This article documents the career of Winston Churchill in Parliament from its beginning in 1900 to the start of his term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in World War II.

Churchill entered Parliament as member for Oldham in 1900 as a Conservative. He changed parties in 1904 after increasing disagreement with the mainstream Conservative policy of protectionist tariffs preferentially favouring trade with the British Empire, joining the Liberals and winning the seat of Manchester North West. His political ascent was rapid; he became, successively, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty, all before he was 40 years old.

His career suffered a severe check in 1915, after his support for the failed Dardanelles Campaign during World War I, and the subsequent formation of the first Coalition. Temporarily leaving politics, he served on the Western Front before rejoining the Government after David Lloyd George had replaced H. H. Asquith as prime minister. He served as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies before the downfall of the Coalition in 1922 when he also lost his seat in Parliament.

After contesting two seats unsuccessfully as an independent, he was elected to Epping in 1924 with the backing of local Conservatives, officially rejoining the Conservative Party the following year. He immediately became Chancellor of the Exchequer, retaining the post until the fall of the Conservative government in 1929, and presided over the return of the United Kingdom to the Gold Standard exchange rate system. In opposition after 1929, Churchill became isolated, opposing Indian independence, advocating the unpopular policy of rearmament in the face of a resurgent Germany, and supporting King Edward VIII in the abdication crisis. By 1939, he had been out of Cabinet for ten years, and his career seemed all but over.

Early years in Parliament

Entry into politics

Churchill discussed his political convictions in letters to his mother and made a number of unflattering comments about the Conservative government including:

His beliefs were significantly influenced by those of his father, Lord Randolph, after whose early death he wrote:

Randolph had been a fervent supporter of Ulster Unionism and had played a major part in formulating the policy of "Tory Democracy", though he had chosen a career in the army for Churchill. After a few years of army life Churchill came to realise that he could not hope to support himself on army pay, and writing remained his main source of income throughout his life. His military career would be valuable for giving him the fame needed to enter politics, however, as he wrote to his mother:

His first political appearance was at a meeting of the Conservative Primrose League, in Bath in 1897, while at home on leave from the army in India. Having discovered that the Conservative Party needed speakers, as he later commented: "I surveyed the prospect with the eye of an urchin looking through a pastrycook's window". The speech concerned the benefits to the working man of "Tory Democracy" and was reported in the Morning Post.

His first attempt to enter Parliament was unsuccessful when in July 1899 he was defeated in a by-election for the seat of Oldham in Lancashire. The constituency returned two members of parliament, both Conservatives at the previous election. One of them was ill and sought to retire, and Churchill was chosen as the new candidate. However, before the election the second member died so that two new candidates stood against two respected Liberal candidates, at a time when the popularity of the Conservative government was in decline.

Churchill looked about for a way to improve his public standing after the defeat. He arranged to travel as a war correspondent to South Africa, fortified by a letter of recommendation to the high commissioner, Alfred Milner, from the Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, who had been a friend of his father, and by a promise of a military attachment. His reputation was considerably improved by his war reports published in national newspapers, and by his own military exploits, particularly his capture by and escape from the Boers.

Member for Oldham Churchill stood again for Oldham in the 1900 general election, known as the "Khaki election" because the Conservative government greatly benefited from its success in the Boer war. This time he came second, pushing one of the Liberal candidates into third place, and was elected. In both of these elections, his campaign expenses were paid for by his cousin the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Originally an essay entitled "Churchill: The Aristocratic Adventurer" in Aspects of Aristocracy. Penguin 1994.

Churchill chose not to attend the opening of Parliament in December 1900 and instead embarked on a speaking tour throughout Britain and the United States. With the success of his tour and through his prolific writing in various journals and books, he earned £10,000 for himself in 1899 and 1900 (equivalent to around £500,000 in 2001). Members of Parliament were unpaid and Churchill had inherited almost no money; the income he did inherit from his father's estate, he assigned to his mother in 1903. He took his seat in Parliament in February 1901.

In Parliament, Churchill became associated with a group of Conservative dissidents led by Lord Hugh Cecil called the Hughligans, a play on words with "hooligans". His first major speech in Parliament was an attack on the proposal of Secretary of State for War St John Broderick to expand the army to six corps, three of which would be free to form an expeditionary force overseas. Churchill had prepared his speech for over six weeks and spoke for an hour without notes. The speech showed his rhetorical powers and was compared by commentators at the time to that of his father's first success—also an attack on a cabinet minister of his own party., reprint of the 1970 edition by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London Churchill maintained the campaign in and out of Parliament for some time.

In 1902, Churchill revealed some of his views in an interview at the University of Michigan only published six decades later. In the interview, he spoke candidly about his desire for "the ultimate partition of China", as "the Aryan stock is bound to triumph." He also expressed lack of concern for Russian expansion towards China and India, as "Russia has a justifiable ambition to possess a warm water port. It is really embarrassing to think that 100,000,000 people are without one"—an unusual view during the era of the Great Game.

By 1903, he was drawing away from Lord Hugh's views, although they remained friends – Lord Hugh was Churchill's best man in 1908. He also opposed the Liberal Unionist leader Joseph Chamberlain, whose party was in coalition with the Conservatives. Chamberlain proposed extensive tariffs intended to protect Britain's economic dominance. Churchill then and later supported free trade. In this he was supported by Lord Hugh and other Conservatives, including the then Chancellor of the Exchequer C. T. Ritchie. Chamberlain's Tariff Reform movement gained strength splitting the Conservative-Unionist alliance. Churchill's attacks on the Conservatives continued on a number of topics, his dissatisfaction had many causes. His dissatisfaction grew, he made personal attacks on some of the leaders, including Chamberlain, and was reciprocated; Conservative backbenchers staged a walkout once while he was speaking. and many were personally hostile to him. His own constituency effectively deselected him, the Conservative Association passing a resolution that he "had forfeited their confidence in him." Oldham was an important cotton-spinning centre whose electorate favoured the Unionist policy of Protectionism, which advocated duties on cheap foreign textiles. He continued to sit for Oldham until the next general election.

Crossing the floor Churchill's dissatisfaction continued to grow and, on 31 May 1904 as Parliament resumed following its Whitsun recess, he crossed the floor of the House of Commons, defecting from the Conservatives to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. His cousin Ivor Guest followed him. Suggested reasons for Churchill's changing sides have included the prospect of a ministerial post and salary, a desire to eliminate poverty, and concerns for the working class, but the immediately preceding events were the rift with the Conservative Party over trade tariffs. He may simply have been more sympathetic to the Liberals, despite being personally conservative and traditionalist; in 1962 he reportedly told another MP "I'm a Liberal. Always have been." As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade.

Contemporaries noted that Churchill seemed very like his father, W. S. Blunt writing: In mind and manner he is a strange replica of his father, with all his father's suddenness and awareness, and I should say, more than his father's ability.

That resemblance went far; Churchill dressed like his father, and the Hughligans have been seen as the recreation of Lord Randolph's Fourth Party.Rhodri Williams Defending the Empire: The Conservative Party and British Defence Policy

From 1903 until 1905, Churchill was also engaged in writing Lord Randolph Churchill, a two-volume biography of his father which was published in 1906 and received much critical acclaim. However, filial devotion caused him to soften some of his father's less attractive aspects. Theodore Roosevelt, who had known Lord Randolph, reviewed the book as "a clever, tactful, and rather cheap and vulgar life of that clever, tactful, and rather cheap and vulgar egotist". Historians suggest Churchill used the book in part to vindicate his own career and in particular to justify crossing the floor. Churchill himself later wrote that studying his father's life was a major cause of his disenchantment with the Conservatives.

Growing prominence

When the Liberals took office, with Henry Campbell-Bannerman as prime minister, in December 1905, Churchill became Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Serving under the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Victor Bruce, 9th Earl of Elgin, Churchill dealt with the adoption of constitutions for the defeated Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony and with the issue of 'Chinese slavery' in South African mines. His first speech after taking office, in which he tried to defend Lord Milner while opposing his policies was a failure. Churchill had prepared it in advance, he had rehearsed it before his private secretary. While the speech reads well, it was not suited to the mood of the House, and the Conservatives proclaimed that Churchill was finished. It was a failure of his technique of writing his speeches in advance. But he learned from his mistakes. His speech in which he vainly sought Conservative support for the Boer Constitutions was perhaps his strongest yet: There is a higher authority which we should earnestly desire to obtain. I make no appeal, but I address myself particularly to the Hon. gentlemen opposite, who are long versed in public affairs, and who will not be able all their lives to escape from a heavy South African responsibility. They are the accepted guides of a Party which though a minority in this House, nevertheless embodies nearly half the nation. I will ask them seriously whether they will not pause before they commit themselves to violent or rash denunciation of this great arrangement...with all our majority we can only make it a gift of a Party, they can make it the gift of England.

In the 1906 general election, he won the seat of Manchester North West (carefully selected for him by the party). His electoral expenses were paid for by his uncle Lord Tweedmouth, a senior Liberal.