Honours of Winston Churchill

Churchill's identification document as an Honorary Citizen of the United States

Sir Winston Churchill received numerous honours and awards throughout his career as a statesman and author. Perhaps the highest of these was the state funeral held at St Paul's Cathedral after his body had lain in state for three days in Westminster Hall,^[1] a signal honour only rarely granted to anybody but a monarch or consort. The funeral also saw one of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world.^[2]

Throughout his life, Churchill also accumulated other honours and awards. He was awarded 37 other orders and medals between 1885 and 1963. Of the orders, decorations and medals Churchill received, 20 were awarded by the United Kingdom, three by France, two each by Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and Spain, and one each by Egypt, Libya, Nepal, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. Ten were awarded for active service as an Army officer in Cuba, India, Egypt, South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium. The greater number of awards were given in recognition of his service as a minister of the British government.

A full list of his awards are contained in the book The Orders, Decorations and Medals of Sir Winston Churchill by Douglas Russell.^[3]

Honorary citizen

In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, acting under authorisation granted by an Act of Congress, proclaimed Churchill the first honorary citizen of the United States. Churchill was physically incapable of attending the White House ceremony, so his son and grandson accepted the award for him.^[4]

Proposed dukedom

In 1955, after retiring as Prime Minister, Churchill was offered elevation to the peerage in the rank of duke. By custom, retiring Prime Ministers from the Commons were usually offered Earldoms, so the dukedom was a sign of special honour. One title that was considered was Duke of London;^[5] that capital has never been used in a peerage title.^[6]

What form his dukedom would have in fact taken cannot be known: although Churchill initially considered the offered dukedom, he eventually declined it under persuasion by his son Randolph, who wished to pursue a political career. (This would have been difficult for the heir to the peerage, since, at that time, there was no procedure for disclaiming a title, and, upon inheriting it, he would immediately have lost his place in the House of Commons.)^[7] Since then, only British royals have been made dukes.^[8] Randolph was to die only three years after his father, so the dukedom would have had little time to affect his career. Randolph's oldest son Winston did serve as an MP from 1970 until 1997, by which time provision existed for disclaiming a peerage.

Other honours

Churchill in his air commodore's uniform at the Tehran Conference

On 4 April 1939, Churchill was made an Honorary Air Commodore of No. 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron ("Churchill's Own") in the Auxiliary Air Force.^[9] In March 1943, the Air Council awarded Churchill honorary wings.^[8] He retained the appointment until 11 March 1957 when 615 Squadron was disbanded. He did however continue to hold the rank of Honorary Air Commodore.^[10]

He was the Colonel in Chief of the 4th Queen's Own Hussars (his old regiment) and after its amalgamation, the first Colonel in Chief of the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars which he held until his death in 1965 and was known as the "Greatest Hussar of all time". He was also Colonel in Chief of the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars.

From 1941 to his death, he was the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a ceremonial office. In 1941 Canadian Governor General Alexander Cambridge, Earl of Athlone, swore him into the King's Privy Council for Canada. Although this allowed him to use the honorific title The Honourable and the post-nominal letters PC, both of these were trumped by his membership in the Imperial Privy Council which allowed him the use of The Right Honourable.^[8] He was also appointed Grand Seigneur of the Hudson's Bay Company in December 1955.

In 1945, he was mentioned by Halvdan Koht among seven candidates that were qualified for the Nobel Prize in Peace. However, he did not explicitly nominate any of them. Actually he nominated Cordell Hull.^[11]

In 1953, he was awarded two major honours: he was invested as a Knight of the Garter (becoming Sir Winston Churchill, KG) and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values".^[12]

He was Chancellor of the University of Bristol as well as in 1959, Father of the House, the MP with the longest continuous service.^[13]

In 1956, Churchill received the Karlspreis (known in English as the Charlemagne Award), an award by the German city of Aachen to those who most contribute to the European idea, and European peace.^[14]

In 1961 the Chartered Institute of Building ^[15] named Churchill as an Honorary Fellow for his services and passion for the construction industry.

In 1964, Civitan International presented Churchill its first World Citizenship Award for service to the world community.^[16]

Churchill was also appointed a Kentucky Colonel.^[17][18]

When Churchill was 88 he was asked by the Duke of Edinburgh how he would like to be remembered. He replied with a scholarship like the Rhodes scholarship but for the wider masses. After his death, the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust was established in the United Kingdom and Australia. A Churchill Trust Memorial Day was held in Australia, raising $AU4.3 million. Since that time the Churchill Trust in Australia has supported over 3,000 scholarship recipients in a diverse variety of fields, where merit, either on the basis of past experience, or potential, and the propensity to contribute to the community have been the only criteria.

Objects

USS Winston S. Churchill

Bottles of Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill stored in Pol Roger's facilities, waiting to be labelled.

On the right, the black border used by Pol Roger on bottles shipped to the UK from 1965 to 1990.

The Sir Winston Churchill Range in the Canadian Rockies was named in his honour.

One of four specially made sets of false teeth, designed to retain Churchill's distinctive style of speech, which Churchill wore throughout his life, is now kept in the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons of England.^[19]

Two Royal Navy warships have been named HMS Churchill: the destroyer HMS Churchill (I45) (1940–1944) and the submarine HMS Churchill (S46) (1970–1991).

On 10 March 2001, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill was commissioned into the United States Navy. The launch and christening of the ship two years earlier was co-sponsored by Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames.^[20]

In September 1947, the Southern Railway named a Battle of Britain class steam locomotive No. 21C151 after him. Churchill was offered the opportunity to perform the naming cerement, but he declined. The locomotive was later used to pull his funeral train, and is now preserved in the National Railway Museum, York.

He appears on the 1965 crown, the first commoner to be placed on British coins.^[21] He made another appearance on a crown issued in 2010 to honor the 70th anniversary of his Premiership.^[22]

Pol Roger's prestige cuvée Champagne, Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, is named after him. The first vintage, 1975, was launched in 1984 at Blenheim Palace. The name was accepted by his heirs as Churchill was a faithful customer of Pol Roger. Following Churchill's death in 1965, Pol Roger added a black border to the label on bottles shipped to the UK as a sign of mourning. This was not lifted until 1990.^[23]

The Churchill tank, or Infantry Tank Mk IV; was a British Second World War tank named after Churchill, who was Prime Minister at the time of its design.^[24]

The Julieta (7" × 47), a size of cigar, is also commonly known as a Churchill.

Polls

Churchill has been included in numerous polls, mostly connected with greatness. Time named him its Man of the Year for 1940,^[25] and "Man of the Half-Century" in 1949.^[26] A BBC survey of January 2000 saw Churchill voted the greatest British prime minister of the 20th century. In 2002, BBC TV viewers and web site users voted him the greatest Briton of all time in a ten-part series called Great Britons, a poll attracting almost two million votes.^[27]

Buildings, highways and statues in his honour

A statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square

Many statues have been created in likeness and in honour of Churchill. Numerous buildings and squares have also been named in his honour. The most prominent example of a statue of Churchill is the official statue commissioned by the government and created by Ivor Roberts-Jones which now stands in Parliament Square. It was unveiled by Churchill's widow, Lady Churchill, on 1 November 1973, and was Grade II listed in 2008.^[28][29] Another Roberts-Jones statue of Churchill displaying the V sign is prominently placed in New Orleans (1977). In addition several other statues have also been made, including a bronze head of Churchill by Jacob Epstein (1946), several statues by David McFall at Woodford (1959), William McVey outside the British embassy in Washington D.C. (1966), Franta Belsky at Fulton, Missouri (1969), at least three from Oscar Nemon: one on the front lawn of the Halifax Public Library branch on Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia (1980); one in the House of Commons (1969); bust of his head along with that of Franklin Roosevelt commemorating the Quebec Conference, 1943 next to Port St. Louis in Quebec City (1998); and one in Nathan Phillips Square outside of Toronto City Hall, Ontario (1977), and Jean Cardot beside the Petit Palais in Paris (1998).^[30] After he was declared the greatest Briton of all time in the BBC poll and television series Great Britons (see above), a statue was erected in his honour and now stands in BBC television studios. Churchill is also memorialised by many statues and a public square in New York, in recognition of his life, and also because his mother was from New York. His maternal family is also memorialised in streets, parks, and neighbourhoods throughout the city.

The national and Commonwealth memorial to Churchill is Churchill College, Cambridge, which was founded in 1958 and opened in 1960. It is also home to the Churchill Archives Centre, which holds the papers of Sir Winston Churchill and over 570 collections of personal papers and archives documenting the history of the Churchill era and after.^[31]

Many schools have been named for him:

Further information: Winston Churchill High School (disambiguation) and Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School (disambiguation)

Ten schools in Canada are named in his honour: one each in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Hamilton, Kingston, St. Catharines, Lethbridge, Calgary, Toronto (Scarborough) and Ottawa. Churchill Auditorium at the Technion is named after him.

At least four American high schools carry his name; these are located in Potomac, Maryland; Livonia, Michigan; Eugene, Oregon and San Antonio, Texas.

The City of Edmonton, Canada, has a stop on the Edmonton LRT system and a public square named in his honour. Churchill Square, is the main square in that city and was renovated in 2004 for the city's 100th anniversary of incorporation. There are several other squares named after him, one in Brighton and one in Newfoundland.

The South end of Churchill Avenue in Ottawa was the site of the Churchill Arms Hotel, which many residents of Ottawa remember with a 15 foot sillhouette of Winston Churchill. Churchill Avenue was itself renamed from Main Street after the Second World War.

A large dock in the Port of Antwerp was named after him by Queen Elizabeth II at a ceremony in 1966.

Náměstí W. Churchilla (Winston Churchill Square) is located behind The Main Train Station in Prague, Czech Republic.

Winston Churchill Boulevard in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada is also named in his honour.

In Gibraltar the main road connecting the border with Spain and the airport to the city centre is called Winston Churchill Avenue.

In Norway streets in the cities of Trondheim and Tromsø are named in Winston Churchills honour. Namely "Churchills vei"^[32] in Jakobsli, Trondheim and "Winston Churchills vei" in Tromsø.

Many smaller, less significant streets and public buildings, particularly in the United Kingdom, have been named in honour of Churchill.

List of honours

• Order of the Garter (Knight Companion) (1953)
• Order of Merit (1946)
• Order of the Companions of Honour (1922)
• The India Medal with clasp, Punjab Frontier 1897–8 (1898)
• The Queen's Sudan Medal, 1896–8 (1899)
• The Queen's South Africa Medal, 1899–1902, with six clasps (1901)
• 1914-15 Star (1919)
• British War Medal 1914-1918 (1919)
• Victory Medal (United Kingdom) 1914-1919 (1920)
• 1939-1945 Star
• Africa Star (1945)
• Italy Star (1945)
• France and Germany Star (1945)
• War Medal 1939-1945
• King George V Coronation Medal (1911)
• King George V Silver Jubilee Medal (1935)
• King George VI Coronation Medal (1937)
• Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal (1953)
• Territorial Decoration (1924)

Foreign honours

• Cross First Class of the Order of Military Merit, Red Ribbon (War Service) (Spain, 1895)
• Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) with Palm (Belgium, 1945)
• Knight Grand Cross, Order of the Netherlands Lion (Netherlands, 1946)
• Grand Cross, Order of the Oak Crown (Luxembourg, 1946)
• Grand Cross with Collar, Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav (Norway, 1948)
• Knight of the Order of the Elephant (Denmark, 1950)
• Companion of the Ordre de la Libération (France, 1958)
• Most Refulgent Order of the Star of Nepal, First Class (Nepal, 1961)
• Grand Sash of the High Order of Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi (Libya, 1962)
• Distinguished Service Medal (Army) (United States, 1919)
• Croix de Guerre with Palm (Belgium, 1945)
• Military Medal 1940-45 (Luxembourg, 1946)^[33]
• Medaille Militaire (France, 1947)
• Croix de Guerre with Palm (France, 1947)
• Cuban Campaign Medal, 1895-98 (Spain, 1914)^[34]
• Khedive's Sudan Medal (clasp: Khartoum) (Egypt, 1899)^[35]
• King Christian X's Liberty Medal (Denmark, 1947)

(Although some references report Churchill was awarded the French Legion of Honour it is not listed among his honours at the Churchill Centre.)

Academic

• Rector of the University of Aberdeen (1914–18)
• Rector of Edinburgh University (1929–32)
• Chancellor of the University of Bristol (1929–1965)
• Honorary doctorates from British universities including University of Aberdeen, University of Liverpool, University of London, Queens University, Belfast
• Honorary doctorates in Law from Rochester and Harvard universities in the United States, and McGill University in Canada
• Honorary doctorate in philosophy from the University of Copenhagen
• Honorary doctorate from Leiden University
• Honorary doctorate from the University of Miami in Florida (1947)

Political/Honorary/Literature/Military/Science honours

• Fellow of the Royal Society
• Privy Councillor (1907)
• Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1914-1915
• Honorary Air Commodore of No. 615 Squadron RAF (1939)
• Colonel in Chief of 4th Queen's Own Hussars 1941 (later Queen's Royal Irish Hussars) (1957)
• Colonel in Chief of Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars
• Lieutenant-Colonel-6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers
• Major-2nd Battalion, Grenadier Guards
• Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (1941)
• Queen's Privy Council for Canada (1941)
• Nobel Prize in Literature (1953)
• Grand Seigneur of the Hudson's Bay Company (1955).
• Karlspreis (1956)
• 1st World Citizenship Award from Civitan International (1964)
• Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels

Lineage Societies

• Royal Society of St George (Vice President)
• Society of the Cincinnati (1952)
• Sons of the American Revolution

Sources

1. ^ Picknett, et al., p. 252.
2. ^ Gould, Peter (2005-04-08). "Europe | Holding history's largest funeral". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4421081.stm. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
3. ^ The Orders, Decorations and Medals of Sir Winston Churchill - The Churchill Centre
4. ^ Plumpton, John (Summer 1988). "A Son of America Though a Subject of Britain". Finest Hour (60). http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/biography/redux/churchill-honored-with-us-citizenship. 
5. ^ Rasor, Eugene L. Winston S. Churchill, 1874-1965: a comprehensive historiography and annotated bibliography, p. 205. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. ISBN 978-0-313-30546-7.
6. ^ Gideon Hill. "The Richest Man in Horseracing" (PDF). The Baker Street Journal. http://www.bakerstreetjournal.com/images/Hill_Richest_Man_in_Horseracing.pdf. Retrieved 2007-04-10. 
7. ^ Statesmanship - The Churchill Centre
8. ^ ^{a b c} The Orders, Decorations and Medals of Sir Winston Churchill by Douglas Russell
9. ^ "Questions Answered: Winston Churchill in uniform and Ralph or Rafe". The Times. 13 September 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/court_and_social/article4742261.ece. Retrieved 14 June 2010. 
10. ^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 41083. p. 3227. 28 May 1957. Retrieved 2010-10-31.
11. ^ "Record from The Nomination Database for the Nobel Prize in Peace, 1901-1956". Nobel Foundation. http://nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/nomination.php?action=show&showid=3319. Retrieved 2010-5-14. ^{[dead link]}
12. ^ "Literature 1953". Nobelprize.org. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1953/. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
13. ^ "Winston Churchill hero file". AU: More or Less. http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/churchill.html. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
14. ^ "Internationaler Karlspreis zu Aachen - Detail". DE: Karlspreis. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070927001140/http://www.karlspreis.de/index.php?id=12&doc=7. Retrieved 2009-8-9. 
15. ^ "Chartered Institute of Building". Wikipedia. Wiki Media. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIOB. Retrieved 2009-8-9. 
16. ^ Armbrester, Margaret E. (1992). The Civitan Story. Birmingham, AL: Ebsco Media. pp. 96–97. 
17. ^ "Colonels web site". Kycolonels.org. http://kycolonels.org/index.cgi?id=54. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
18. ^ "Kentucky: Secretary of State - Kentucky Colonels". Sos.ky.gov. 2006-10-26. http://www.sos.ky.gov/executive/kentuckycolonels.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
19. ^ http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums/exhibitions/churchill/^{[dead link]}
20. ^ "Home - USS W.S. Churchill". Churchill.navy.mil. http://www.churchill.navy.mil/. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
21. ^ "1965 Churchill Crown". 24carat.co.uk. http://www.24carat.co.uk/1965crownframe.html. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
22. ^ "Winston Churchill £5 Crown from the British Royal Mint". CoinUpdate.com. http://news.coinupdate.com/winston-churchill-crown-from-the-british-royal-mint-0375/. Retrieved 2010-07-23. 
23. ^ Pol Roger UK: Sir Winston Churchill, accessed 2010-07-12
24. ^ Chris Shillito. "The Churchill Tank". Armourinfocus.co.uk. http://www.armourinfocus.co.uk/a22/. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
25. ^ "GREAT BRITAIN: Man of the Year". Time. 1941-01-06. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,765143,00.html. Retrieved 2010-12-26. 
26. ^ "Winston Churchill, Man of the Year". Time. 1950-01-02. http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19500102,00.html. Retrieved 2010-12-26. 
27. ^ BBC - Great Britons.
28. ^ Sherna Noah (1 January 2004). "Churchill statue 'had the look of Mussolini'". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/churchill-statue-had-the-look-of-mussolini-578159.html. Retrieved 18 August 2011. 
29. ^ "Sir Winston Churchill". Greater London Authority. http://www.london.gov.uk/parliamentsquare/about/churchill.jsp. Retrieved 18 August 2011. 
30. ^ http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32413?docPos=3
31. ^ "Churchill College : Churchill Archives Centre". Chu.cam.ac.uk. 2009-03-06. http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/. Retrieved 2009-08-09. 
32. ^ http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Churchill+NOrway&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.646818,86.572266&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Norway+Rd,+Pittsburgh,+Allegheny,+Pennsylvania+15221&ll=63.428912,10.486708&spn=0.004358,0.021136&z=16
33. ^ http://users.skynet.be/hendrik/eng/39luxemb.html
34. ^ Cuban Campaign Medal, 1895-98
35. ^ Khedive's Sudan Medal 1896 -1908