Typed Letter Signed by Winston S. Churchill to Denis Kelly, dated 20 October 1959 on Hyde Park Gate Note Paper

Denis Kelly, born 31 January 1916, was the eldest son of Richard Cecil Kelly, OBE and Joan Maisie Kelly, of Hyde Manor, Kingston, Sussex. He was educated at Marlborough College and then Balliol College, Oxford where he studied History. During the war Kelly served first in the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry, (1939-40), then in the Indian Mountain Artillery, in India and Burma, (1941-45).

During this time, (in 1942) he had been called to the Bar: Kelly’s legal career included the Midland and Oxford Circuit; Bencher (1976); Emeritus (1987); Blackstone Pupillage Prize (1947); Harmsworth Law Scholar (1948); Deputy Chairman, Kesteven Quarter Sessions, and Deputy Recorder of Bedford (1968); Alternate Chairman & Burnham Committee (1973).

Kelly was never really devoted to the legal profession so, after the war, he joined Winston Churchill’s team, first as archivist, then as a literary assistant on Churchill’s war memoirs, “The Second World War” and on “A History of the English Speaking Peoples”, from 1947 to 1957.

Kelly’s own publications include an abridged version of Churchill’s “The Second World War” (1959), and (with R. MacLeod) “The Ironside Diaries 1939-40” (1962).

He died on 17 February 1990.

The letter is in fine condition but for the creases where it was folded to send in the mail.

Item #1179