Arthur Royce Bradbury, Ara, 1892-1977 Portrait of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (1874–1965) in Garter Robes

Arthur Royce Bradbury, ARA, 1892-1977

Portrait of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (1874–1965) in Garter Robes

Signed/Inscribed: "Arthur Bradbury"

oil on canvas

59 x 49 cm. (23.1/4 x 19.1/4 in.)

After his defeat at the 1945 General Election Churchill was offered the Order of the Garter by H.M. King George VI, but he refused. Churchill had on refusing the Order of the Garter in 1945, given one of his many quotes : ‘How can I accept the Order of the Garter, when the people of England have just given me the Order of the Boot?’ -Winston S Churchill, September 1945

But in 1953 he relented and accepted the honour and was invested by HM Queen Elizabeth II as a Knight of the Garter. The installation, in St. George's Chapel Windsor, took place on 14th June 1954.

There is a theorey that The order of the garter was "Restored to gift of the Sovereign by Attlee in 1946". So maybe he wouldn't accept it from the Labour prime minister but would accept it from the monarch. What makes the most sense is that in 1945 he (actually his party) had just been voted out of office. At this point he still had hopes of getting back the majority (and perhaps the PM office), and in fact he did regain it in 1951.

So I think in 1945 he was mostly telling you what his problem was. He was still an active politician, and as such it would be next to impossible to accept such an honor without it being tainted by Great Britian's extant political climate. People could not help but speculate that there were crass political dimensions to the "honor".

In 1953 he was PM again. However, he was also 78, and suffered a fairly bad stroke, after which he never walked or spoke quite right again. He was clearly in his declining years, and in fact retired the PM position 2 years later. So at this point the logic that compelled him to decline the honor a decade prior no longer applied. Its also quite possible that, given his failing health, the soverign was a bit more insistent on giving it to him this time, for fear of any further wait causing it to have to be bestowed posthumously.

As customary on the death of a Knight of the Garter, Churchill’s Garter achievements (banner crest, helm and sword) were removed from his Garter stall in St George’s Chapel on the announcement of his death and a wreath was placed in his stall. The wreath remained in the stall until the presentation of Churchill’s banner to his family at Evensong on 5 April 1965. Churchill’s Garter stall plate remains on the stall as a permanent memorial of his membership of the Order of the Garter. However, it was not the only stall plate made for Churchill’s stall – the other one is now believed to be in private hands. How did this come about?

Sir Winston Churchill was nominated as a Knight of the Garter on 24 April 1953 and invested and installed over a year later, on 14 June 1954. However, the production and fixing of his stall plate were delayed by a long running dispute between the stall plate maker, Harold Soper, and the College of Arms. Soper produced a partially completed stall plate for Churchill’s installation ceremony in 1954, but removed it immediately after the ceremony ‘in its unfinished state’, replacing it with a cardboard dummy plate of Churchill’s quarterly arms and two crests. By 5 October 1954, Soper informed the Garter King of Arms, Sir George Bellew, that the stall plate was finished but refused to produce it or to submit an invoice. On 29 November, Bellew wrote to Soper: ‘Can you let me have the Churchill Plate? If you do not wish me to have it and refuse to send it you can scarcely blame me for having another one made elsewhere, but that seems to me a foolish waste’.

In 1957, at the end of his tether, Bellew attempted to find an alternative manufacturer of stall plates, not just for Churchill but also for the other Companions of the Garter who lacked plat