page_title: Winston Churchill
section_title: Imperialism
hierarchical_section_title: Winston Churchill / Legacy / Imperialism
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the British Empire in 1921 when it was at its height, just before the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. (But 1921-1937 Ireland continued to have the same status as Canada, Newfoundland, the South African Union, Australia and New Zealand, that is to be part of the British Empire as a dominion)
context_page_description: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG OM CH TD DL FRS RA was a British statesman, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led the country to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, Churchill was a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, as leader from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
  Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security.
context_section_description: Whatever his political or reformist attitude at any time, Churchill was always staunchly imperialist and monarchist. He consistently exhibited a "romanticised view" of both the British Empire and the reigning monarch, especially of Elizabeth II during his last term as premier. He has been described as a "liberal imperialist" who saw British imperialism as a form of altruism that benefited its subject peoples because "by conquering and dominating other peoples, the British were also elevating and protecting them".
  Roy Jenkins concluded his biography of Churchill by comparing him with another great imperialist, W. E. Gladstone, whom Jenkins recognised as "undoubtedly" the greatest prime minister of the nineteenth century. When he began his biography, Jenkins regarded Gladstone as the greater man but changed his mind in the course of writing. He concluded his work by ranking Churchill:
  .....with all his idiosyncracies, his indulgences, his occasional childishness, but also his genius, his tenacity and his persistent ability (to be) larger than life, as the greatest ever (occupant of) 10 Downing Street.
  The view of Churchill as a great man is owed to his leadership of the British people in the Second World War. Even so, his legacy continues to stir intense debate. In particular, some critics have equated his undisputed imperialism with racism. Against this, Addison has argued that it is misleading to describe him as a racist in any modern context because the term as used now bears "many connotations which were alien to Churchill". Addison points out that Churchill opposed anti-Semitism and would never have tried "to stoke up racial animosity against immigrants, or to persecute minorities". He adds that there are many people "so prejudiced for or against Churchill" that they had no interest in critically assessing him as a historical figure; Addison himself considered Churchill to be a "great historic figure".
caption: British Empire at its territorial peak in 1921.
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