LOT RR Auction  /  RR Auction: Rare Manuscript, Document and Autogr...  / 

177

Winston Churchill

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:10,000.00 - 15,000.00 USD
Winston Churchill

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2013 Dec 11 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Typed speech signed “Winston S. Churchill,” four pages, 7.5 x 9.5, May 16, 1949. Previously unknown and unrecorded speech (as confirmed by a representative at the Churchill Archives), presumably delivered on the campaign trail to rally his fellow conservatives ahead of the 1950 UK general election. In part: “We are now entering upon a fateful year. Before it is through we shall fight another General Election, an Election whose importance it is impossible to exaggerate. Never in our electoral history have the people of this country been presented with such a choice. For they will have to choose between two utterly different conceptions of life and liberty in this country—the way of Socialism or the Conservative way, the way of freedom. We Conservatives can well enter upon the struggles and exertions of the coming months with high hearts. All the evidence of recent months...[has] confirmed the growing strength of our Party and the disillusion of the people at the record of their Socialist governors. The Socialists indeed succeeded to great problems and difficulties when they became the Government in 1945 but they succeeded also to a great inheritance…Yet…they have succeeded in squandering our heritage and inflicting upon the people of this country by their incompetent administration wholly unnecessary hardships and sacrifices…We have all of us a duty to do. Let us go forward together and let us crown our efforts with victory.” Boldly signed at the conclusion in fountain pen. In fine condition, with a punch hole to upper left corner. Provenance: the papers of Donald Forbes, an honorary secretary of Churchill’s constituency association.

After losing the 1945 election by a landslide, Churchill and his Conservatives took a back seat to Clement Attlee’s Labour Party until the next general election in 1950. Campaigning with the same zeal that made his war speeches legendary, Churchill focused his campaign on the damaging new policies of the last five years: “the Socialists make it clear that they intend to proceed further and faster with nationalization and with the destruction of our remaining free enterprise.” With further digs familiar to the ears of all democratic nations, he notes the “crushing levels” of government expenditure and emphasizes “that there will be no prospect of any substantial remissions of taxation,” closing his address with a Churchillian call to action reminiscent to those that helped pull Britain through the war and beyond. Despite strong polling for the Conservatives, Labour received a slim majority of just five seats—a major decline from the previous election, but still enough to keep Attlee in office for one more year. In the 1951 election, Churchill would finally reclaim his seat as Prime Minister. Original typescripts of Churchill’s speeches are of the utmost rarity, as he tended to retain the manuscripts and typescripts; of the hundreds of Churchill items we have offered over 30 years of business, this is the first such speech we have had.
Sign In to Bookmark Lot