Returning to Britain, Churchill felt the need to move on. The routine life of a regimental officer was not for him – he had, after all, spent relatively little time serving with the regiment of which he was supposedly a member. He was by now a well-known writer, with a burgeoning new income stream. He had for some time cultivated contacts within the Conservative Party, making his first political speech as early as 1897. In spring 1899, Churchill resigned from the British Army. It was time to make the leap into politics.
Young Radical: Early Political Career, 1899–1914
As so often in his life, Churchill would need to show considerable patience and skill in order to secure the first rung on the political ladder. Once established, however, he became one of the most precocious and well-known politicians of his generation. By the time the First World War began in 1914, Churchill would have commanded high office, crossed the floor of the House, won elections, lost them – and made as many enemies as friends.
Things did not begin well. In June 1899 he secured the Conservative Party nomination to fight a by-election in the constituency of Oldham, in the north of England. Public opinion was running in favour of the Liberal Party; he fought an awkward campaign, wrong-footing himself on religious issues. Churchill lost by a narrow margin. In October of that year the Second Boer War broke out in South Africa. Disillusioned with his early political efforts, he signed a contract with the Manchester Post to report on the conflict.
Back to War: South Africa
Once again Winston Churchill was off in search of adventure. Once again, too, he was to find it. Shortly after his arrival in Cape Town, Churchill travelled north towards the fighting. Boer guerrillas ambushed his train and, although now a civilian, Churchill organized a spirited defence of the encircled railway wagons. Superior numbers prevailed and he was taken prisoner, incarcerated in rough conditions in Pretoria. Undaunted, Churchill managed to escape from gaol and secrete himself on board a goods train, headed for Lorenço Marques in Portuguese East Africa. From there he made his way back to Cape Town and immediately attached himself to the forthcoming British military offensive. Unable to settle in the role of a civilian journalist, he teamed up with his cousin, the 9th Duke of Marlborough, and rode with the British cavalry.
Covering the Boer War for the Manchester Post, 1899.
All of this, of course, made great copy. He was even depicted as a ‘British General’ in a range of cigarette cards. In 1900 a general election was called and Churchill returned to England to re-fight the Oldham seat for the Conservatives. This time, on the back of widespread public recognition, he won. Finally, it seemed, Winston Churchill’s soldiering days were over. He would follow his father into the House of Commons; at last, he was a politician.
First political steps
Despite Churchill’s growing reputation as an author, he still found that it was difficult to make ends meet. Members of Parliament did not receive a salary at this time and so he was not alone in using the long parliamentary recess to secure further income. He went on a lecture tour, both in the USA and in Britain. On these occasions he would draw on his many adventures, relating these to the issues of the day. Churchill was not a natural, or particularly gifted, speaker. He also had a mild speech impediment, which did not help matters. As with many things in his life, his subsequent reputation for public speaking came through solid application. He worked at it – literally crafting every word and setting it out on paper before rising to speak. This apprenticeship in the lecture halls of the USA and during those early days in the House of Commons was eventually to stand him in good stead. For he encountered political opposition too, heckling and abuse – particularly in the USA, where the Boer War remained controversial.
His maiden speech in Parliament took place in February 1901, by which time he was already building a reputation as a troublemaker. Ironically, it poked fun at his future friend and colleague, David Lloyd George: ‘It might perhaps have been better, upon the whole, if the hon. Member, instead of making his speech without moving his Amendment, had moved his Amendment without making his speech.’ The barbed wit was a foretaste of things to come.
He was uncomfortable with the Conservative Party’s stance on free trade (the party favoured tariffs). On other issues he found himself to the left of the mainstream. He became associated with a group known as the ‘Hughligans’, after Hugh Cecil, their ringleader. Consequently, when Arthur Balfour formed a Conservative government in 1902, the troublesome Churchill had no chance of a ministerial position. He became increasingly embittered, finally resigning from the party to join the Liberal opposition in May 1904. Many in the Conservative Party would never forget what they saw as an act of betrayal.
Indeed it was as a Liberal, and as a radical one too, that Winston Churchill was to make his political name. In 1906 the country went to the polls, with Churchill standing as a Liberal in the previously Conservative seat of Manchester Northwest. He won, and was immediately appointed Under Secretary of State for the Colonies by Liberal Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. He was now a government minister at the age of just 31.
It was during this period that Churchill became close to David Lloyd George, a fellow Liberal with high ambition and a reputation for radicalism. Lloyd George was twelve years older, thus becoming something of a paternal mentor to the young firebrand. When Churchill had actually crossed the floor of the House of Commons, he had gone straight to sit by Lloyd George’s side. They formed a powerful axis within the government, pulling it leftwards on questions such as minimum wages and social security. In 1908, Churchill authored The Untrodden Field in Politics, which articulated some of these views. He had kept up his other writing as well, having published a masterly biography of his father a few years earlier.
Climbing the ministerial ladder
As a junior minister, Churchill was learning his trade. For civil servants, he could be both infuriating and endearing. He was willing to listen and learn, respecting those in the Colonial Office who had greater knowledge and experience. On the other hand he meddled, involving himself in a wide range of issues, intervening in minor matters in a manner that might now be termed micro-management. His political superior, Lord Elgin, sat in the House of Lords and thus could not contribute to debate in the more politicized lower chamber. Churchill took his place, acting as government spokesman on weighty issues that would not normally be entrusted to such a junior minister. He became interested in security problems in the African and Asian colonies, consistently and effectively opposing the use of disproportionate force against tribal peoples.
Churchill’s personal life was transformed during the same period. Although infatuated with plenty of women, he was often gauche and ill at ease in their presence. His marriage proposals had been turned down twice, by different women, and this must have hurt. In 1908, though, he married Clementine Hozier, a woman with a similar background to his own with whom he was to form a remarkably successful partnership. Churchill was completely loyal to Clementine, although their disagreements could sometimes lead to shouting and thrown crockery. She was highly intelligent, with strident radical opinions with which she would often attempt to influence her politician husband.