A True History Bonbon

Sir Winston Churchill's Mother Was An American Girl From Brooklyn, N.Y.

SURPRISE! A TRUE HISTORY BONBON: Winston Churchill's mother was an American girl from New York City. With this article, I launch my own (John T. Cullen) Substack series of articles. Winston Churchill's mother was a sultry, brilliant, and beautiful young woman from Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The sultry, ravishing Jeanette Jerome (1854-1921) came from the wealthy Jerome family of Brooklyn and Manhattan in New York City.

When Jennie became Lady Randolph Spencer-Churchill at age 20 in 1874, she was notably described by a contemporary U.K. aristocrat as "more panther than woman." As with many of the aristocratic set, Jennie engaged in her share of marital infidelities during her life in Oxfordshire (Blenheim), London, and beyond. She hit it off well with younger men (her second and third husbands) and was described as 'my pussycat' by the second husband. So much for panthers (until they bite, I guess).

Jennie's parents owned a Gilded Age mansion on Madison Avenue in New York City. The Jerome family were wealthy and powerful in the United States. One of the main avenues in New York City is named for Jennie Jerome's family (Jerome Avenue) along with a subway line and other features. So how did Jennie Jerome go from New York to London, giving birth to the future Prime Minister in England when she was only twenty years old? And what cross-Atlantic web of connections does her life reflect?

During the Gilded Age (lasting from soon after the U.S. Civil War c.1865 to roughly 1900), hundreds of wealthy heiresses of U.S. families were married off to wealthy, mostly English aristocrats who, in some cases, had aristocratic titles and prestige to offer in exchange for wealth. It is a process that reminds me strongly of the custom of dynastic and imperial intermarriages common among European royalty over many centuries. In fact, the U.S. was never really immune to that syndrome.

What is the Gilded Age? In the U.S. Civil War, the industrial north shot upward on a path of innovation and productivity already in motion in the U.S. since at least the 1830s (much of that stolen technology illegally brought over to the New England Fall line of mills and factories from England). With the Civil War, the U.S. became a world industrial giant that (for various historical reasons, including the unwelcome imperialism of France's Emperor Napoleon III at the time) readily blended forces with the United Kingdom. Ironically, we in the U.S. celebrate the War of (our) Independence from the English every July 4th, but maybe we should have begun celebrating Interdependence some time in the late 1800s.

Jennie Jerome was hardly alone in her trajectory. A digression: Among the most famous U.S. zillionaire, new wealth brides sent to England was Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877-1964), of the ultra-wealthy Vanderbilt family of U.S. shipping and building tycoons. Consuelo was in fact named for a cousin, Consuelo Montagu (1853-1909); of Cuban-U.S. extraction, who became Countess of Manchester in the U.K. The web of names, relationships, and estates becomes so tangled that I'll stop there and focus back on Jennie Jerome. I will leave a short list of look-up terms for Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube below if you, dear reader, are interested in pursuing the many narrative links further. All you need is a few links, and they will lead to many related links beyond. Suffice it to say that Consuelo Vanderbilt and Jennie Jerome Spencer-Churchill were among a considerable, tangled web of U.S. friends and acquaintances among the British aristocracy; so Jennie did not swim alone in that cross-Atlantic current.

If you notice the name Spencer in that mix (Lord Randolph Spencer-Churchill) you are correct. Lady Diana Spencer (Princess Diana) and I'll discuss Diana in a future article. The Spencer and Churchill family lines were intertwined for many generations.

Jennie and Randolph were married in Paris, France. Now how can that be? That's one of many interesting topics (the 'Grand Tour') I'll discuss in later articles. Many wealthy families from the U.S. and Protestant Europe made the 'Grand Tour' to ancient capitals like Paris, Rome, and Athens at least once in a lifetime to broaden their educations. Paris above all was the destination of many writers, artists, composers, and educators (and has been into modern times).

In 1873, at 19 years old, teenage Jennie Jerome was sent from New York City to finish her education in Paris, France. There, her studies included piano under the Hungarian-born composer Stephen Heller, whose circle of musicians included such names as Frederic Chopin and Hector Berlioz. Jennie was a talented young lady, who in 1909 also was to write a play produced at The Old Globe Theater in London, titled 'His Borrowed Plumes' staged at The Globe Theater in London (sadly, it bombed commercially).

For images of the splendid homes (Jerome mansion on Madison Avenue, NYC and Spencer-Churchill’s Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, UK) take a look at the links below. You can usually find good info on Wikipedia, YouTube, and Google.

In England, Jennie became socially acquainted with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. The prince introduced her to her first husband, Lord Randolph Spencer-Churchill at a sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August 1873. Jennie (then 19) and Randolph (born 1849, age 24) fell in love and became engaged within a few days. They married about eight months later, in April 1874, at the British Embassy in Paris. Jennie Jerome, the beautiful panther from Brooklyn and more generally New York City, became Lady Randolph Churchill-Spencer.

The couple had two sons: Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) and his brother, John Strange "Jack" Spencer-Churchill (4 February 1880 – 23 February 1947). Here is a picture of Jennie with her two sons (Winston on the right):

Lord Randolph, her first husband, died at age 45 in 1894. Gossip has it that he had many extra-marital affairs, including with chambermaids (willing or not so willing), and contracted syphilis that took his life. There was no cure for syphilis, which in the 1800s has been described as being common as the cold (only it never goes away). Many famous people had it, like the French author Gustave Flaubert; and the only known cure before antibiotics was mercury, which in itself is a deadly poison that took you if syphilis didn’t.

Jennie went on to marry twice more. The first of these was to a British Army officer in the Scots Guards, Major George F.M. Cornwallis-West. Cornwallis-West was some twenty years younger than Jennie, in fact about the same age as her son Winston. Cornwallis was distantly related to the British admiral who fought at Yorktown in 1781 during the U.S. Revolutionary War, defeated by General George Washington and his French ally the Marquis de Lafayette (which again shows the endless tanglement and surprises under history's slogans and marching tunes). So Jennie conquered young Cornwallis-West (among her other panther-like digressions), and they were married 1900-1914 at which time they more or less dumped each other amid other amatory adventures. Cornwallis called her 'my pussycat' (what happened to Panther?) but soon enough ran off with a famous actress.

Jennie went on to marry a third time, to yet another of those handsome, wealthy social chaps. His name was Montagu Phippen Porch (1877-1964). Ironically, Porch was three years younger than both Winston and Cornwallis-West. When he married Jennie, he became Winston's stepfather although younger than his stepson.

Jennie lived until May 1921, when she fell down a staircase at the Porch estate, and had to have her left leg amputated above the knee. "Make it a clean cut," the courageous panther-woman (aged 67) told the surgeon in her typical gritty, commanding spirit. Gangrene set in, and she died from complications soon after.

Her elder son Winston lived until 1965; he lives forever as one of the iconic Allied leaders of World War Two (alongside FDR especially).

AFTERNOTES:

My focus today simply is the remarkable fact that Winston Churchill's mother was of U.S. gentry. The term 'socialite' came into usage after 1900. I need to keep these articles brief because the subject matter easily branches into encyclopedic ranges. At bottom I'll add suggested search terms for your further indulgence with Wikipedia, Google, and YouTube, etc.

In a few future articles (and occasional surprise bonbons like this), I will touch upon the morass of tangled family lines on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. I promise to try and keep each article brief, although all of it is fascinating and tied up with many great stories. For example, about tangled webs of history: FDR's wife was his second cousin Eleanor, of distinguished pedigree in the USA like her husband, and yet also a distant cousin of Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. As I see it, under the surface, the plumbing of all this zillionaire superstructure is about the flow of money (wealth, inheritance, investment, etc.). The tangled trans-Atlantic jumble of names and families is a key feature of the Gilded Age: I am tempted to write the whole history here right now—it is so fascinating—but there are not enough pixels on my computer nor are there tick-tocks on our clock.

SEARCH TERMS (a small selection, which will lead you to many more related info items):

Jeanette 'Jennie' Jerome

Lady Randolph Spencer-Churchill

Lord Randolph Churchill (Jennie's first husband, the father of Winston)

British prime minister Winston Churchill

Major George F.M. Cornwallis-West (Jennie's second husband)

Montagu Phippen Porch, Jennie's third husband

Clementine (Winston's wife)

***Related topics (a quick few of many to choose among):

Vanderbilt family

Consuelo Vanderbilt

Gilded Age (U.S. history c1874-c1900)

Socialite (term attested 1909; earlier 'gentry' and the like)

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT MY SUBSTACK: I will be writing Substack articles in several areas that have interested me over many years. These include History (among them, some true Bonbons); surprising facts about words and etymology (the "archeology of language"); literature; and current events. I am a progressive, liberal thinker politically and socially; a free thinker in matters of religion and spirituality focused on one truth, namely Matthew 7:12, a direct quote from Leviticus 19:18 generally known as the Golden Rule (treat others as you wish them to treat you; and take loving care of our Mother Earth). I served honorably in the U.S. Army six years during the Cold War era, post-Vietnam, in West Germany, separating from the service as a Sergeant. I have earned three college degrees: BA in English/Liberal Arts, University of Connecticut; BBA in Computer Information Systems, National University San Diego; and a Master's in Business Administration, Boston University. In future articles, I may touch upon some of my own adventures in both Europe and North America. My key observation about humanity is: people everywhere are the same—good ones, bad ones, and mostly okay ones.

HAPPY READING! JTC