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"THE GOVERNMENT
 IS THE SERVANT
 OF THE PEOPLE
 AND NOT ITS MASTER"

Winston Churchill
Oslo 1948

A Walk in Churchill's Shoes: The New Churchill Museum

By John Plumpton  

Volume 17 Issue 1 Spring 2005

There are many places in England where you can walk where Winston Churchill walked.  Blenheim Palace highlights the room to which Jennie Churchill was rushed on November 30, 1874 to give birth to the “Greatest Briton” of the 20^th Century.  At Chartwell you can see the life of the country squire as it looked during his ‘Wilderness Years’. At the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College in Cambridge you can study the documentary evidence of his multi-faceted career.

These worlds of Winston Churchill come together in the new Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms in London, the nerve centre of the wartime Churchill government. It is the perfect location because, in the words of Queen Elizabeth II, it was the scene of Churchill’s ‘finest hour’.

Even a lifelong student of Churchill’s life is awestruck by the magnitude of that life as portrayed in this magnificent museum.  You enter into the exhibit on Churchill as War Leader (1940-1945), one of the five segments through which his life, achievements and legacy are illustrated.  You can then move at your own pace throughout the others:  Young Churchill (11874-1900), Maverick Politician (1900-1929), Wilderness Years (1929-1939) and Cold War Statesman (1945-1965). Segments are illustrated by historical objects, original Churchill paintings, Churchilliana collectables, photographs, documents, films and sound recordings.

In the centre of the museum is the fascinating Churchill Lifeline.  Described as a computerized filing cabinet, it is an electronic interactive display table, 50 feet in length.  By touching the strip at the edge of the table, you can bring up information, documents, films, photographs and sound tracks that relate to almost every day of his life.     

Professor David Reynolds of Cambridge University, a consultant to the museum, calls it “a 21^st century project about a 20^th century giant.”  This combination does not appeal to everyone.  Some complain that it is imposing modern values on another time but Museum Director Phil Reed says that they have taken “as measured a stance as we can.”  

Interactive features do not appeal to everyone and some people have trouble with all this cutting edge technology.  I watched young people handle these features with great dexterity and fascination and for those who don’t like pressing buttons there is much to just look at and listen to. 

Phil Reed said that they were “trying to create a museum of personality” and they have been singularly successful in doing that.  The museum not only has a personality of its own, but it goes further than anything else that exists in displaying the complex personality of its subject. 

We will always treasure the Chartwell, Churchill Archives Centre and Blenheim.  We will always need organizations like the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy but the Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms in London will now hold a central and special place in the Churchill world. 

On its website the Imperial War Museum (www.iwm.org.uk) offers a Churchill Leadership Program called “Walk in Winston Churchill’s Shoes”.  That is what you feel you are doing when you visit the Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms, Clive Steps, St. Charles St., London.