Conservative History Journal

An interesting aspect of Churchill's life is his relationship with various women, which is not as salacious as it sounds. The women range from his nurse, whom he loved dearly, his mother, whom he loved from a distance and who helped and supported him through various friends to the great love of his life, his wife Clementine. You can see a selection of letters to and from WSC and various women in his life as well as a few related items here at the Churchill Archives.

In the Cabinet War Rooms there is a letter from Clementine to her husband in which she takes him to task for bullying his staff. She points out (from memory) that she is the only person who can mention this subject to him as all others are too terrified to do so. Clearly, many realized it and turned to Mrs Churchill for help.

This is wonderful news for all historians: the Spectator has "scanned and digitised copies of the magazine from July 1828 to December 2008 can be browsed online using the beta Spectator Archive. Everything in the last five years can of course be found on spectator.co.uk".

I have just tried looking up articles from the late sixties and the system works. The articles and letters in question appeared on my screen both as text and as scanned pages. Of course, the archive in the basement of the building in Old Queen Street is a great deal more interesting to peruse. Digitisation is all very well and very useful but I trust the Spectator will never even consider getting rid of that.

Tory Historian's attention was called to a fascinating source for the study of conservative history. The Duke University Press has set up a site on which you can read Thomas Carlyle's letters on line. The collection is excellently catalogued and the site is easy to navigate. One almost wishes that one was a student of Carlyle. However, this has also reminded TH of the need to visit Carlyle's house in Chelsea. A report from there will follow.