mifflin, 1969.
Hardbound: i-viii, 776 pp.; index.
For Volume III (two volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 6, At the Admiralty, July 1914-April 1915, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2008.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume III : Companion. Part 1 : Documents, July 1914-April 1915. Heinemann, 1972; Houghton Mifflin, 1973.
Hardbound: i-x, 838 pp.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 7, “The Escaped Scapegoat,” May 1915-December 1916, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2008.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume III: Companion. Part 2: Documents, May 1915-December 1916. Heinemann, 1972; Houghton Mifflin, 1973.
Hardbound: i-vi, 848 pp.; index.
For Volume IV (three volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 8, War and Aftermath, December 1916-June 1919, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2008.
Originally Winston S. Churchill. Volume IV: Companion. Part 1: Documents, January 1917-June 1919. (Edited) by Martin Gilbert. Heinemann, 1977; Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Hardbound: i-xxiii, 720 pp.; maps.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 9, Disruption and Chaos, July 1919-March 1921, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2008.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume IV: Companion. Part 2: Documents, July 1919-March 1921. Heinemann, 1977; Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Hardbound: 706 pp.; maps..
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 10, Conciliation and Reconstruction, April 1921-November 1922, edited by Martin Gilbert.
Originally Winston S. Churchill. Volume IV: Companion. Part 3: Documents, April 1921-November 1922. Heinemann, 1977; Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Hardbound: 738 pp.; maps; index.
For Volume V (three volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 11, The Exchequer Years, 1922-1929, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2009.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume V: Companion. Part 1 Documents: The Exchequer Years, 1922-1929. Heinemann, 1979; Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
Hardbound: i-xxii, 1504 pp.; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 12, The Wilderness Years, 1929-1935, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2009.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume V: Companion. Part 2: Documents: The Wilderness Years, 1929-1935. (Heinemann, 1981; Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
Hardbound: i-xviii, 1404 pp; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 13, The Coming of War, 1936-1939, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2009.
Originally: Winston S. Churchill. Volume V: Companion. Part 3: Documents: The Coming of War, 1936-1939. Heinemann, 1982; Houghton Mifflin 1983.
Hardbound: i-xx, 1684 pp.; index.
For Volume VI (three volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 14, At the Admiralty, September 1939-May 1940, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2011.
Originally: The Churchill War Papers. Volume 1: At the Admiralty, September 1939-May 1940. London: Heinemann and New York: W.W. Norton, 1993.
Hardbound: i-xx, 1370 pp.; 1 facsimile, maps; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 15, Never Surrender, May 1940-December 1940, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2011.
Originally: The Churchill War Papers. Volume 2: Never Surrender, May 1940-December 1940. Heinemann and W.W. Norton, 1994.
Hardbound: i-xxxii, 1360 pp.; ill., facsimiles, map; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 16, The Ever Widening War, 1941, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2011.
Originally: The Churchill War Papers. Volume 3: The Ever-Widening War, 1941. Heinemann and W.W. Norton, 2000.
Hardbound: i-lxvi, 1822 pp.; ill., maps; index.
For Volume VII (five volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 17, Testing Times, 1942, edited by Martin Gilbert. Hillsdale College Press, 2013.
Hardbound: i-xxxii, 1652 pp.; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 18, One Continent Redeemed, January-August 1943, edited by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn, Hillsdale College Press, 2015.
Hardbound: i-xxii, 2472 pp.; facsimiles; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 19, Fateful Questions, September 1943-April 1944, edited by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn. Hillsdale College Press, 2017.
Hardbound: i-xiiv, 2728 pp.; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 20, Normandy and Beyond, May-December 1944, edited by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn, Hillsdale College Press, 2018.
Hardbound: i-xxii, 2576 pp.; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 21, The Shadows of Victory, January-July 1945, edited by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn, Hillsdale College Press, 2018.
Hardbound: i-xxx, 2150 pp.; index.
For Volume VIII (two volumes)
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 22, Leader of the Opposition, August 1945-September 1951, edited by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn. Hillsdale College Press, 2019.
Hardbound: i-xlii, 2328 pp.; index.
The Churchill Documents, Vol. 23, Never Flinch, Never Weary, October 1951-January 1965, edited by Martin Gilbert and Larry P. Arnn. Hillsdale College Press, 2019.
Hardbound: i-xl, 2488 pp.; index.
The authors
Dr. Arnn is President of Hillsdale College, editor-in-chief of The Churchill Documents, and author of Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Survival of Free Government. Dr. Capet is Professor Emeritus of British Studies at University of Rouen, France and author of Churchill: Le Dictionnaire.