The English-Speaking Union

News and Events

Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at 4 PM (ET) 

Churchill: Mobilizing the English Language and Sending It Into Battle with Allen Packwood

Hosted by the ESU Happy Hour Committee

Allen Packwood will draw on the voluminous Churchill archives to show how Churchill used words to fight and refight the Second World War.

Allen Packwood BA, MPhil (Cantab), is a Fellow of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was awarded an OBE for services to archives and scholarship in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honors. His book, How Churchill Waged War, was published by Pen & Sword in 2018 and he has recently edited the Cambridge Companion to Winston Churchill. The Churchill Archives Centre is located on the grounds of Churchill College and is home to the papers of Sir Winston Churchill, Baroness Thatcher, Sir John Major, and almost seven hundred of their contemporaries: politicians, diplomats, civil servants, military leaders, and scientists of the modern era. It is still collecting. Allen likes to joke that it is the equivalent of four American presidential libraries! He is responsible for the overall management of the team and collections.

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Signature Drink

Cocktail – Churchill disliked cocktails and generally did not mix his drinks. However, there are internet rumors that his Brooklyn-born mother, Jennie Jerome, may have invented the Manhattan, so people can bring their own variants of this trusted favorite.