--- title: How Winston Churchill died url: https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/ description: Winston Churchill, Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955, died at his London home on 24 January 1965, nine days after a stroke, and… section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a Cold War intelligence-dossier collage dominated by a distressed world map with connecting routes, coordinates and highlighted regions.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-map-heavy.jpg) [Regimes](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/) / [How they died](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/) # How Winston Churchill died At a glance The British Prime Minister of 1940 to 1945 (and again 1951 to 1955) had a serious stroke in June 1953 that was kept out of the press, resigned in 1955, and died at his London home on 24 January 1965; a state funeral planned for years under the code name Hope Not was held on 30 January and broadcast on television in Europe, and he was buried at Bladon. - **Leader:** Winston Churchill - **Died:** 24 January 1965 - **Place:** 28 Hyde Park Gate, London - **Cause:** Cerebral thrombosis (stroke) after a first stroke on 15 January 1965, at the age of 90 - **Regime:** [Churchill wartime government](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/churchill-government/) On this page - [The final days](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#the-final-days) - [The death](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#the-death) - [What happened to the body](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#what-happened-to-the-body) - [How the death was announced and used](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#how-the-death-was-announced-and-used) - [Timeline](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#timeline) - [Same-standard note](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#same-standard-note) - [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/winston-churchill/#sources) **In one line:** Winston Churchill, Prime Minister from 1940 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1955, died at his London home on 24 January 1965, nine days after a stroke, and after a state funeral shown on television in Europe and, by recording, in North America and Eastern Europe, he was buried at Bladon, Oxfordshire. ## The final days Churchill left the premiership for the second time on 5 April 1955 and remained a member of the House of Commons until 1964 (see [Churchill wartime government](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/churchill-government/) for the 1940 to 1945 period). The concealed illness of his last term is part of the record of how his death came to be handled, so it comes first. **The stroke of June 1953.** On 23 June 1953 Churchill gave a dinner at 10 Downing Street for the Italian Prime Minister, Alcide de Gasperi. His private secretary, John Colville, wrote in his diary: "After dinner, he had a stroke, which occurred while he was in the pillared room among the guests" (as quoted in Scadding and Vale, 2018). His physician, Lord Moran, saw him the next morning; Scadding and Vale, drawing on Moran, report that "the left side of Churchill's mouth sagged; it was more noticeable when he spoke", and that Churchill got up, dressed and "presided at the Cabinet for two hours". Colville drove him to Chartwell and recorded that Churchill "gave me strict orders not to let it be known that he was temporarily incapacitated". Colville supervised matters at Chartwell for nearly a fortnight (Scadding and Vale). Colville recorded that three newspaper proprietors, Lord Camrose, Lord Beaverbrook and Brendan Bracken, came to Chartwell and "achieved the all but incredible, and in peacetime possibly unique, success of gagging Fleet Street" (as quoted in Scadding and Vale). The bulletin dated 25 June 1953 said: "The Prime Minister has had no respite for a long time from his very arduous duties and is in need of a complete rest. We have therefore advised him to abandon his journey to Bermuda and to lighten his duties at least for a month" (as printed in Scadding and Vale). The word "stroke" was not used. Scadding and Vale write that "not a word of the Prime Minister's stroke was published until Churchill himself casually mentioned it in a speech in the House of Commons a year later", and that on 29 June 1953 R. A. Butler told Cabinet colleagues, an episode Harold Macmillan recalled as "a terrible shock to us all". Churchill chaired his first Cabinet since the illness on 18 August 1953. The fuller account reached print later, in Moran's *Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival* (1966, pp. 408 to 418) and Colville's *The Fringes of Power* (pp. 625 to 636 in the 2004 edition), both published after Churchill's death. **January 1965.** Churchill had a further stroke on 15 January 1965 and did not recover. United Press International counted the bulletin announcing his death as the nineteenth issued since that stroke. ## The death Churchill died at about eight o'clock on the morning of Sunday 24 January 1965 in his home at 28 Hyde Park Gate. UPI reported that his wife Clementine, his son Randolph, his daughters Sarah and Mary Soames, grandchildren and Lord Moran were at the house. The date was the seventieth anniversary of the death of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. Lord Moran's bulletin, issued at about 08:35, read: "Shortly after eight this morning, Sunday, Jan. 24th, Sir Winston Churchill died at his London home. (Signed) Moran" (UPI, 24 January 1965). There is no disputed point about the time, place or cause in the sources consulted. The International Churchill Society dates the final version of the Hope Not plan to 24 January 1965, the day he died. ## What happened to the body The funeral had been planned for years under the code name Operation Hope Not, under the Duke of Norfolk, the hereditary Earl Marshal, who is responsible for arranging state occasions. The International Churchill Society records that Queen Elizabeth II expressed, after her coronation in 1953, the wish that Churchill should receive a state funeral. Its Operation Hopenot page calls the funeral "the first accorded a commoner since the Duke of Wellington", while its longer account in *Finest Hour* lists state funerals for commoners after Wellington, among them William Gladstone (1898) and Earl Roberts (1914); the two Society texts do not agree on the precedent. ![A television screen showing a flag-draped coffin on a gun carriage drawn by ranks of sailors through a crowd-lined London street](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/winston-churchill-2.jpg) The coffin of Winston Churchill on its gun carriage during the state funeral of 30 January 1965, photographed from a television screen by Anefo, the Dutch news agency, for its Dutch National Archives collection. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Begrafenis_Churchill_vanaf_televisie,_de_kist,_Bestanddeelnr_917-3888.jpg): Photograph by Jack de Nijs for Anefo, 30 January 1965; Fotocollectie Anefo, Nationaal Archief, the Hague, no. 917-3888; released by the Nationaal Archief under CC0., CC0 (public domain dedication). ![A low pale stone tomb with flowers on it, marked CHURCHILL, in a churchyard with box hedges beside a stone church](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/winston-churchill-1.jpg) The Churchill family grave in St Martin's churchyard, Bladon, photographed in August 2011 by Roger Davies, where he was buried on 30 January 1965 in the family plot. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_grave_of_Winston_Spencer_Churchill_at_Bladon_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2553853.jpg): Photograph by Roger Davies, 14 August 2011, via Geograph Britain and Ireland, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0., CC BY-SA 2.0. The coffin lay in state in Westminster Hall from 27 January. The International Churchill Society records 321,360 people filing past, at about 4,000 an hour. On 30 January the cortege left the Hall at 09:45, with about 7,000 service personnel in the procession and, in its account, half a million spectators along the route. The coffin was drawn on a gun carriage to St Paul's Cathedral, where a congregation of about 3,000 included, in the Society's words, "leaders of over 100 countries". President Lyndon Johnson, recovering from illness, did not attend; the former President Dwight Eisenhower, Churchill's wartime colleague, did. After the service the coffin was taken to Tower Pier and carried upriver on the Port of London Authority launch *Havengore* to Festival Pier. The International Churchill Society records that the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters and that dockers lowered their crane jibs in salute. Its *Finest Hour* piece on the cranes says the tribute was not part of the official plans: Sir David Burnett, managing director of Hay's Wharf, originated the idea, and he told the *Daily Mail* (1 February 1965): "The dock workers concerned immediately agreed to give up their time off. Our men have not asked for any overtime. They will be paid something to cover their expenses." The broadcaster Jeremy Paxman has alleged that the dockers cooperated only after being promised overtime pay; the Society disputes that. The coffin then went by train from Waterloo, leaving at 13:28, behind the locomotive *Winston Churchill*, a Battle of Britain class engine, to Long Hanborough, and on to St Martin's churchyard at Bladon, near Blenheim Palace, where he was buried in the family plot near his parents. ![Illustration: a microfilm reader and card-catalogue drawers with film strips and index cards.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/graphics/microfilm-archive.jpg) Illustration, not an archive object ## How the death was announced and used Lord Moran's bulletin of 24 January was the announcement. The funeral became a national and international broadcast occasion. A BBC account in the staff magazine *Ariel* (February 1965) says that the television audience in Britain rose from nearly 21 million between 9.30 and 10 a.m. to a peak of 25 million during the service at St Paul's, counting BBC and ITV together, with 80 per cent watching the BBC; that the recorded version on Saturday night drew 12.5 million; and that radio carried the funeral in full from 9.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. The BBC General Overseas Service broadcast the procession and the service in full in the same hours. The account adds that viewers in Europe received the television pictures live over Eurovision, that recordings were seen in Eastern Europe, and that the recording was sent by Telstar II to North America. Richard Dimbleby was the BBC's sole television commentator. While the cortege was on its way to Waterloo, Eisenhower broadcast from the crypt of St Paul's (BBC account); the International Churchill Society gives the ending of his tribute as: "Here was a champion of freedom". ![A flag at half-mast hanging from a brick canal house in Amsterdam, with the words Ordem e Progresso on its central disc](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/winston-churchill-3.jpg) A flag at half-mast in Amsterdam on 24 January 1965, the day of Churchill's death, photographed by Joost Evers for Anefo. The flag is Brazil's, and the archive title for the photograph names the Churchilllaan. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vlaggen_halfstok_voor_Churchill_in_Amsterdam_op_Churchilllaan,_Bestanddeelnr_917-3694.jpg): Photograph by Joost Evers for Anefo, 24 January 1965; Fotocollectie Anefo, Nationaal Archief, the Hague, no. 917-3694; released by the Nationaal Archief under CC0., CC0 (public domain dedication). **Abroad.** The Dutch news agency Anefo photographed flags at half-mast in Amsterdam on 24 January 1965; the archive's title for the series names the Churchilllaan, and the flag in the photograph hosted here is Brazil's, on a canal house (Anefo, Dutch National Archives). The Soviet Union sent Marshal Ivan Konev and the Deputy Premier Konstantin Rudnev, who arrived at London Airport on 29 January according to a press-agency photograph caption. **Concealment and disclosure.** The 1953 episode is the occasion on which Colville's own diary account has the stroke kept from the public and, for a time, from most ministers, with the help of three newspaper proprietors. The 1965 illness was reported in numbered medical bulletins. ## Timeline - 23 June 1953: stroke after the de Gasperi dinner; 25 June, the bulletin announcing a rest and the cancelled Bermuda journey. - 5 April 1955: resigns as Prime Minister. - 15 January 1965: further stroke. - 24 January 1965: dies at about 08:00; Moran's bulletin at about 08:35. - 27 to 30 January 1965: lies in state at Westminster Hall. - 30 January 1965: state funeral at St Paul's, river journey on Havengore, train to Long Hanborough, burial at Bladon. ## Same-standard note This page uses the same sections and definitions as every "How they died" page and marks gaps in the record. Churchill died of illness at home, after leaving office, at 90, and the state's handling of his death was a planned funeral under the head of state, shown on television in Europe and, by recording, elsewhere. His illness in 1953 was kept from the press by his circle and by press owners, which is stated here as documented, as is the open reporting of his last illness. This differs from leaders who were killed, who died in custody or who were tried, and no equivalence is implied. ## Sources - UPI, "Churchill is dead", 24 January 1965: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1965/01/24/Churchill-is-dead/9071516770209/ - John W. Scadding and J. Allister Vale, "Winston Churchill's acute stroke in June 1953", *Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine* (2018): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6194955 (quoting Colville, *The Fringes of Power*, pp. 625 to 636, and Moran, *Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival*, pp. 408 to 418; the two books themselves were not opened). - International Churchill Society, "Churchill's Final Farewell", *Finest Hour* 166: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-166/churchills-final-farewell-the-state-and-private-funeral-of-sir-winston-churchill/ ; "Operation Hopenot": https://winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/in-memoriam/operation-hopenot/ ; "Funeral": https://winstonchurchill.org/the-life-of-churchill/in-memoriam/funeral/ ; "Craning for Attention", *Finest Hour* 167: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-167/books-arts-curiosities-craning-for-attention/ - "The State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill on the BBC", from *Ariel*, February 1965, reproduced by Transdiffusion: https://transdiffusion.org/2022/09/18/the-state-funeral-of-sir-winston-churchill/ - Anefo photographs 917-3694 and 917-3888, Nationaal Archief (CC0), via Wikimedia Commons. - Press-agency caption, "Russia's Representatives Arrive For Funeral Of Sir Winston Churchill", 29 January 1965: https://www.alamy.com/jan-01-1965-russias-representatives-arrive-for-funeral-of-sir-winston-image69414323.html - Gaps: the start date of the planning is given only as 1953 by the Society; National Archives files and the Churchill Archive were not opened. The Soviet, Chinese, French and US press texts of 24 to 31 January 1965, the 350 million worldwide audience estimate (no original found) and the Lightning fly-past beyond the Society's statement were not sourced from primary records.