Sold – Document Signed by Both Winston Churchill As Prime Minister and Queen Elizabeth II
A wonderful and poignant connection.
Under the British governmental system, the Sovereign is Head of State and titular head of Her Majesty’s Government. She selects as her Prime Minister the person who is able to command a working majority in the House of Commons, and invites him to form a government. As the actual Head of Government,...
Under the British governmental system, the Sovereign is Head of State and titular head of Her Majesty’s Government. She selects as her Prime Minister the person who is able to command a working majority in the House of Commons, and invites him to form a government. As the actual Head of Government, the Prime Minister recommends appointments to the Sovereign who confirms the selections by formally making the appointments to the respective offices. Thus, while in the United States, appointment documents are signed by the President, in Britain they are signed by the monarch. In some cases, particularly in earlier years, official appointments may be found that are signed by both the monarch and a Prime Minister, but these are uncommon and seldom reach the market.
Churchill’s second term as Prime Minister started in October 1951 and ended on April 7, 1955, when he stepped down and retired. During that time, the young Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, and he took her under his wing and helped her adjust, and in fact define, her new role. Theirs was a warm and significant relationship, and in gratitude she conferred on Churchill the dignity of Knighthood and invested him with the insignia of the Order of the Garter.
Sir Winston Churchill, with his humble duty to The Queen, respectfully recommends to Your Majesty…
Document Signed as Prime Minister on his 10, Downing Street letterhead, London, December 14, 1954, appointing a Vicar to a post in the Church of England. “Sir Winston Churchill, with his humble duty to The Queen, respectfully recommends to Your Majesty that the Reverend John Harrison Duphoy Grinter, B.A., Vicar of Wellington with West Buckland, Vicar of Nynehead and Prebendary of Haselbere in Wells Cathedral, be appointed to the United Benefice of Newark with Coddington in the County of Nottingham and in the Diocese of Southwell on its vacation by the appointment of the Reverend Canon George William Clarkson, M.A., to the Suffragan Bishopric of Pontefract.” The document is marked by the Queen at top “Appd. [approved], E.R.” John H.D. Grinter took over his post as Vicar of Newark in 1955 and served there until 1963.
A search of auction records shows that only one other appointment document signed by Churchill has come up for sale in over 30 years, and that involved King George VI. We cannot find record of any with this combination of signatures:?Churchill and Elizabeth II. It is also the first document we can recall in which Churchill refers to himself by his title. This, then, is a true rarity.
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