How the Churchill Trophy
Came to the World
A report based on the documents at the Churchill Archives Centre,
Churchill College, Cambridge University

Takaaki Kanzaki
Professor at the School of Economics
Advisor to the English Speaking Society
Kwansei Gakuin University

Kwansei Gakuin Archives

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

How the Churchill Trophy
Came to the World
A report based on the documents at the Churchill Archives Centre,
Churchill College, Cambridge University

Takaaki Kanzaki
Professor at the School of Economics
Adviser to the English Speaking Society
Kwansei Gakuin University

Translated by Eiko Ashizuka with the Collaboration of Steven Silver
神崎高明「チャーチル杯創設の経緯 ～ケンブリッジ大学チャーチル・カレッジの資料から～」『学院史編纂室便り』第 36 号、2012 年 11 月 1 日、2-6 頁
http://www.kwansei.ac.jp/gakuinshi/LEFT.htm

Kwansei Gakuin Archives-2-

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World:
A Report Based on the Documents at the Churchill Archives Centre,
Churchill College, Cambridge University

1. The Birth of the “Churchill Trophy Contest”
Since 1958, the English Speaking Society (henceforth ESS) at
Kwansei Gakuin University has been holding an English
speech contest for the Churchill Trophy, inviting the seniorhigh school students as the contestants, and honoring thelate Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), the former British
Prime Minister, by using his name for the contest. “The
Churchill Trophy Contest” was not the earliest speech
contest for the high school students organized by the ESS.
Even before the Second World War, the ESS had organized
the English speech contest for the high school students.
According to the two history books of Kwansei Gakuin,1) the
Kwansei Gakuin ESS gave the first English Oratorical Contest
for the junior high school students (prewar education system) in
1928. After the war, in 1950, the ESS gave the first interKei-han-shin (Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe) junior and senior high school
English oratorical contest.
Two years later, thiscontest expanded
into the “All-Japan
English OratoricalContest for theMainichi Trophy,”which
includedsenior high school
All-Japan English Oratorical Contest for the Mainichi Trophy, 1952
-3-

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

students. Though this contest carried the phrase “All-Japan”
in the title, most of the participants in this contest werelimited to those from the senior high schools in the Kinki
area and the area west. In order to make the contest more
inclusive, two epoch-making projects took place in 1958,
during Mr. Masashi Saho’s tenure as the president of the ESS.
The first one was to co-sponsor the contest with the Aoyama
Gakuin University ESS in Tokyo in order to increase theparticipation from the Kanto area. The other was to namethe contest in honor of Sir Winston Churchill who was an
orator of high renown. According to The Kwansei Gakuin
University English Speaking Society: A Centennial History, it
was Mr. Yozo Tanimoto, then an ESS alumnus, who put forth
the idea that the ESS would write a letter to Sir Winston
Churchill and receive his permission to crown the contest
with his name. The main person in charge of realizing those
two challenges was Mr. Munehiro Yamaguchi, who was thethen-chairman of the committee on speeches in the ESS.
The project to realize the joint venturing with Aoyama
Gakuin went smoothly, but the larger issue was how to
obtain access to Sir Winston Churchill. A big question markwas whether he would give his approval. A letter in English
was written by the ESS head, Mr. Masashi Saho, and was sent
to Sir Winston together with the letter of recommendationby the President of Kwansei Gakuin, Mr. Hidejiro Kato, via
the British consulate general in Osaka.
Mr. Tommy
Uematsu, an ESS alumnus, then a reporter for the Mainichi
Daily News, served as a facilitator to put the letter in thehands of English consulate general in Osaka. Two months
later, the answer arrived in the form of a letter signed by Sir
Winston Churchill himself in which he gave his approval tothe project via the consulate general. With this, in 1958, the-4-“7th All Japan English Oratorical Contest for the Mainichi
Trophy” made a new start revising the title as the “7thAnnual All-Japan Inter-Senior High School English OratoricalContest for the Churchill Trophy.” During this year, for the
first time, the preliminary contest in the Kanto area was heldat Aoyama Gakuin University, and the final contest was heldat Kwansei Gakuin University. On the program of thecontest, the letter from Sir Winston Churchill appeared.
Since then, Kwansei Gakuin University and Aoyama Gakuin
University alternate with each other each year in holding thefinal contest for the “Churchill Trophy.” In November 2012,
the 61st contest was held at Kwansei Gakuin University. The
above is the summary of the information the writer has
obtained from the ESS alumni as well as the documents
contained in The Kwansei Gakuin University English
Speaking Society: A Centennial History.
2. The Missing Letter from Sir Winston Churchill
Unfortunately, the original letter sent by Sir Winston
Churchill in 1958 has been lost. Since the letter wasaddressed to Professor Hidejiro Kato, then-President ofKwansei Gakuin, it was presumed that it would be kept at
the university’s head office. In 1997, when a Centennial
History of the ESS was being compiled, a search for theoriginal letter was conducted at the Gakuin head office;however, the letter was not found. According to the head
office staff, in 1969 the head office of the university was
occupied by the All-Campus Joint Struggle Committee, andmany documents were lost during the confusion; the letter
might have been lost during that time. While the original
letter is still missing, a copy of letter was published in The
KG Times, in April, 1958, the text of which is as follows:-5-How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

Dear Mr. President,
I am indeed obliged to you for the compliment you pay me inwishing to name your prize for oratory after me, and I amvery glad to give my consent.
Yours sincerely,
Winston S. Churchill

Only a few older ESS alumni, as part of their nostalgic
recollections of days gone by, have spoken of the letter thatwas sent to Sir Winston Churchill and of the reply signed by
Sir Winston himself. However, given that these events took
place more than a half-century ago, the existence of theletter has long been forgotten by most of the alumni.
3. A Letter from England
In July, 2003, a letter was delivered to the head
office in the administrative building of Kwansei Gakuin. The
letter was signed by Mr. Mark Holland, president of Gale
International Limited in England, and Mr. James Joll, who
was the representative of Sir Winston Churchill Archive
Trust. Ms. Misuzu Miyasaka, who was working at thepresident’s office in Kwansei Gakuin at the time, called to
inform me about the arrival of the letter, as I was then acting
as an advisor to the ESS. The letter said that the documents
related to Sir Winston Churchill, which consisted of morethan a million letters, had been preserved at the Churchill
Archives Centre of Churchill College in Cambridge, and all
the letters were planned to be microfilmed for the purposeof preserving them. Among the letters were a small numberof documents from Kwansei Gakuin University, and they
asked for permission to microfilm these documents. The-6-

letter further stated that, upon request, they would send theuniversity copies of the related documents when the
microfilming had been completed.
As Ms. Miyasaka belonged to the ESS when she was a
Kwansei Gakuin student, she remembered the Churchill
Trophy, and provided me with a copy of the letter. Upon
reading it, I was convinced that the letters related to the
Churchill Trophy must be included in the file related toKwansei Gakuin at the Churchill Archives Centre. I informed
the university headquarters, as an ESS advisor, that I was
absolutely positive about microfilming the aforementioned
letters at the Churchill Archives Centre since no documents
remained on our side regarding how the Churchill Trophycame to be realized.
Hence a letter of approval in
microfilming the letters related to Kwansei Gakuin was sent
to England addressed to Mr. Mark Holland and Mr. James
Joll.
4. A Visit to Cambridge
Sometime later, I wrote to Gale International Limited asking
to let us know if the microfilming had been completed.
Several years passed with no reply to my inquiry. Periodic
searches were made through the Churchill Archives Centre
on the Internet database, and I knew that the process of
microfilming itself was gradually being conducted.
However, no documents regarding Kwansei Gakuin was
found through the several searches I made in the years
following. After several more years had passed, a search of
the system was made once again, also in vain. Eventually, I
got an opportunity to visit England two years later in thesummer in 2012. Prior to my visit, I searched the Churchill-7-

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

Archives Centre on the Internet one more time. The
following line caught my eye: “Kwansei Gakuin University,
Uegahara, Japan, on naming of English Oratorical Contest
after him [Sir Winston].” I knew then that the microfilmingof the letters regarding the Churchill Trophy had been
completed. I sent a message at once to Ms. Sophie Bridges,
a curator at the Churchill Archives Centre, informing herthat I would be visiting Cambridge to read the documentson the Churchill Trophy in summer. I received a kindmessage telling me that she would be arranging for my useof the reading room on the appointed day. My plan was
settled. I visited Cambridge University in early July justbefore the opening of the London Olympic Games.
Professor Yayoi Okada of the School of Sociology andProfessor Masanori Ito of the School of Business
Administration were then working at Cambridge as visiting
professors, the former at Darwin College and the latter at
Clare Hall. They kindly took me to Churchill College.
Churchill College was located in the North West part ofCambridge University; it was quiet, in contrast to Trinity
College and Kings College, which were located in the central
part of Cambridge and thus crowded with tourists. Schoolbuildings were seen on the beautiful green grass. The
Churchill Archives Centre was on the second floor of thebuilding next to Jock Colville Hall. At the reception, Mr.
Andrew Riley, a veteran curator, welcomed me without
asking my name, saying, “Welcome! I’ve been waiting foryou. Sophie is not at her desk right now, but I’ve heard
about you from her.” I was guided to the reading room andwas offered a seat. He said that he had opened themicrofilm with the reference number I had told them of
beforehand. Out of 300 letters, I was to search for the-8-letters on the Churchill Trophy. At first, I thought it would
take a large amount of time to locate the letters. However, I
remembered I had read that the file number for the lettersrelated to the KG ESS was placed in the last part of thefolder. I scrolled through the film rapidly to the end andfound the line “Kwansei Gakuin.” “I made it,” I said tomyself, and I read the letter in detail. Presuming that the
number of letters would be two or three at most, I scrolledback through the film. One after another “Kwansei Gakuin”
kept popping up. It was a very pleasant surprise to findtwenty letters all together in the end. I ordered copies of all
the letters. With the printed copies in hand, I traveled backto London and read through the letters in the hotel roomthat night with great care.
Churchill Archives Centre

Entrance

5. Letters Exchanged between Kwansei Gakuin and
Sir Winston Churchill
Of the aforementioned twenty letters, eight were from
Kwansei Gakuin to Sir Winston Churchill; six were from theoffice of Sir Winston, including three from Sir Winston
himself and three from his private secretary; four letterswere from Sir Winston’s private secretary to Sir Winston; one-9-How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

from Sir Winston’s private secretary to the British Ministry ofForeign Affairs, and; one from the British Ministry of Foreign
Affairs to Sir Winston’s private secretary. Of them, eight
letters sent from Kwansei Gakuin had been microfilmed
from the original letters. The remaining letters had been
microfilmed from the duplicates.
The first letter from Kwansei Gakuin to Sir Winston Churchill
was dated February 23rd, 1958. The letters were from Mr.
Masashi Saho, the president of the ESS that year, and Mr.
Munehiro Yamaguchi, the chairman of the committee on
speeches at that time. In this letter, they requested to use
the name of Sir Winston Churchill, renowned for his oratory,
for the speech contest they had been holding since 1952. In
addition, a letter of recommendation dated 22nd, 1958, andwritten by the then-President of Kwansei Gakuin, Professor
Hidejiro Kato, was attached. In this letter, President Katostated that the realization of the Churchill Trophy would
greatly benefit the nurturing of the desire to learn English
among the Japanese youth.
The person in charge on the part of Sir Winston Churchill
was Sir Anthony Montague Browne.2) He was famous forbeing the last private secretary of Sir Winston, who had
worked for the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs before heserved as Sir Winston’s private secretary. He was a closeaide to Sir Winston in his twilight years. After retiring fromhis position as prime minister, Sir Winston would often
come and go between London and southern France, mostly
at La Pausa in Roquebrune-Cap Martin, a well known healthresort.3) While Sir Winston Churchill was staying at La Pausa,
he received a letter from Sir Anthony Browne dated March
1st, 1958. Sir Anthony wrote that the ESS at a Japanese- 10 -

University had requested to use Sir Winston’s name for an
English-language oratorical contest they hosted, calling it
the “Winston Churchill Trophy.” Sir Anthonystated that he could find no reason to decline
the proposal, and even commented on theletter of request having been written in very
well-mannered English.
There also was a letter written by Sir Anthony Browne on thesame date to the private secretary of the Minister of Foreign
Affairs. In it he wrote that Sir Winston Churchill had noreason to decline the proposal from Kwansei Gakuin
University, but he wished to be informed if they have any
reason to decline the proposal. In response, Mr. P. C. M.
Alexander of the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs wrote backto Sir Anthony Browne on March 10th, and stated that
Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no objection to approving
the proposal, since Kwansei Gakuin was a reputable
university. However, as part of the process, they need tosolicit the opinion of the British Embassy in Tokyo. If they
had no objections in approving the proposal, they would
send a letter of approval by Sir Winston to Kwansei Gakuin
University via British Embassy. There should have been no
reason for the objection on the side of Embassy; Sir Anthony
Browne wrote a letter dated March 20th to Mr. Saho,
then-president of the ESS, that the proposal for using thename of Sir Winston would be granted and that he had sent
a letter of approval to President Kato. The letter of approval
sent to President Kato from Sir Winston dated March 20th
arrived via the British consulate, which was the same letter
reported in the KG Times.
Following the approval, a letter dated April 2nd was sent to- 11 -

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

Sir Winston Churchill from Mr. Masashi Saho, president of
the ESS, and Mr. Yamaguchi Munehiro, the Chairman of theCommittee on Speeches. In the letter they wrote that theywould make the contest worthy of his name. When thecontest for that year ended, Mr. Yamaguchi wrote a letter
dated January 12th, 1959 to Sir Winston introducing the
program of the contest in detail. He also reported that thecontest was held under the joint auspices of Kwansei Gakuin
University and Aoyama Gakuin University with manyjunior high school students participating from all
the regions of Japan, and he informed him thatthe contest had successfully completed.
I had thought that the above would be the whole story of the
Churchill Trophy letters, but actually, more letters had been
exchanged between the ESS and Sir Winston. In the
Churchill Archives Centre, two letters were found, one fromPresident Takashi Komiya of Kwansei Gakuin dated
September 25th, 1960, and the other dated the same day
under joint signature, from Mr. Taichi Itoh, president of the
ESS and Mr. Masayuki Arita, the Chairman of the Committeeon Speeches. In the letters, Kwansei Gakuin University
requested Sir Winston to write a message addressed to theparticipants of the contest. On October 6th, Sir Anthony
Browne sent a draft to Sir Winston, which was then sent from
Sir Winston to Kwansei Gakuin. The letter reads as follows:
I send my good wishes to those competing in the All Japan
Inter-Senior-High-School English Oratorical Contest. It is
most commendable and interesting that you should compete
in this way and so add to your knowledge of the flowering of
the English Language.

- 12 -On September 30th, 1961, similar letters, one fromPresident Komiya and the other from both Mr. Koichi
Yamada, president of the ESS, and Mr. Takao Watanabe,
Chief Committee for the Oratorical Contest, were sent. In
response, Sir Anthony Browne again advised Sir Winston tosend a message to Kwansei Gakuin as requested, for heconsidered the contest would exert a good influence on therelationship between Britain and Japan.
Sir
Winston agreed and wrote the following message
dated November 24th to Kwansei Gakuin:
I send my good wishes to the competitors in the English
Oratorical Contest.
I hope that this competition willcontribute to the knowledge of the English language in Japanand add to the understanding and friendship between our two
countries.

That is all that has been archived at the Churchill Archives
Centre. There is no evidence of any further communication
between Sir Winston Churchill and Kwansei Gakuin. One
possibility is that the Churchill Trophy Contest had become
established as a nationwide speech contest by the year
1962 onward, and there had been no need of further
requests made of Sir Winston. In 1965, three years later, Sir
Winston Churchill passed away at the age of 90.
6. Conclusion
What is most evident from the letters exchanged between
Kwansei Gakuin University and Sir Winston Churchill is theenthusiasm of the students to establish the Churchill
Trophy and the strong support given by the university. In
addition, the warm cooperation of Sir Anthony Montague- 13 -

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

Browne allowed the university to realize the successful
outcome of the project. Sir Anthony was well-known for his
service as the last private secretary to Sir Winston Churchill,
and it is clear that he took an active and important role inhelping to give birth to the Churchill Trophy. After
reviewing the correspondence, it seems especially
important to reconsider the message of Sir Winston
Churchill that the Churchill Trophy is not only for nurturing
English ability of Japanese high school students, but also fordeepening the mutual friendship and understanding
between the United Kingdom and Japan.
Notes:
1) The History of Kwansei Gakuin, Commemorating 40th
Anniversary of the Founding of the School and The History ofKwansei Gakuin Higher Commercial School Commemorating the20th Anniversary2) Sir Anthony Montague Browne had been Churchill’s private
secretary since 1952 until 1965, the year Churchill passed away.
He wrote Long Sunset: Memoirs of Winston Churchill's Last
Private Secretary. Cassell,1995.
3) For five years since 1956, Churchill made a long stay in
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin twice a year. During his stay there hedevoted himself to writing or painting. A lot would be found about
him in those days in Gilbert, Martin. (ed.) Winston Churchill andEmery Reves: Correspondence, 1937-1964., U of Texas Press,
1997. In addition, the last volume of Churchill’s A History of the
English-Speaking Peoples was published in 1958 and he was in
the midst of writing it, when the letter from the English Speaking
Society of Kwansei Gakuin University asking for the permission
to give his name to the speech contest they were holding.
Letters: Reference CHUR 2/338- 14 -

289

A Letter of February 22, 1958, from President Hidejiro
Kato, Kwansei Gakuin, to Sir Winston Churchill.
A Letter of February 22, 1958, from President Hidejiro
Kato, Kwansei Gakuin, to Sir Winston Churchill(Retyped version).

290

A Letter of February 23, 1958, from Mr. Masashi Saho,
President, ESS, and Mr. Munehiro Yamaguchi,
Chairman of the Committee on Speeches, ESS, to Sir
Winston Churchill

288

A Letter of March 1, 1958, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to Sir Winston Churchill.

287

A Letter of March 1, 1958, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to Mr. R. J. Langridge,
British Foreign Office.
A Letter of March 1, 1958, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to Mr. R. J. Langridge,
British Foreign Office (Retyped version).

286

A Letter of March 10, 1958, from Mr. P. C. M. Alexander,
British Foreign Office, to Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary.

284

A Letter of March 20, 1958, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to Mr. Masashi Saho,
President, ESS.

283

A Letter of March 20, 1958, from Sir Winston Churchill
to President Hidejiro Kato, Kwansei Gakuin.
A Letter of March 20, 1958, from Sir Winston Churchill
to President Hidejiro Kato, Kwansei
Gakuin (Retyped version).

282

A Letter of April 2, 1958, from Mr. Masashi Saho,- 15 -

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

President, ESS, and Mr. Munehiro Yamaguchi,
Chairman of the Committee on Speeches, ESS, to Sir
Winston Churchill.
279

A Letter of January 12, 1959, from Mr. Munehiro
Yamaguchi, Chairman of Speech Contest, ESS, to Sir
Winston Churchill.

278

A Letter of September 25, 1960, from President Takashi
Komiya, Kwansei Gakuin, to Sir Winston Churchill.

277

A Letter of September 25, 1960, from Mr. Taichi Itoh,
President, ESS, and Mr. Masayuki Arita, Chairman of
the Committee on Speeches, ESS, to Sir Winston
Churchill.

276

A Letter of October 6, 1960, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to Sir Winston Churchill.

275

A Letter of November 26, 1960, from Sir Winston
Churchill to President Takashi Komiya, Kwansei
Gakuin.
A Letter of November 26, 1960, from Sir Winston
Churchill to President Takashi Komiya, Kwansei
Gakuin (Retyped version).

297

A Letter of September 30, 1961, from President Takashi
Komiya, Kwansei Gakuin, to Sir Winston Churchill.

298

A Letter of September 30, 1961, from Mr. Koichi
Yamada,President, ESS, and Mr. Takao Watanabe, Chief
Committee on the Oratorical Contest, ESS, to Sir
Winston Churchill.

296

A Letter of October 12, 1961, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to Sir Winston Churchill.

295

A Letter of October 13, 1961, from Sir Anthony Montague- 16 -

293

Browne, Private Secretary, to Sir Winston Churchill.
A Letter of October 17, 1961, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary, to President Takashi Komiya,
Kwansei Gakuin.

292

A Letter of October 17, 1961, from Sir Anthony Montague
Browne, Private Secretary to Mr. Koichi Yamada,President, ESS, and Mr. Takao Watanabe, Chief
Committee on the Oratorical Contest, ESS.

294

A Letter of November 24, 1961, from Sir Winston
Churchill to President Takashi Komiya, Kwansei Gakuin.
A Letter of November 24, 1961, from Sir Winston
Churchill to President Takashi Komiya, Kwansei Gakuin(Retyped version).

Prof. Takaaki Kanzaki at Churchill College, July 9, 2012.

- 17 -

How the Churchill Trophy Came to the World

Kwansei Gakuin Archives, Nishinomiya 662-8501 JAPAN
February 22, 2013
Cover photograph, KG Clock Tower, taken by Kurumi Takagi- 18 -