SPRING 2006 • NUMBER 130 - Winston Churchill

The ChartwellVisitors BookTHE ULTIMATE CHURCHILLIANA? TheChartwell guest book, 224 pages long, isa witness to the comings of goings of thegood and the great (and not so great) in themost crucial years of the 20th century.BY DAVID HATTERFor Churchillians it must be the ultimate inbrowsable documents: 224 pages, 2316 signatures,780 people. Turn the pages, look at thenames, the history of the mid-20th century isevoked by the signatures of those making it.The Visitors Book was used from the moment Churchilltook up residence until the time when he left to spend hislast days at Hyde Park Gate. He moved in on 17 April1922 and Nellie Romilly, Clementine’s sister, was the firstto sign—unhelpfully for us, she omitted the date of hervisit. The first dated signature is Gwendeline (“Goonie”)Churchill, the wife of Jack, Winston’s brother, who visitedon June 28th.Nellie soon made up for the omission, because inthe league table of visitors throughout the life of the book,she ranks third, with seventy-four visits. The top places goto Lord Cherwell, formerly Professor FrederickLindemann, “the Prof” (eighty-six visits); and to SylviaHenley, Clementine’s lifelong friend and cousin (eightythreevisits). It sounds a lot, but the Visitors Book spansforty years and—allowing that there were no visitorswhen Chartwell was shut between 29 August 1939 (TheProf) and 1 January 1946 (Venetia Montagu)—it’s not asif they were outstaying their welcome.The family were frequent visitors; Diana signedin as both Bailey and Sandys. Her second husband,Duncan Sandys, signed, but there is no signature fromMr. Hatter is a steward and tour guide at Chartwell and author ofChurchill: His Politics and Writing. He thanks Lady Soames, whokindly read the text and provided essential information; and toDouglas Austin, Neville Snazel and John Whaler of Chartwell fortheir work on the Visitors Book project. The full list of names willsoon be posted on the Centre website. If you can identify any of ourunknowns, please email the author at david@dhatter.wanadoo.co.uk.John Bailey. Sarah signed as Oliver, Beauchamp andAudley, but of her three husbands, only AntonyBeauchamp and Lord Audley signed. Randolph is there,with both of his wives, Pamela (formerly Digby) and June(formerly Osborne). And of course Mary and ChristopherSoames signed frequently. An interesting page from 1952has the signatures of both Mary Soames and Mary S.Churchill. The second Mary was the second wife ofWinston’s nephew, John Spencer ChurchillPrime Ministers, future Prime Ministers andalmost Prime Ministers visited. In sequence we haveBalfour and Lloyd George, who signed; MacDonald andBaldwin, who didn’t; then Eden, Macmillan, Heath andButler, who did. There was never, as far as we can prove anegative, a visit from Neville Chamberlain. Perhaps it’snot surprising that he didn’t visit, though despite theirpolitical differences Churchill retained a high regard forChamberlain and spoke well of him when he died.This brings us to the matter of those who did notsign. Visitors were usually enjoined to sign if they stayedovernight, although some exceptions were made for luncheonguests, in particular royalty (see below)—and fortwo from large groups, 615 Squadron on 4 August 1951and guests at the constituency party on 7 July 1956.The book lacks a number of known visitors whoeither weren’t staying overnight or wished to keep theirvisits secret. In the cases of MacDonald and Baldwin, andalso Albert Einstein, we might guess that these are inadvertentomissions; but there were other visitors whosemotives in not signing may easily be inferred.Group Captain Lachlan MacLean and WingCommander Tor Anderson, who came to confide theirFINEST HOUR 130 / 34