The wife of Winston Churchill, Clementine Churchill was born in 1885. First home educated, she then briefly attended Berkhansted School for Girls in Hertfordshire.
Clementine Ogilvy Spence Hozier first met Winston Churchill in 1904, in northwest England, at a ball at the home of the Earl and Countess Crewe. They met again four-years later when seated side by side at a dinner party and “connected with a directness and an intellectual energy that surprised them both.”1 Winston called it “the most fortunate event in his life.” He had also dragged his feet to attend.
He proposed to Clementine at Blenheim Palace, in the Churchill family for 300 years, in a small summer house on the property. They honeymooned in Italy. Their 56-year marriage was reported as close and affectionate.
Clementine had a nervous breakdown twice in 1930’s. The public never knew that she suffered from acute anxiety and depression for decades.
During the WWI, Clementine organized get-togethers for munitions workers. In WWII, she was Chairman of the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund and the president of the YWCA War Time Appeal.
For this and other service, she was created a life peer, Baroness Spencer-Churchill, of Chartwell, in 1965. She sat for 12 years. Lady Spencer-Churchill died from a heart attack at her London home, at age 92, surviving 3 of her 5 children. Regretfully, in her later years, she had to sell several of Winston’s portraits to help support herself financially.
She is buried with her husband and children at St. Martin’s Church, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire.
[Clementine was played by Virginia McKenna in The Gathering Storm opposite Richard Burton, by Vanessa Redgrave in the television version, by Dame Harriet Walter in the Netflix drama The Crown, and by Dame Kristin Scott Thomas in the film Darkest Hour.]
1 https://www.facebook.com/reel/1322302116478840
