Why Winston Churchill belongs in the pantheon of Scottish political giants

Sir Winston Churchill | Getty Images

One of the more ironic coincidences in Scottish history is that Winston Churchill's birthday is on St. Andrew's Day.

Today, Scots do not seem overly eager to claim the former wartime premier. Churchill's sesquicentennial birthday occurred on Saturday and passed without fanfare in Scotland.

The oversight seems more bizarre given that Churchill served as Dundee's Member of Parliament for nearly 15 years. That he lost his Scottish seat in 1922 to a prohibitionist candidate only doubles down on the view that Churchill was chased out of a country where he had won five elections.

Sir Winston Churchill | Getty Images

Over his 90-year life, Churchill had an affinity for Johnny Walker whisky, Drambuie liqueur, Dundee cake, and Scottish grouse. Before settling on Chartwell as his lifetime family home in 1922, he even considered purchasing a small estate near Edinburgh. The former prime minister considered Sir Harry Lauder a friend, calling him “Scotland's greatest ever ambassador”. His first biographer was the aptly named MacCallum Scott.

Churchill's wife Clementine was of Scottish ancestry and a granddaughter of the 10th Earl of Airlie. Throughout his career, he made frequent trips to Balmoral to attend upon the sovereign and served as rector of the universities of Aberdeen in 1914-18 and Edinburgh in 1929-32. Churchill's son Randolph even unsuccessfully contested the Ross and Cromarty by-election of 1936.

His first ministerial position was as Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, made by Scots Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1905. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty at Archerfield House, his home on the coast of East Lothian, in 1911.

Churchill commanded the 6th battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front during World War 1. His adjutant was Major Andrew Dewar Gibb (a founder member of the SNP in 1934 and led the party from 1936 to 1940). Dewar Gibb recorded Churchill saying to his troops, "Although an Englishman, it was in Scotland that I found the three best things in my life: my wife, my constituency and my regiment."

Archibald Sinclair, another Scot who would go on to lead the Liberal Party from 1935 to 1945 and worked in Churchill's wartime government, served as his second-in-command.

While MP for Dundee, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, Minister of Munitions, and Secretary of State for both War and Air. These ministries were deeply involved in Scotland and her armed forces and necessitated frequent visits north of the border.

During the Second World War, every aspect of Churchill's administration included and affected Scotland. Churchill formed the Commandos from Scotland in 1940 and ordered the creation of the Scapa Flow bridges that same year.

There was a raft of senior Scottish MPs, including future prime minister Alex Douglas-Home, serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Churchill's wartime government. His four Scottish secretaries of state during World War II represented all major government parties. Churchill picked Labour's Tom Johnston in 1941, hoping his socialist credentials could help prevent a repeat of the Red Clydesdale disruption during World War I. Johnston persuaded Churchill to devolve some of the UK's powers to a Scottish Council of State and a Scottish Council of Industry to counter the influence of the Scottish nationalists.

There are only a handful of nods to Churchill in Scotland, including a bust in the City of Edinburgh Council building, the Churchill suite in the Prestonfield Hotel, and a tree planted by Churchill in 1946 at the Dalmeny Estate, the family seat of the Earldom of Rosebery. The Edinburgh Central Library has a plaque honouring suffragist Elsie Inglis, which includes a dedication from Churchill saying, "She will shine forever in history."

In 2008, a privately funded plaque commemorating Churchill's campaign headquarters was unveiled in the Dundee Queen's Hotel. There is also a copy of Churchill's 1909 letter to his wife Clementine, in which he famously lamented: "This city will kill me. Halfway through my kipper this morning, an enormous maggot crawled out and flashed his teeth at me."

A plaque marking the centenary of Churchill's first election in Dundee was also unveiled in 2008 by his daughter, Lady Soames. It was vandalised in the summer of 2020. One Dundee historian opined: "A statue of Winston Churchill here would be as welcome for many as a swim through vomit."

In the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a four-foot bronze figure of Churchill by Scots sculptor David McFall (a sketch version of the 1959 statue in Churchill's former constituency of Woodford). Willie Budge's 2011 monument to the Churchill Barriers at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands is just an outline of Churchill made from a rudder.

Every biography and book on Churchill includes references to Scotland, but his affinity for the Scots and his connections are not. So why have we forgotten?

Accusations abound that Churchill deliberately abandoned the 51st Highland Division in 1940, would have abandoned Scotland if the Nazis invaded in 1940, ordered tanks into Glasgow in 1919 and set Black Watch soldiers on his Dundee constituency in 1911.

Churchill has become a convenient stand-in for debates on Scottish and British nationalism, particularly on social media, where he is routinely condemned as a patrician English nationalist and imperialist who carpet-bagged his way into Scotland. Churchill, so synonymous with 'Britishness', is quite clearly anathema to a modern Scottish identity that tries to set itself apart from the misdeeds of the Empire.

Churchill was, in fact, the original Scottish nationalist – and a federalist to boot. As early as 1912, he looked forward to "when a federal system will be established in these Islands which will give Wales and Scotland the control within proper limits of their own Welsh and Scottish affairs."

In a 1942 speech in Edinburgh, Churchill reflected: "I still preserve affectionate memories of the banks of the Tay."

The former prime minister belongs to the pantheon of Scottish political giants. Whatever your personal view, these political, professional and personal connections deserve to be compiled, examined, debated, and better publicly known for an honest understanding of Scotland's not-too-distant past.