As part of Movember, the Churchill Alumni and Development Office has put together a Pinterest board of moustachioed characters including some photographs I found in the Archive’s collections. The facial follicular festivities may be viewed on the board below.
My favourite image, showing a particularly lush crop of ‘taches is this snapshot of the Duke of Marlborough, Victor Viscount Churchill, Winston and Jack Churchill at an army camp at Blenheim in 1911. It has a notable absence of Winston whiskers. Perhaps he was acting in response to the following incident. Briefly sporting a moustache during the Boer war, Churchill was told by a young woman to whom he had newly been introduced:
“There are two things I don’t like about you … your moustache and … your new political party”, to which he replied, “Pray do not disturb yourself, you are not likely to come into contact with either.”
– Churchill by Himself’, Richard M. Langworth
Gemma Cook
Army camp, Blenheim, 1911. Reference: Randolph Churchill Papers, RDCH 9/1/2.
