Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill (13 February 1849 – 24 January 1895) was a British aristocrat and politician. He was a Tory radical who coined the term "Tory democracy" and participated in the creation of the "National Union of the Conservative Party".
Churchill first came to public attention in 1878 as an outspoken exponent of independent Conservatism criticising the old guard and the Conservative front bench. By 1885, he had formulated the policy of progressive Conservatism which was known as "Tory Democracy". In 1884, at the conference of the National Union of Conservative Associations, he was nominated chairman, despite the opposition of parliamentary leaders. He built up Tory Democracy in towns and the Conservatives won the majority of English boroughs in 1885, strengthened by the part he played in events immediately preceding the fall of the Liberal government.
In 1885, he was appointed Secretary of State for India in the Salisbury government. Despite entering office with a reputation for progressive views on India, his tenure was 'traditionally reactionary', many of his policies focused on exploiting India and his attitude towards the native Indians was similarly illiberal. However, he was most known during that time for his unilateral decision to invade and annex Burma in the very costly Third Anglo-Burmese War.
In 1886, Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons. As chancellor, he attracted both admiration and criticism. He became relatively isolated in the cabinet and tried to use his public support to impose his positions on his colleagues. After proposing a budget that surprised and annoyed his colleagues, he threatened to resign in order to secure his position on armed forces expenditure. To his surprise, the prime minister accepted his resignation – effectively ending his career. For the next few years there was some speculation that he might return to frontline politics, but this did not materialise. His health declined in the 1890s, and he died in early 1895, leaving behind a large personal estate. The elder of his two sons, Winston Churchill, was British prime minister during the Second World War.
Early life
Randolph was born at 3 Wilton Terrace, Belgravia, London, the third son of John Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, and his wife the Marchioness of Blandford (née Lady Frances Vane). As a younger son of a marquess, Randolph had the courtesy title "lord"; as a commoner, he could sit in the House of Commons. His parents became the (seventh) Duke and Duchess of Marlborough upon the death of Randolph's grandfather in 1857.
Churchill attended Tabor's Preparatory School, Cheam, then from 1863 Eton College, where he remained until 1865. He did not stand out either at academic work or sport while at Eton; his contemporaries described him as a vivacious and rather unruly boy. Among the lifelong friendships he made at school were with Arthur Balfour and Archibald Primrose (later Lord Rosebery).
In October 1867, Churchill matriculated at Merton College, Oxford. At Oxford, Primrose – now with his own courtesy title of Lord Dalmeny – was, along with Churchill, a member of the Bullingdon Club, and joined him at the club's champagne-fuelled parties.Frank Harris, My Life and Loves, 1922–1927; p. 483. Randolph was frequently in trouble with the university authorities for drunkenness, smoking in academic dress, and smashing windows at the Randolph Hotel. His rowdy behaviour was infectious, rubbing off on friends and contemporaries; he gained a reputation as an enfant terrible.Leo McKinstry, Rosebery: Statesman in Turmoil, pp. 23, 33. He had a liking for hunting, but was also a well-read historian. He took a second in jurisprudence and modern history in 1870.
Churchill experienced no early doubts but made mistakes, as alluded to in Rosebery's biography.Rosebery, Ld Randolph, (1906);Leo McKinstry, Rosebery: Statesman in Turmoil, p. 58. He never regretted being an early friend and admirer of the Disraelis. His behaviour was, however, the later cause of dissension in his relations with a colder, more aloof, disciplinarian Salisbury. In 1871, Churchill and his elder brother George were initiated into the rites of Freemasonry, as later his son Winston would be.
At the general election of 1874 Churchill was elected to Parliament as Conservative member for Woodstock, near the family seat of Blenheim Palace, defeating George Brodrick, a Fellow of Merton. His maiden speech, delivered in his first session, prompted compliments from William Harcourt and Benjamin Disraeli, who wrote to the Queen of Churchill's "energy and natural flow".
Churchill was a friend of Nathan Rothschild, 1st Baron Rothschild, and received "extensive loans" from the Rothschilds. He reported on the mining industry in South Africa on their behalf, where their agent Cecil Rhodes was consolidating mining deposits which ultimately led to the creation of De Beers.
Personal life and medical condition
Churchill was married at the British Embassy in Paris on 15 April 1874 to Jennie Jerome, daughter of Leonard Jerome, an American businessman. The couple had two sons: Winston and Jack.
In January 1875, weeks after Winston's birth, Churchill made repeated visits to Dr Oscar Clayton.Ted Morgan, Churchill: Young Man in a Hurry, 1874–1915 (1984), p. 23. He had twenty years to live, but suffered from debilitating illness, particularly in his last decade. Quinault, writing in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, theorises that Churchill was probably passing through the stages of secondary syphilis and then tertiary syphilis, but mentions a brain tumour and multiple sclerosis as other possible causes. Whatever the true source of this illness, Churchill was certainly treated for syphilis, and it has been suggested that he may have been suffering from symptoms related to the mercury-based medication which was used in such cases at the time. Clayton was a society doctor and specialist in the treatment of syphilis who worked from his practice at 5 Harley Street. Robson Roose, who was the Churchills' family doctor in the 1880s, had written on syphilis as a root cause of debilitating disease, and subsequently diagnosed it in Churchill's case before referring him to the specialist Thomas Buzzard, and continuing to prescribe potassium iodide and mercury.
According to Frank Harris, who published the allegation in autobiography, My Life and Loves (1922–1927), "Randolph had caught syphilis". He relied on a story by Louis Jennings, an associate of Randolph's who had later fallen out with him. John H. Mather of the National Churchill Library and Center called into question Harris's veracity, and offered the alternative theory of a "left side brain tumour". Mather noted that "[t]here is no indication that Lady Randolph or her sons were infected with syphilis." Additionally, author Richard M. Langworth claims that Roose never actually identified the disease that Randolph was suffering from as syphilis, instead using the term "general paralysis", which in that period "suggested not only syphilis but nervous exhaustion". Langworth also states that there is "no evidence that Roose or Buzzard treated Lord Randolph with mercury or potassium iodide", arguing that "their toxic effects, such as a distinctive grey pallor, would have been evident."
As well as a house in Westminster, Churchill occupied a country house, Banstead Manor, at Cheveley near Newmarket, which he first rented in 1890.Peregrine Churchill, Julian Mitchell, Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill: A Portrait with Letters (1976), p. 165Randolph Spencer Churchill, The Young Churchill (1941), p. 165 In 1891, he had horses in training with J. Ryan at Green Lodge, Newmarket."In & About Newmarket", Strand Magazine, Vol. II of 1891 (July to December), pp. 166, 168, 174 His wife and sons lived at Banstead while Churchill was away in South Africa during that year.The Young Churchill (1941), pp. 87–88, 323
Career The "Fourth Party"
It was not until 1878 that he came to public notice as the exponent of independent Conservatism. He made a series of furious attacks on Sir Stafford Northcote, R. A. Cross, and other prominent members of the "old gang". George Sclater-Booth (afterwards 1st Baron Basing), President of the Local Government Board, was a specific target, and the minister's County Government Bill was fiercely denounced as the "crowning dishonour to Tory principles", and the "supreme violation of political honesty". Churchill's attitude, and the vituperative fluency of his invective, made him a parliamentary figure of some importance before the dissolution of the 1874 parliament, though he was not yet taken quite seriously, owing to his high-pitched hysterical laugh.
In the new parliament of 1880 he speedily began to play a more notable role. Along with Henry Drummond Wolff, John Gorst and occasionally Arthur Balfour, he made himself known as the audacious opponent of the Liberal administration and the unsparing critic of the Conservative front bench. The "fourth party", as it was nicknamed, at first did little damage to the government, but awakened the opposition from its apathy; Churchill roused the Conservatives by leading resistance to Charles Bradlaugh, the member for Northampton, who as an avowed atheist or agnostic was prepared to take the parliamentary oath only under protest. Stafford Northcote, the Conservative leader in the Lower House, was forced to take a strong line on this difficult question by the energy of the fourth party.
The controversy over Bradlaugh's seat showed that Churchill was a parliamentary champion who added to his audacity much tactical skill and shrewdness. He continued to play a conspicuous part throughout the parliament of 1880–85, targeting William Ewart Gladstone as well as the Conservative front bench, some of whose members, particularly Sir Richard Cross and William Henry Smith, he singled out for attack when they opposed the reduced Army estimates. This would be the ostensible cause for his resignation because Salisbury failed to support his Chancellor in cabinet. They opposed his unionist politics of 'economising' by Tory tradition, making Randolph grow to hate cabinet meetings.
From the beginning of the Egyptian imbroglio, Churchill was emphatically opposed to almost every step taken by the government. He declared that the suppression of Urabi Pasha's rebellion was an error, and the restoration of the khedive's authority a crime. He called Gladstone the "Moloch of Midlothian", for whom torrents of blood had been shed in Africa. He was equally severe on the domestic policy of the administration, and was particularly bitter in his criticism of the Kilmainham Treaty and the rapprochement between the Gladstonians and the Parnellites.
Tory Democracy
By 1885 he had formulated the policy of progressive Conservatism which was known as "Tory Democracy". He declared that the Conservatives ought to adopt, rather than oppose, popular reforms, and to challenge the claims of the Liberals to pose as champions of the masses. His views were largely accepted by the official Conservative leaders in the treatment of the Gladstonian Representation of the People Act 1884. Churchill insisted that the principle of the bill should be accepted by the opposition, and that resistance should be focused on the refusal of the government to combine with it a scheme of redistribution. The prominent, and on the whole judicious and successful, part he played in the debates on these questions, still further increased his influence with the rank and file of the Conservatives in the constituencies.