Commemorating Churchill and Shakespeare
Two Special Gifts
In 1898, actress-manager Maud Beerbohm Tree and her daughter Violet gave Churchill the six-volume Oxford Miniature Shakespeare. He was about to see action in the British campaign to reconquer the Sudan. To British empire-builders, Shakespeare represented the English values they hoped to impose on the places they conquered.
In 1954, Churchill received a specially bound anthology of Shakespeare’s poems from Rhoda Birley, who was a garden designer and the wife of Churchill’s portraitist Sir Oswald Birley. The anthology was probably a gift for his 80th birthday.
These two gifts from the beginning and end of Churchill’s career demonstrate that his friends knew he admired Shakespeare.
Lady Beerbohm Tree apologizes for this "ugly" edition of Shakespeare and promises to find a better one, if she has time, before Churchill leaves London for Egypt. CHAR 1/3/19. Churchill Archives Centre. Permission given by the Estate of Maud Beerbohm Tree.
Churchill's initials "WSC" are embossed within the belt of the Order of the Garter on the binding of this anthology presented by Lady Rhoda Birley. The interior inscription from Lady Birley reads: "To Winston Churchill with homage and my love from Rhoda Birley." Courtesy of the Churchill Family.
