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Descriptif du lot
Winston Churchill was appointed as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster after he stepped down from his role as First Lord of the Admiralty in May 1915, following heavy losses in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. He would serve in this role from May to November, allowing for the precise dating of this despatch box to 1915, the height of The Great War. Whilst in this role Churchill was officially tasked with overseeing the administration of the Duchy of Lancaster, an estate owned by the British sovereign and run to provide an income for the incumbent monarch, however, whilst a much less notable or challenging role than his previous as First Lord of the Admiralty, it kept Churchill in the cabinet and allowed him to remain at the disposal of Herbert Asquith the then Prime Minister (served 1908-1916).
1915 was a turbulent year for Churchill both politically and personally, having taken personal responsibility for the Gallipoli campaign which weighed heavily on him. At the age of forty in the summer of 1915, during his period as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he would take up painting for the first time whilst on a family holiday in Sussex. This interest became a passion which would famously stay with him for the rest of his life, he would become a prolific painter with paintings submitted under the pseudonym ‘David Winter’ (to avoid bias) being accepted and exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, in 1947 and with Churchill being appointed as an Honorary Academician the following year.
After stepping down as Chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster in November 1915, Churchill would go on to seek active service on the Western Front, serving as Lieutenant Colonel with the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers before returning to politics full-time later in 1916.
A closely related despatch box by John Peck & Son, of later date, with embossed inscription ‘The Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill M. P./Secretary of State for the Colonies’ was sold from the collection of Churchill’s daughter, Mary Soames, Daughter of History: Mary Soames and the Legacy of Churchill, Sotheby’s, London, 17 December, 2014, lot 68 (£158,500).
1915 was a turbulent year for Churchill both politically and personally, having taken personal responsibility for the Gallipoli campaign which weighed heavily on him. At the age of forty in the summer of 1915, during his period as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he would take up painting for the first time whilst on a family holiday in Sussex. This interest became a passion which would famously stay with him for the rest of his life, he would become a prolific painter with paintings submitted under the pseudonym ‘David Winter’ (to avoid bias) being accepted and exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, in 1947 and with Churchill being appointed as an Honorary Academician the following year.
After stepping down as Chancellor to the Duchy of Lancaster in November 1915, Churchill would go on to seek active service on the Western Front, serving as Lieutenant Colonel with the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers before returning to politics full-time later in 1916.
A closely related despatch box by John Peck & Son, of later date, with embossed inscription ‘The Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill M. P./Secretary of State for the Colonies’ was sold from the collection of Churchill’s daughter, Mary Soames, Daughter of History: Mary Soames and the Legacy of Churchill, Sotheby’s, London, 17 December, 2014, lot 68 (£158,500).