Talk:List of honours of Winston Churchill

Dukedom of London
I seem to remember hearing that, while Churchill was offered a Dukedom, there was no proper discussion of the title he might take. Also, that the Eden government which offered it was rather keen that Churchill did not accept. I will try to find a source for this but Churchill enthusiasts may know more. Sam Blacketer 08:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I have removed the claim from the main Winston Churchill article on the grounds of dubious sourcing. I am for now leaving the claim in this article, since there are some sources, but I must say that I find the sources given here to be quite peculiar.--Jimbo Wales ([[User talk:Jimbo

Wales|talk]]) 16:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure why there is a mention of his time as chancellor of the duchy of lancaster in the section on dukedoms: this is a government post for a minister without portfolio, not a title per se. Sandpiper (talk) 20:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

According to a story I read, there was strong pressure on Queen Elizabeth II to offer a dukedom to Churchill upon his retirement as Prime Minister, in consideration of the significant service that he had rendered the Nation during the Second World War. The Queen was reluctant to grant a dukedom outside the royal family. Therefore, it was arranged that the Queen would offer the dukedom, and that Churchill would decline it, on the ground that he wished to continue serving in the House of Commons. At the formal meeting, the Queen offered the dukedom. Churchill decided to think about the matter and hesitated in making his response to the Queen. After a few moments, he declined, and the Queen seemed visibly relieved. If this story is true, I think it puts the Queen in a very bad light and proves that she is an ingrate. Her uncle, King Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor, was a Nazi-sympathizing traitor, and her father, King George VI, was so happy with Chamberlain's decision to appease Hitler at Munich that he invited Chamberlain to the balcony of Buckingham Palace to receive the cheers of the crowd. Against all this, Churchill stood alone, and thereby saved the Nation and allowed the Royal Family's parasitic lifestyle to continue unabated. And she was unwilling to grant him a dukedom? John Paul Parks (talk) 10:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The account you heard coincides roughly with Roy Jenkins's version of events (although he does not judge the behaviour of the Queen): "There was an extraordinary little charade about the offer of a dukedom. Earldoms had become 'routine' for Prime Ministers (if they wished to become peers) from the time of Lord John Russell a century before. The Queen rightly thought that Churchill rated something more. But she was probably not keen to create the first non-royal duke since Gladstone had elevated Westminster in 1874. Discreet enquiries were therefore made as to whether Churchill could be relied upon to refuse. Assured that he would, she made the offer. He duly refused, but only just. He was tempted but restrained by his desire to stay in the Commons and perhaps even more by the thought of Randolph succeeding to the strawberry leaves of a ducal coronet, which Churchill politely disguised by pretending it would interfere with Randolph's already hopeless political career.
 * Roy Jenkins "Churchill" (2001) p896 Bokononist (talk) 00:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Please check this citation
Please verify the citation for this sentence:


 * The funeral also saw the largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005.

Unless I missed something, the citation,, doesn't make that exact claim. Majoreditor 03:13, 18 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The BBC cited reference says: "The Italian media is comparing the funeral of John Paul II to those of Gandhi, Stalin, John F Kennedy and Churchill, and saying this will be bigger than all of them."


 * That's not quite the same as "the largest assemblage of statesmen in the world until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005." Please let me know if I have overlooked something else in the article. Majoreditor 03:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless somebody is able to produce a list of all the "statesmen" who were present at all the funerals, there is never going to be a definite answer to this question. Therefore, I am modifying the article to state that the "funeral also saw one of the largest assemblages of statesmen in the world . . ." and leave out the part about Pope John Paul II. John Paul Parks (talk) 10:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

GA assessment - failed at this time [[Image:Symbol unsupport vote.svg|25px]]
Whilst this has the potential to be an interesting article - it does not pass the first criteria of WP:GAC at this time. This is because the language used is at times repetitious as well as choppy. In addition the article talks about the honours of Mr Churchill but only offers a passing glance at most of them - particularly in the area headed - Other honours - and of course in the area which is nothing more than a list titled - list of honours. To date therefore the article requires a good deal of further copy-editing to come to a stage of encyclopediac language, as well as much more detail than simple one or two sentence paragraphs.-- VS talk 10:46, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Victory Medal (United Kingdom)
Wouldn't he have also had the Victory Medal (United Kingdom) which was issued to anybody who earnt the British War Medal or the 1914-15 Star? Bazj (talk) 12:17, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Oak crown officer.jpg
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Usage of "Great Britain"
This article refers to "Great Britain" in three places where I suspect that "United Kingdom" is meant, which is common error on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Can anyone confirm that this is incorrect?

Gadget1700 (talk) 23:29, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd say they should all be "the United Kingdom". That's the name of the country.  "Great Britain" is a purely geographical term for the large island that includes England, Wales and Scotland, but not Northern Ireland.  --  JackofOz (talk) 13:38, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

The Parliament Square statue
'erected in 1976'; this http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/churchill-statue-had-the-look-of-mussolini-578159.html says Lady Churchill unveiled the statue on 1 Novenber 1973. 89.168.87.17 (talk) 09:53, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The london.gov website seems to confirm a 1973 date. I'll change this in the article. Benea (talk) 13:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see mention of the animation of the statue in the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony "Happy and Glorious" segment. Radio Sharon (talk) 19:43, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Some Churchill streets
Not proposing it is a part of the article, more FYI. Most probably incomplete.


 * Churchill, Canada

Winston Churchill Avenue

 * Portsmouth, UK
 * Gibraltar

Sir Winston Churchill Avenue

 * St. Albert, Canada

Churchill Avenue

 * Hastings, UK
 * Ottawa, Canada
 * Subiaco, WA
 * Munster, Australia
 * Shoalwater, Australia
 * Cottingham, UK
 * Wyton Huntingdon, UK
 * Basildon, UK
 * Ararat, Australia
 * Richmond, Australia
 * Leiden, The Netherlands
 * Staten Island, NY
 * Palo Alto, CA
 * Wellingborough, UK
 * Sandy Bay, Australia
 * Kenton
 * Woodside, CA
 * Burnie
 * Coventry, UK
 * Northampton
 * Wareham, MA
 * Margaret River, Australia
 * Kirrawee, Australia
 * Lurgan, UK
 * Ballymena, UK

Winston Churchill Boulevard

 * Mississauga, Canada
 * Oakwill, ON
 * Saint John, Canada

Churchill Boulevard

 * Mount Pleasant, MI
 * University Heights, OH

Churchill Drive

 * Glasgow, UK
 * Crofton Downs, New Zealand
 * Wilton, New Zealand
 * South Bunbury, Australia
 * Virginia Beach, VA
 * Riverview, Canada
 * Clifton, NJ
 * Winston Hills, Australia
 * Napier City, New Zealand
 * Bolton, UK
 * Wrexham, UK
 * Cherry Hills Village, CO
 * Taradale, New Zealand
 * Winnipeg, Canada
 * Windsor, Canada
 * Cronfton Downs, New Zealand
 * Cambridge, Canada
 * Virginia Beach, VA
 * Hanover Park, IL
 * Cowes, Australia
 * Dingwall, UK
 * Flower Mound, TX
 * Columbus, OH
 * Red Lion, PA
 * Bolingbrook, IL
 * Bishopton, UK
 * Cherry Hills Village, CO
 * Hillsborough, CA
 * Mooresville, IN
 * Elverson, PA
 * Marietta, GA

Churchill Road

 * London
 * McLean, VA
 * Norwich
 * Prospect, Australia
 * Heatfield, UK
 * Canterbury, UK
 * Parkstone Poole, UK
 * Judea, New Zealand
 * Kilburn, Australia

Churchill Gardens Road

 * London

Churchill Place

 * London
 * Edinburgh
 * Maidstone, Australia

Churchill Walk

 * London
 * Pagham, UK
 * Hawkinge Folkestone, UK

Churchill Street

 * Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
 * Christchurch, New Zealand
 * Newton, MA
 * Pittsfield, MA
 * Auckland, New Zealand
 * Ipswich, Australia
 * Alloa, UK
 * Hastings, New Zealand
 * West Palm Beach
 * Toronto, Canada
 * Bardwell Park, Australia
 * Niagara Falls
 * Waterloo, ON
 * Sunderland, UK
 * Ipswich
 * Newton, MA
 * Shoreview, MN
 * Whakatane, New Zealand
 * Millport, UK
 * Glendinningvale
 * Ringwood, Australia
 * Chicago, IL
 * Brisbane, Australia
 * Mont Albert, Australia
 * Waupaca, WI
 * Strathfield
 * Wallsend, UK
 * Fairfield, CT
 * Palmwoods, Australia
 * Vancouver, Canada
 * Pukekohe, New Zealand
 * Dushore, PA
 * Baltimore, MD
 * Stockton, CA
 * Stockport, UK
 * Leicester, UK
 * Bairnsdale, Australia
 * Rochdale, UK
 * Childers, Australia
 * Eugene, OR
 * Oldham, UK

Churchill Way

 * Cardiff, UK
 * Dallas, TX

Sir Winston Churchill Square

 * Edmonton, Canada
 * New York City, NY

Churchill Square

 * Brighton, UK
 * Kings Hill, UK
 * Turtle Creek, PN

Churchill Gate

 * Woodstock, UK
 * Cordova, TN
 * Memphis, TN

Winston Churchill Strasse

 * Bonn, Germany

Avenue Winston-Churchill

 * Paris, France

Rue Churchill

 * Baie-d'Urfé, Canada
 * Montréal, Canada
 * Mascouche, Canada
 * Repentigny,Canada
 * Laval, Canada
 * Dollard-Des Ormeaux, Canada
 * Moncton, Canada
 * Liege, France

Rue Winston Churchill

 * Mâcon, France
 * Meaux, France
 * Dunkerque, France
 * Metz, Framce

Other statues
-- Egil (talk) 23:01, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Salway Hill, Woodford, Essex, UK
 * Mexico City
 * Washington DC (at entrance to Britosh Embassy)
 * Toronto, Canada (near City Hall)
 * Chartwell, Westerham, Kent, UK
 * Mougins, France (huge bronze hand showing V-sign)
 * Paris (besides the Seine)
 * Kansas City (Lady Churchill and Sir Winston Churchill, sitting)

Coat of arms?
Where has the coat of arms come from? Surely Churchill didn't bear the undifferenced arms of the Dukes of Marlborough? As undifferenced arms states: "Undifferenced arms (or plain arms) are coats of arms which have no marks distinguishing the bearer by birth order or family position. In the Scottish and English heraldic traditions, these plain coats of arms are legal property transmitted from father to eldest male heir, and are used only by one person at any given time. The other descendants of the original bearer could bear the ancestral arms only with some difference." Proteus (Talk) 21:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
 * While you could argue that with the Garter there was no question of confusing him with another Churchill its still technically incorrect as it has no label or other mark of difference. Garlicplanting (talk) 12:10, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I too would like to see some research into this. I can grant that the coat of arms in this article is the same as appeared in Winston's Garter stall, but it's still strange to have the shield of a Duke's first cousin be the same as that of that Duke. Conceivably the two full-blown achievements were unambiguous because the Duke in 1953, not being KG, would lack the Garter, and, not being a Knight of anything (or was he?) wouldn't have helms, and Winston, not being a Duke, wouldn't have the coronet. But heralds like to do things in such fashion that honors are not removed nor ranks lowered except for personal misconduct. (That is why in the days of male-preference primogeniture a woman Heiress Presumptive would not be created Princess Of Wales. Should a younger brother of hers be born later, she would have to be deprived of the title in favor of her younger brother, although she'd done nothing wrong. An exception can't be avoided sometimes, as when Princess Elizabeth became Elizabeth II and moved AHEAD of her own mother in the Order of Precedence even though her mother had done nothing wrong.) At any time in the future the 10th Duke of Marlborough could have been Gartered (NOT UNLIKELY SINCE THE 9TH DUKE WAS GARTERED), and also at any time in the future Winston could have been made Duke Of Something ("Of London" was kicked around). This would have made their full-blown armorial achievements look the same, wouldn't it? So then the Heralds would have to do something to demote Winston's shield, even though Winston had done nothing wrong, which is what Heralds try to avoid. Isn't it the job of Heralds to foresee possible conflicts like this and rule them out in advance? Does a former prime-minster not get something like a baton to bear on the achievement? So why wasn't Winston's shield bearing marks of difference or cadency or whatchacallit? I don't dispute that it didn't: I just think that the absence of an explanation for the undifferenced shield leaves incompleteness.2604:2000:C682:B600:11D6:5C46:9C22:D428 (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2016 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson

Honorary US citizenship
Question for my own edification. Wouldn't Churchill have qualified for US citizenship automatically because his mother was a citizen? So why bother with the "honorary" stuff?--ukexpat (talk) 21:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Churchill was a United Kingdom citizen, a nationality taken from his father (automatically I presume under British law then). Despite his mother's nationality of birth, he never claimed dual British/US nationality. (Had he been legally a US citizen, would it have affected his ability to carry the title Sir he held by virtue of his KG?)Cloptonson (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Confusing sentence
He was awarded 37 other orders and medals between 1885 and 1964.

This sentence, beginning the second paragraph, is ambiguous. The phrase "other orders and medals" makes no sense without any having been mentioned beforehand, and in 1885 Churchill was only 11 years old. Only royalty tended to receive orders at such ages. Is that a misprint for 1895?Cloptonson (talk) 05:49, 2 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I also question the correctness of giving 1964 as his last year of receiving a decoration. He received at least one award posthumously - the Order of the White Lion, class I, from the President of the Czech Republic in 2014 on the same occasion as the same award was also presented to the then-living Sir Nicholas Winton (the pre-WW2 Kindertransport organiser). I wonder if there were other belated awards?Cloptonson (talk) 19:51, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

WWI Regimental Appointments (not Honours?)
I notice in a section listing miscellaneous including regimental honours includes the fact he was Major in the 2nd Grenadier Guards and Lieutenant-Colonel in the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers. I would not count them in a list of honours as they were active service commissions held during WWI when serving between ministerial offices on the Western Front. The London Gazette would probably be a good reference source to check against.Cloptonson (talk) 20:45, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Update needed - posthumous honours
I draw to attention this information I came across in the Wikipedia article on Nicholas Winton, from which this is lifted:


 * On 28 October 2014, Winton was awarded the Order of the White Lion (Class I) by Czech President Miloš Zeman,...The award was made alongside one to Sir Winston Churchill, which was accepted by his grandson Nicholas Soames. Zeman said he regretted the highest Czech award having been awarded to the two personalities so belatedly, but added "better late than never".

I am adding it to the list of foreign decorations, although I am not sure where in order of precedence it would have come. I trust someone accustomed to listing decorations in this way will incorporate it appropriately. I notice someone has added it to the list in sub-section Political, Honorary, Literary, Military, Science (Awards) apparently unaware of the list of medal ribbons, so I have deleted that now duplicate entry.Cloptonson (talk) 20:00, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

False teeth - delete?
This article mentions in what is supposed to be a list of honours (under section heading "Objects") his false teeth, designed to conserve his distinctive lisp for speech purposes. I would not consider it an honour, rather a clinical aid. I nominate their mention for deletion.Cloptonson (talk) 10:53, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Total British orders, decorations and medals
The introductory section mentions he received 20 from the United Kingdom, but I can only count (with spectacles on) 19 listed in ribbon format.Cloptonson (talk) 11:04, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - honour or government post?
I note that among a list of miscellaneous honours appears "Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1914-1915)" I thought it was a government post of cabinet ministerial rank (although not as prestigious as the Great Offices of State Churchill also held). Also the years are wrong, he only held this post for a few months in 1915 after losing his first wartime ministerial post as First Lord of the Admiralty.Cloptonson (talk) 22:18, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

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Royal Society
IIRC the heads of the RS have always (or since some early date) been exceptional individual contributors to sc. knowledge. Yet i notice that a number of PMs have been members, i presume more as advisers and/or simply as a tribute to the RS's importance to the state and economy. I think i recall that S. Pepys (presumably at least something of a technologist in his Admiralty role? ... but i think a serious political heavyweight) was also a member. WC certainly is the one of greatest interest as PM/RS (and had to have been briefed at least about the A-bomb), but also in the general case, it would be good to know more about about the degree to which political clout and technical clout have been and/or are traded off against each other, or complement each other. My guess is that i've been naive in imagining that at least the expectation of eventually making an original contribution to science was implied by membership. Given the role of the RS in the advance of science in Newton's (the man gets nearly all of the credit that doesn't fall to Leibniz, for the integral and differential calculus!), not to mention his laws of motion and various other physical advances. --Jerzy•t 01:54, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

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Duke of Dover
To my surprise, some sources on internet claim that Churchill did turn down a ducal title earlier offered to him in 1945, i.e. "Duke of Dover". So, this would mean that the Dukedom of London was not the first one offered to Churchill! Although interesting, in my opinion the sources are not good enough:. Do you fellow Wikipedians know more about this? Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 10:59, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Expensive duke lifestyle?
It says in this article that ″Churchill considered accepting the offer of a dukedom but eventually declined it; the lifestyle of a duke would have been expensive″. I would expect this space is not for solving questions. But I intend to debate this phrase, so as to know if it needs to be in the article. So: can anyone explain why would the lifestyle of a duke be expensive to Churchill? And was it really a concern for declining the title? --Igor Dalmy (talk) 20:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Wrong Order of Leopold depicted
The gallery in the subsection on foreign orders and decorations held by Churchill includes a depiction of the collar of the Order of Leopold of Austria (a Hapsburg era award which ceased to be awarded with the end of the Hapsburg monarchy in Austria, by which time Austria (WWI) had become an enemy country to the UK. It was in fact the Belgian Leopold order that Churchill was awarded, that country being twice a wartime ally of the UK in the 20th century.Cloptonson (talk) 20:03, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Well spotted - I've replaced it with the correct picture. DuncanHill (talk) 20:25, 3 June 2021 (UTC)