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Authentic Churchill Signature: Letter from Churchill To Lloyd George + Photograph

A four-page letter from Winston Churchill to David Lloyd George discussing the Home Rule Crisis and other major political issues.
Date: 1912.
Also included, a press photograph (measures approx. 8″ x 10″) of Lloyd George and Winston Churchill on their way to the House of Commons on Budget Day in 1910.

4-page letter on bifolium of Admiralty Yacht stationary, embossed crest at the head of first page, text in the hand of Edward Marsh, with Churchill’s authentic signature and subscription.

A letter with superb content, demonstrative of Churchill and Lloyd George’s relationship, and illuminating the horse-trading surrounding the controversies preoccupying the British government on the eve of the First World War. Following his accession to First Sea Lord in October 1911 Churchill “tended to concentrate on naval matters to the exclusion of everything else”, Lloyd George wrote to him the month before the present letter was telling him., “You have become a water creature. You think we all live in the sea, and all your thoughts are devoted to sea life, fishes and other aquatic creatures” (quoted in Riddell, More Pages from my Diary, p78). This letter clearly demonstrates that this was far from the truth, with Admiralty business only scraping onto the last page, and Churchill’s focus clearly on the Home Rule Bill, and the other contentious legislation with which the Liberals were struggling.

He Tells Lloyd George that “The time has come when action about Ulster must be settled … this ought to be settled one way or the other with the Irish before Parl[iamen]t meets”’ before going on to identify the other divisive issues preventing progress; “The Land Question has now reached a point when the movement must either by disavowed or guided … I want very much to work with you if possible … I see no reason why we should not surmount the winter session. A breakdown now w[oul]d be absolutely fatal. Home Rule, the Welsh Church, the Franchise, the Insurance act, the Parliament Act itself, w[oul]d all founder together. On the other hand, once our Bill have been sent to the Lords the corner will be turned. We can do this if we don’t quarrel among ourselves, if we don’t play the fool over the women, & if we don’t come to bloodshed over Ulster. “In the event the coming of the First World War was to suspend what progress had been made and moved the careers of both the writer and recipient of this letter into a new series of transformations.

The letter is addressed to “My dear David”, and signed off “Yours always Winston S.C.” As Martin Gilbert remarked, “Everybody, even those who did not know him, called Churchill ‘Winston‘. Very few called Lloyd George, ‘David‘: Churchill was one of the few.”

Excellent Condition

Item #607