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‘The British Bulldog’ and his Brooklyn pedigree
Honoring the Winston Churchill sesquicentennial
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Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill, accompanied by his wife Clementine Churchill, tours his constituency, Woodford in England, July 5, 1945, urging people to vote in the upcoming general election. The upcoming general election on July 4, 2024 is widely expected to lead to a change of government for the first time in 14 years. According to many experts, it is expected to be one of the most consequential elections since the end of World War II. Churchill's Conservative Party suffered one of its biggest-ever defeats shortly after the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
Photo: AP File
Brooklynites are renowned for toughness, forcefulness, confidence and bluntness. There should be no wonder that Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), the exemplar of these characteristics, could boast that his mother, nee Jennie Jerome (1854-1921), was born in the city of Brooklyn. These are the very ingrained traits that enabled Britain’s wartime Prime Minister and America’s most unwavering World War Two ally to rescue Europe and the world at large from the clutches of Nazi Germany. Such characteristics also secured his place in history as the world’s salvation. Simply put, the path toward the survival of the free world passed through Brooklyn.
The Cobble Hill section is Jennie’s birthplace, yet there have been conflicting opinions about the correct address. This article will resolve the conundrum of Jennie’s provenance to honor Nov. 30, the 150th birthday of this Promethean statesman, author, historian and painter. In addition, the article will emphasize her family’s illustrious background, her marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill and her enduring relationship with her son. Historical perspective has been primarily provided to The Brooklyn Eagle by Charlotte Gray, author of “Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons: The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt;” Justin Reash, formerly the executive director of The International Churchill Society; and Allen Packwood and Cherish Watton of the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge.
A Marriage Made in New York
Jennie’s father, Leonard Jerome (1817-1891), was born in Pompey in Onondaga County, New York. His paternal grandmother was a relative of George Washington. After enrollment in Princeton University, then known as the College of New Jersey, he switched to Union College in Schenectady, New York, to study law. After graduation, he set up a practice in Rochester, New York, where he eventually met Jennie’s mother, Clarisa Hall (1825-1895), known as Clara, daughter of landowner Ambrose Hall.
Clarisa grew up in Rochester, New York, raised by two aunts. According to Gray, mystery surrounds her origins. “There was a story that she had Iroquois ancestry, which has never been proven, although Winston Churchill took great pleasure in the story.” Clarisa, who was politically active, had the means to help her husband to advance. She bought the local paper, The Rochester Daily American, which he ran.
In April 1851, Jennie’s parents had their first child, Clara. They left Rochester and moved to 13 Wall Street in Manhattan. That is where Leonard, along with his brother and business partner Addison, pursued his dream, as Gray indicates. “Leonard’s ambition was to be a financier and investment banker, which he attained. Leonard wasn’t a class-A robber baron. He wasn’t a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt. He didn’t make an enormous fortune, but as a stockbroker, he played the market very successfully and made and lost several fortunes. particularly by selling short.” Reash expands upon Leonard’s status. “Jennie’s father was a speculator, not just in the stock market but with land. He went from rags to riches, back to rags, then back to riches many times.”
Brooklyn Beckons
The family subsequently moved to Brooklyn, at that point a city independent of New York, where they rented a fifteen-room red-brick brownstone house, greater than four stories, at 426 Henry Street in Cobble Hill, very near the fashionable Brooklyn Heights, underscoring Leonard’s ambition. Leonard felt no stigma in renting since the practice was common then. They shared this house with Addison and his wife. Leonard would take the ferry to Manhattan.
While in Rochester, Leonard achieved notoriety by running the newspaper, which promoted America’s anti-slavery campaign. As a result, President Filmore, who declared slavery evil, appointed Leonard consul to the free and Imperial City of Trieste, Austria’s main trading port and shipbuilding center. Being equally ambitious, Clarisa was delighted. Leonard, however, found the post and the city, suffice it to say, boring. They returned to Brooklyn four years later and leased a house at 8 Amity Street, a tree-lined residential road near the waterfront. The address was renumbered 197. There’s no mention of their sharing it with anyone. Gray asserts that this is where, in January 1854, Jennie was born.
Gray’s confidence about this essential clarification is boosted by an authoritative biography, “Jennie Churchill: Winston’s American Mother,” by the British writer Anne Sebba, which dispels the rival “theory” that Jennie was born at 426 Henry Street with this passage. “There was for years confusion about the place as well as the date of Jennie’s birth. It used to be thought that she was born at 426 Henry Street, and a plaque was erected there to commemorate her birth at a 1952 ceremony. That was the house where her parents lived with her uncle prior to her birth. But without contemporary documents (the street maps are the best available) It is impossible to prove. The reason number 426 was chosen in 1952 could have been that at least this home had some connection to Jennie while 197 Amity Street is a less imposing house to be linked to the mother of the British Prime Minister.”
Several entities, among them The Brooklyn Eagle, proposed the plaque, as mentioned earlier. The inscription reads, albeit with the incorrect year. “In this house in January 1850 was born Jennie Jerome, later Lady Randolph Churchill. She was the mother of the right honorable Winston Spencer Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain and staunch friend of the United States. This plaque is erected as a memorial to Lady Churchill to reflect the esteem and affection in which the people of this community hold her son. Dedicated in March, 1952.”
Sarah Churchill, Winston’s daughter, attended the 1952 dedication and reported the ceremony to her father. On the 50th anniversary of this event, The International Churchill Society posted an essay, “Golden Anniversary of Recognition of the Birthplace of Jennie Jerome in New York,” which featured the following message that Sarah sent to her father at the time. “It was a charming ceremony with lovely speeches of tribute to your beautiful Mama and to yourself, and I, as proud granddaughter, unveiled the plaque with the President of the Borough. About 1,000 people crowded into the narrow street and there were lots of children all let out of school for the half day. I thanked them on your behalf and said that I knew you would have been touched at their kind tributes to your mother and yourself and would be anxious to see the plaque the next time you visited these shores.”
The Brooklyn Eagle, March 27, 1952, reflects an account of the plaque dedication.
In fact, During a visit to New York and Washington in January 1953 to meet President Truman and President-elect Eisenhower, Churchill, once again Prime Minister after losing reelection in 1945, visited the Henry Street house. This occasion drew a throng of onlookers, which a Pathe newsreel covering this event reveals. (While in Brooklyn, Churchill took part in a press conference at the Brooklyn Army Base.)
On Jan. 8, 1953, The Brooklyn Eagle reported the event with the headline, “‘Like a Dream Realized,’ Romeos says of Winnie’s Visit Here,” Romeos being the family then living at 426 Henry Street.
Cherish Watton of the Archive Centre has provided additional information regarding Jennie’s birthplace. “‘The AIA Guide to New York City‘ by Norval White and Elliot Willensky includes extracts which state Jennie was born on Amity Street, citing how ‘the confusion results from the fact that Jennie’s folks had lived with her uncle, Adison G. Jerome, at No. 292, now 246. Henry Street prior to her birth.’ [According to the Historical Marker Database, No. 292 has actually been renumbered 426] Furthermore, a letter from C. Claiborne Ray, tenant of 197 Amity Street, dated Oct. 8, 1986, states that there was a report produced for the City Landmarks Commission which showed that ‘the family was leasing the house, built by a ship’s chandler.'”
For the sake of completion, The Archives Centre also shared intriguing details that may have contributed to the lingering uncertainty. They derive from a 1943 file entitled “Brooklyn, the birthplace of Jennie Jerome, greets Rt Hon Winston S Churchill.” “Volume opens with a letter from Francis Sinnott, King’s County, New York, addressed to Winston Churchill, which encloses the Federal Census for 1854 showing Leonard and Clara Jerome living with Addison G. Jerome at 292 Henry Street. It also includes a city map from 1855 showing 292 Henry Street labeled with the ‘Jerome Family’ and includes a glossy photograph of the front of 292 Henry Street.”
Life in the Gilded Age
After Jennie’s birth, her mother suffered a miscarriage. In 1855, Camille was born. She died in 1863, possibly from fever. While living on Amity Street, the family attended South Brooklyn Presbyterian Church. A main tenet of this denomination is the prosperity gospel, also known as the health and wealth gospel, which holds that God wants believers to experience physical well-being and financial blessing. In this, Leonard was a true follower. By 1859 he had become a flourishing stock broker. Accordingly, the wealthy family left the Amity Street residence when Jennie was five and moved to Manhattan into a magnificent six-story townhouse that took up an entire city block at the corner of Madison and 26th Street. 1859 was also noteworthy for the birth of Leonie, Jennie’s youngest sister. Thus, Jennie became the middle child and would always be her father’s favorite.
Leonard’s notoriety in New York extended beyond the world of finance. He was very active in the horseracing world. The Jerome Park Racetrack opened on Sept. 25, 1866, and from 1867 to 1889, held the Belmont Stakes. The track remained there until 1890 when the city condemned the property to build the Jerome Park Reservoir. Jerome Avenue in the Bronx bears his name, and the Jennie Jerome Playground sits next to the Avenue. This property was acquired in 1950 as part of the condemnation for the adjacent Cross-Bronx Expressway. Reash points to Leonard’s ultimate link to New York. “He’s buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn. There’s a small mausoleum with steps leading up to it. In 2017, the Churchill Society had its annual conference there.”
Newly situated on Gilded Madison Avenue, Leonard enrolled Jennie in a private school for girls. Jennie was particularly drawn to the piano, which she mastered. Her extensive repertoire kept her in demand at house parties. Whenever Jennie spoke about her childhood, she ignored the Brooklyn address and would only mention her Madison Avenue address, which no longer exists. Gray elaborates. “Jennie’s 1908 memoir ‘The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill’ is incredibly vague. In some cases, it is mendacious about her early life, including her years in Brooklyn, in Manhattan, and then in Paris, where she traveled when she was nine. It only occupies about twelve pages. Jennie was a master of reinvention. She became more English than the English once she married Lord Randolph.”
Photo: Alastair Grant/AP
Our Betters
Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill (1849-1895) was the youngest son of John Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford and his wife, the Marchioness of Blandford. His parents became the seventh Duke and Duchess of Marlborough upon the death of John’s father in 1857. Being the younger son of a marquess bestowed upon Randolph the courtesy title “lord.” In the general election of 1874, Churchill was elected to Parliament as a Conservative member of Woodstock, near the family seat of Blenheim Palace. His maiden speech drew praise from Prime Minister Disraeli.
Jennie and her family fled Paris because of the Franco-Prussian Wars of the 1870s. They rented a cottage on the Isle of Wight, where they spent their summers. This summer home is where she met Lord Randolph Churchill at a party at the Royal Yacht Club. Reash fleshes out the details of their union. “Leonard had enough money to provide Jennie the ability to go to England many times. Jennie was part of a generation of young American heiresses who were marrying British aristocrats. Lord Randolph and Jennie were introduced by the Prince of Wales in August 1873 on the Isle of Wight. They were there for what was known as the Cowes Regatta, consisting of a week of yachting races on the Isle. They became engaged within three days of this initial meeting. After months of delay while their parents haggled over settlements, the couple finally married in April 1874. Since Winston’s birthdate is Nov. 30, 1974, there are questions around his conception date.” Indeed, there was persistent gossip about Lord Randolph’s philandering, which the International Churchill Society maintains was never confirmed.
Lady Randolph Churchill enjoyed the ministerial life into which she married. Randolph’s meteoric career, however, could have been more robust, as Gray explains. “At one point, Lord Randolph was slated to be the next Prime Minister of Britain. Jennie loved electioneering, the adrenaline part of politics. She was so excited by the idea that she might be standing next to the man who would be running the British Empire. He was a very unstable character.”
In the 1880s, Lord Randolph’s health rapidly deteriorated, though he was Secretary of State for India and Chancellor of the Exchequer, the number two position in the British government. He was also leader of the Conservative, or Tory, party in the House of Commons. He tendered his resignation to Prime Minister Salisbury, ostensibly over a dispute regarding the budget for the armed services. Lord Randolph thought the Prime Minister would consider him so essential to the party that he wouldn’t accept it. But Lord Salisbury was so exasperated with Lord Randolph that he immediately accepted it, and Lord Randolph was out of politics.
A Beacon in the Wilderness
After Randolph died in 1895, Jennie married two more times to men the same age as Winston, twenty years younger than her. She filled her life with a variety of activities. Jennie published a literary journal. Additionally, she fitted out and sailed upon hospital ships that went to the Boer Wars, helping nurse wounded soldiers. She was also a successful fund-raiser for a National Theater in London.
The Gallipoli campaign of 1915, which Churchill oversaw as First Lord of the Admiralty, was a disastrous attempt to cut off The Ottoman Empire’s Turkish support during World War One. The debacle resulted in Churchill’s resignation. Jennie was furious, believing her son’s blame was unfounded. During his wilderness period, she comforted her son, whom he often visited.
Photo: Kin Cheung, Pool/AP
Gray describes the hardship of Jennie’s final years. “She suffered a leg amputation due to a fall. With her usual insouciance, she said, ‘Oh, well. I’ll just have to put my best foot forward.'” In 1921, Jennie’s leg hemorrhaged, and she went into a coma. Winston could not contain his grief and reportedly ran weeping through the streets in his pajamas.
Gray relates the incalculable influence Jennie had on her son’s career. “She knew everybody in London, every member of the cabinet, all the newspaper editors. She knew the senior officers in the armed forces, which she used to further his military career, which began as a young soldier in a cavalry unit. Winston once spoke about her impact. ‘She left no wire unpulled, stone unturned, no cutlet uncooked.’ With these poignant words, he expressed his esteem for his mother. ‘She shone for me like the evening star… ‘The wine of life was in her veins.'” Churchill might have added that sheer Brooklyn pluck also coursed through them.
A Speech Delayed
There is a further Churchill connection to Brooklyn. In December 1931, Churchill was in New York to recoup the losses he had sustained in the 1929 stock market crash. On Dec. 14, Churchill was scheduled to begin a lecture series on “The Pathway of English-Speaking Peoples” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Reash recounts an intervening accident. “On Dec. 13, Churchill planned to visit his very good friend, the American financier and statesman Bernard Baruch, at his Fifth Avenue apartment near 87th Street. At Fifth Avenue, he got out of the cab and looked the British way, so he was looking to his left when he should have been looking to his right. He was allegedly by another car. He was in Lenox Hill Hospital for quite a few weeks into January 1932. This was during Prohibition. In typical Churchillian fashion, he was given a prescription by a doctor for unlimited quantities of alcohol. This enabled him to continue his drinking habits during his convalescence. He stayed in New York for quite a few weeks and then went to the Bahamas to continue his convalescence.” Churchill eventually delivered his speech at the Brooklyn Academy on Jan. 28, 1932, to an audience of two thousand. The event was touted as Churchill’s first American appearance. Churchill was also reported to have brought for the occasion the treasured battered wooden box he had used as a platform speaker during his early political career.
The Archives Centre shared an interesting postscript to this affair. On Dec. 21, 1932, the Mayor of Brooklyn, Henry Meyer, sent Churchill a book, “Looking Through Life’s Window,” a collection of inspirational essays by James Russell Miller, a prominent American Presbyterian minister. Churchill’s secretary sent Meyer a thank-you note for the gift, apparently intended to give Churchill comfort during his recovery.
A Revered Legacy
The International Churchill Society, formed in 1968, three years after Churchill’s death, will honor his 150th birthday in grand style. A visit to Blenheim Palace is on the agenda, coinciding with a conference in London where historians and politicians will discuss Churchill’s continuing relevance and legacy, which Director Reash eloquently defines. “There’s a reason why people continue to evoke Churchill at times of crisis. He stood up to some of the most extreme adversities any democracy ever faced. He led the charge to defeat tyranny. He is universally admired, the most memorable leader in the most memorable conflict in modern memory. People call him ‘the right man at the right time.’ His world view, the way he lived his life, his ‘never give in’ attitude will transcend the ages.” How fitting that “The British Bulldog” could trace his pedigree to the rugged borough of Brooklyn and his indomitable mother, Jennie.
“There’s a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the “Tree of Heaven.” No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.” (Betty Smith, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”)
Additional account:
Winston Churchill, Manhattan traffic victim circa 1931
Compiled by the artist Mike Grant to accompany his sketch, with material drawn from Ephemeral New York, International Churchill Society, The New York Times with special thanks to Michael Pollak and Open Culture.
On Dec. 13, 1931, Winston Churchill arrived in New York to give a lecture at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A world-famous politician, journalist and author, he suffered losses in the 1929 crash and needed additional income. He was also not holding an elective office; at age 57 his political career seemed to be over.
After retiring to his room for the night at the Waldorf Astoria, he got a call from his old friend financier Benjamin Baruch to come uptown for drinks with friends at his Fifth Avenue mansion. Never one to pass up a social gathering and the promise of making good connections, fine cigars and top shelf liquor, he was soon on his way in a taxi. He had been to Baruch’s home on previous occasions, but once uptown in the dark of night he was unsure of its exact location. It didn’t help that Baruch had an unlisted phone number.
After some aimless back and forth, he had the cab let him off on the avenue’s Central Park side across from a group of private homes. Crossing the street, he forgot that Americans drive on the right, not on the left as they do in England. He was hit by a taxi cab going 30 miles an hour and was thrown several yards to the street. A crowd gathered, Churchill identified himself to a police officer who commandeered a second taxi and rushed him to Lenox Hill Hospital on East 76th street.
Baruch and Mrs. Churchill arrived soon after. Churchill’s nose and ribs were fractured, he sprained his right shoulder, had cuts in his hand and forehead. He would suffer from aftershock and depression.
Churchill made it clear to the authorities that he, not the driver who hit him, was to blame. He even requested that the man visit him.
While recuperating in the hospital, he wrote an article for The Daily Mail, a British newspaper, about the incident. He was paid $2,500.00 which funded a vacation to the Bahamas the Churchills took after his release.
While still in a lot of discomfort, his hospital physician wrote a letter that he be allowed to possess liquor in aiding his recovery, “especially at meal times.” Churchill loved Johnny Walker Red Label, champagne and finishing his nights off with snifters of brandy. Given that Prohibition in America was still in effect, this was quite a perk.
The Churchills returned to New York in late January, with liquor prescription in hand, to honor his Brooklyn speaking engagement. He gave the taxi driver a pair of tickets to the lecture and a signed copy of his latest book. At this time, it should be noted, Churchill was among the earliest public figures warning about Adolf Hitler. Little did he know his destiny as the Prime Minister awaited him.
With legendary oratory, boundless determination and a historic partnership with President Franklin Roosevelt, he would see the mad man fall. How very different history would have been had the taxi been going at a greater speed that December night in New York.
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