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The man who made Churchill’s career possible: The
remarkable letter Young Winston wrote to the maths teacher who turned
around his life goes up for auction.
A touching personal letter from Britain’s wartime Prime Minister
Winston Churchill to the Harrow mathematics master he thanks for “the
most salutary mental discipline I ever received” is to be auctioned
this week by Noonans of Mayfair, London.
Handwritten in October 1906, when Churchill, then aged 31, was
serving in his first ministerial post as Under-Secretary of State for
the Colonies, the letter is addressed to Charles Mayo, who had been
young Winston’s maths teacher at Harrow public school.
it is being sold as the final lot in Noonans' Wednesday sale, with
an estimate of £6,000 – £8,000 but it is believed bidding could go
much higher.
The seller has pledged to donate the proceeds to Nigel Farage’s
Reform UK, to help fund the party’s general election campaign.
Churchill’s letter praises “My Dear Mr Mayo” as “the only person
who ever succeeded in teaching me mathematics or – let me add – in
making me work at anything that did not excite my interest. I regard
my work under your care as the most salutary mental discipline I ever
received.”
In his final year at Harrow in 1892, Churchill needed to pass stiff
exams to gain entry to Sandhurst, the British Army’s famous officer
training academy.
He failed his maths exam miserably at the first attempt, achieving
only 500 marks out of a possible 2500. Under Mr Mayo’s tutelage,
however, on his second attempt Churchill scored almost 2000 marks.
He attributed this remarkable improvement to the Harrow master who,
the letter says, was the only man to succeed in making him master the
“detestable subject” of mathematics. “I do not remember,” writes
Winston, “ever having to face such a dead uphill pull as I had
to under your instruction for my Sandhurst examinations”.
Moreover, he notes, the “memory of those exertions & of your
kindness & care” had helped to stand Churchill in good stead for
later life: “although the knowledge is gone, the faculty no doubt
remains in a greater power of appreciation than I should otherwise
have developed”.
Interested buyers can bid for the letter online here:
https://www.noonans.co.uk/auctions/calendar/730/catalogue/494278/
If he had failed, Churchill might never have entered the elite
officer’s school and gone onto serve in India, Africa and the trenches
of the First World, laying the military foundation for his subsequent
political career which included stints as Home Secretary, War
Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and, of course, as the Prime
Minister who saved Britain from the Nazis in World War II.
In Charles Mayo’s 1928 autobiography, Reminiscences of a Harrow
Master, he wrote glowingly of the young Winston. In praise of
‘fagging’, the system whereby younger boys at public schools such as
Harrow carried out duties for the seniors - to which Churchill
was himself subjected - Mayo wrote: "Those who hope to rule must first
learn to obey... to learn to obey as a fag is part of the routine that
is the essence of the English Public School system... the wonder of
other countries”.
Winston Churchill maintained an affection for Harrow throughout his
life and often expressed his gratitude to the maths teacher who helped
him pass his exams for Sandhurst. Charles Mayo was a guest at
Churchill's wedding in 1908.
In 1941 Churchill delivered one
of his most famous speeches of the Second World War at his old school,
when he uttered the immortal line: “Never give in, never give in,
never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or
petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good
sense.”
Pierce Noonan, CEO of Noonans Mayfair Auctioneers said: “Churchill
was a prolific letter writer, however, most of the letters that appear
on the open market are not of a personal nature and this letter
written whilst Churchill was in his first government post at
the Colonial Office provides a fascinating and amusing insight into
both Churchill’s gratitude to his old Harrow master, Charles Mayo and
loathing of the subject of mathematics.
“One might even conjecture that were it not for the attention that
Charles Mayo gave to the young Winston Churchill he might never have
passed his entrance exams to Sandhurst and the course of history may
have been very different.”
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