Churchill's Connections

Pamela Plowden

Home » Friends » Pamela Plowden

1874-1971
UK aristocrat

  1. Introduction
  2. Stories
  3. Biographical summary
  4. See also
  5. Further reading
  6. References

1. Introduction

Pamela Chichele-Plowden (Chichele, pronounced CHICH-er-lee, is usually omitted) was Churchill’s first real love. She turned down his proposal but they remained lifelong friends. Instead she married Queen Victoria’s godson, Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, becoming Lady Pamela, Countess of Lytton. During World War I she ran a hospital in London, then moved to India with her husband who was governor of Bengal and later acting viceroy. The Lytton family seat, Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, has passed to the Cobbold family by marriage and is now known for its large music concerts and its role as a movie location.

2. Stories

  • Churchill proposed to Pamela on a punt on the River Avon while they were both staying at Warwick Castle.
  • Despite Pamela’s rejection of Winston’s proposal, they remained friends for life.
  • Pamela was one of a few young women who took Churchill’s fancy before Clementine.
  • Both the Chichele-Plowden and Bulwer-Lytton families had their share of characters and tragedies.
  • Knebworth House has been the seat of the Lytton family since 1490 and is known for its major music concerts.
  • During World War I, Pamela established and ran a Red Cross hospital in Mayfair, London.
  • Pamela’s husband Victor was the head of the League of Nations’ Lytton Commission in 1932 which investigated the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.

Churchill proposed to Pamela on a punt on the River Avon while they were both staying at Warwick Castle.

Winston met Pamela for the first time in November 1896 in Secunderabad, now part of Hyderabad in central India, at an army polo tournament when he was serving with the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars. Pamela’s father was in the Indian civil service. Churchill wrote to his mother: ‘I was introduced yesterday to Miss Pamela Plowden […] I must say that she is the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen.’1 A few days later, they toured Hyderabad on an elephant.

They corresponded frequently before and after Churchill left India and met when possible. It reached the stage where Churchill’s mother wrote to him in 1900 saying, ‘Pamela is devoted to you and if y[ou]r love has grown as hers – I have no doubt it is only a question of time for you 2 to marry.’2

However, when Churchill proposed to her, Pamela turned him down. Winston believed that the main problem was his limited finances, but he (and his mother) may also have overestimated her devotion. One of her friends described her as ‘the most accomplished plate-spinner of her day’,3 and Churchill’s brother Jack indicated that she was not averse to entertaining a number of romantic relationships at the same time.

Another issue may have been doubts about Churchill’s capacity for affection, which Pamela raised in a letter, provoking an impassioned response: ‘Why do you say I am incapable of affection? Perish the thought. I love one above all others. And I shall be constant. I am no fickle gallant capriciously following the fancy of the hour. My love is deep and strong. Nothing will ever change it.’4 On another occasion, he implored, ‘Marry me and I will conquer the world and lay it at your feet.’5

Also, the timing may have been too early. A few years later, Pamela said to Eddie Marsh, soon to be Churchill’s private secretary, ‘The first time you meet Winston, you see all his faults, and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.’6

Despite Pamela’s rejection of Winston’s proposal, they remained friends for life.

The relationship became tense for a short while, but soon recovered. When Winston heard in 1902 that she was going to marry Victor Bulwer-Lytton, he wrote to them with best wishes and said he trusted that he would always be counted among their most devoted friends. In 1908, he wrote to her, saying, ‘I am to marry Clementine & I say to you as you said to me when you married Victor – you must always be our best friend.’7

Clementine, who disliked a number of Churchill’s friends, was fond of Pamela and sometimes met up with her separately. She felt hints of jealousy when seeing Winston and Pamela together, but trusted him entirely. Winston and Clementine would visit the Bulwer-Lytton’s home, Knebworth House, on occasions, again sometimes separately. Pamela was one of Winston’s favourite guests at Chartwell.

Churchill and Pamela commiserated with each other over the deaths of their children: Marigold in Churchill’s case, from septicaemia when two years old, and Antony and Alexander in the case of Pamela (see below). When Churchill was made a Knight of the Garter in 1953, he wrote to her that he knew it would cause sad memories of the loss of her husband in 1947, who had also been a Knight of the Garter.

When Churchill became prime minister in 1940, Pamela wrote to him, ‘All your life I have known you would become PM, ever since the Hansom Cab days [horse drawn carriages in the early 1900s]. Yet, now that you are, the news sets one’s heart beating like a sudden surprise. Your task is stupendous.’8

In October 1950, Pamela reminded Churchill of his proposal fifty years earlier. ‘Fifty years! – how stunning!’ he replied. ‘But after all it is better than a hundred. Then there w[oul]d not be memory.’ He also noted, ‘how much I cherish y[ou]r signal across the years, from the days when I was a freak – always that – but much hated & ruled out, but there was one who saw some qualities, & it is to you that I am most deeply grateful.’9

Pamela was one of a few young women who took Churchill’s fancy before Clementine.

Churchill’s daughter Mary Soames wrote that her father ‘was never a “ladies’ man”, yet he greatly admired beautiful, spirited women’.10 At age 19, he wrote to his mother that ‘nothing but the thought of the beautiful Polly Hacket consoles me’.11 He also told her about an unchaperoned visit that he and Polly had made to see his brother Jack at Harrow school. However, she married Edward Wilson the following year, a shipping magnate.

Ethel Barrymore (‘Ettie’) was a well-known American actress who performed in some London shows in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Winston showered her with flowers and regularly visited Claridge’s after her performances to try to persuade her to have dinner with him. Her autobiography includes a photo of them together at Blenheim Palace. He is said to have proposed to her in 1900, but she did not want to be a politician’s wife, and after various engagements married Russell Colt, a stockbroker and son of Colonel Samuel Colt, the gun manufacturer. She was the great-aunt of the actress Drew Barrymore (‘Drew’ was Ethel’s mother’s maiden name).

Society beauty Muriel Wilson was Polly Hacket’s sister-in-law. He proposed to her in 1904, but she was not interested in politics and had concerns about his financial prospects. His desperate response was: ‘Don’t slam the door. I can wait – perhaps I shall improve with waiting. Why shouldn’t you care about me someday?’12 Instead she became temporarily engaged to Churchill’s cousin Sunny, 9th Duke of Marlborough. Her parents tried unsuccessfully to match her with George Cornwallis-West, who ended up marrying Winston’s mother Jennie, her second husband. Muriel eventually married Richard Warde, an army captain.

In 1907, South African Louis Botha (then president of the Transvaal) attended talks in London, bringing with him his vivacious, horse-riding daughter Helen. Churchill spent much time with father and daughter, and a false rumour began that he had become engaged to Helen.

Churchill was almost engaged to Violet Asquith, daughter of Prime Minister H.H. Asquith and later Violet Bonham Carter, but finally found his life-long match with Clementine Hozier, whom he married in September 1908, remaining together for 56 years until his death.

Both the Chichele-Plowden and Bulwer-Lytton families had their share of characters and tragedies.

Pamela’s maternal grandfather, General Sir Charles Foster, was well known for his bravery during battles and for his coolness during duels. It seems he was challenged to three of them, and in one he asked if he could sit down because he was tired of being fired at while standing up. He was hit once, while sitting down, but survived.

Pamela’s father-in-law Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, was viceroy of India in 1876 to 1880 and British ambassador to France in 1887 to 1891. He published critically acclaimed poetry under the pseudonym Owen Meredith, with Oscar Wilde dedicating his play Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) to him.

Robert’s father Edward was also an author and public official, coining the phrases ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’13 and ‘the great unwashed’.14 He has been mocked for the melodramatic first sentence of his novel Paul Clifford (1830), beginning ‘It was a dark and stormy night’,*15 popularised by Snoopy, Charles Schulz’s cartoon beagle. This has inspired the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst opening sentence for a novel.

Pamela’s mother Millicent died aged 42 after being bitten by a snake in India. Pamela and her husband Victor outlived two of their four children, with their eldest, Antony, dying in 1933 aged 29 in an air crash while in the Auxiliary Air Force. Their youngest, Alexander, an army major, was killed in 1942 during the Second Battle of El Alamein, aged 32.

Pamela’s sister-in-law Constance Bulwer-Lytton was a prominent suffragette (see Suffragettes) who was jailed on four occasions and was sometimes force-fed during hunger strikes. Constance sometimes used the name Jane Warton to distance herself from her aristocratic background but was released early at least twice because of her connections and a heart condition. She wrote Prisons and Prisoners (1954),16 a critique of the penal system, and died of a heart attack aged 54.

Another of Pamela’s sisters-in-law, Emily Bulwer-Lytton, was married the eminent architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (pronounced LUTT-yerns), well known for his English country houses, war memorials, and New Delhi city planning. He redesigned much of the interior of Knebworth House and some of the gardens.

* The full opening sentence is: ‘It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents – except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.’

Knebworth House has been the seat of the Lytton family since 1490 and is known for its major music concerts.

The estate was purchased by Sir Robert de Lytton, who supported Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth (1485) and became under-treasurer to the king’s household and the king’s close confidant. He also had the fine title of Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, responsible for all the royal household’s non-perishables, including cloth, furs and precious metals. The main building has changed considerably over the centuries, with its underlying red Tudor brick structure now clad in Victorian High Gothic fantasy style.

After Victor’s death in 1947, Knebworth House passed to his eldest daughter Hermione. She married Cameron Cobbold, losing the Lytton name, but her eldest son David Cobbold changed his surname by deed poll to ‘Lytton-Cobbold’ in 1961.

David became a banker but shifted his focus in the 1970s to concentrate on running public events at Knebworth, particularly large-scale contemporary music concerts. Many major names in the UK and US music scene have performed there, with attendance peaking at 125,000 per night in 1996 (headlined by Oasis) and 2003 (headlined by Robbie Williams). In 1996, Noel Gallagher of Oasis was having a bath in the main house when a bottle of champagne was delivered discreetly by a well-dressed man. Gallagher assumed he was a servant, but it was in fact David Lytton-Cobbold.

Since 2000, the house has been occupied and run by his son Henry Lytton-Cobbold. As a screenwriter, Henry has encouraged the use of Knebworth House as a movie location: its credits include two Batman films (1989 and 2005), The King’s Speech (2010), various Miss Marple episodes (2004 to 2013) and The Crown (2019).

In 2008, Henry successfully defended the literary reputation of his ‘dark and stormy night’ ancestor in a debate with the founder of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, Professor Scott Rice of San Jose University. Billed as the ‘Toff versus the Prof’, it was held in Lytton, British Columbia, Canada, named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who, as well as being an author, was secretary of state for the colonies at the time of British Columbia’s foundation in 1858.

During World War I, Pamela established and ran a Red Cross hospital in Mayfair, London.

In 1870, banker Edward (‘Ned’) Baring, later Lord Revelstoke, purchased two Georgian houses, 37 and 38 Charles Street in Mayfair, London, and merged them to house his extensive art collection. He was the grandson of Francis Baring, founder of Barings Bank, and uncle of Evelyn Baring, governor of Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion (see Jomo Kenyatta).

On his death in 1897, the property was sold to William Legge, 6th Earl of Dartmouth, who lived there until 1914, when ‘Dartmouth House’ was converted into one of the first Red Cross hospitals for officers wounded in the Great War. It was run by Lady Pamela who also raised funds to maintain its activities. Given her position in society, she was able to arrange high-profile events such as a theatre matinee in 2016 attended by Queen Alexandra, Princess Victoria, Mrs Asquith, the Duke and Duchess of Wellington, Violet Bonham Carter and Jennie Churchill.

After the war, the building was sold and since 1926 has been the international headquarters of the English-Speaking Union, in which Kay Halle was active and whose Washington DC chapter instigated the Churchill statue at the British embassy there. During World War II, it became the headquarters of a large war relief programme as well as offices for American and Commonwealth service personnel and VIPs. Visitors included Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Meanwhile Knebworth House was rented out periodically. Robert Bulwer-Lytton lost a considerable sum in bad investments in the 1890s and used his property as an income-earner. One of his tenants, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, was the youngest brother of Tsar Nicholas II, exiled after having an illegitimate child with a divorced commoner and then marrying her. His rent was £3000 per year (equivalent to £350,000 today, over £29,000 per month). In 1914, he obtained his brother’s permission to return to Russia to serve in the army, commanding a cavalry division. After the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated, naming Michael as his successor. However, Michael was imprisoned and murdered without being confirmed as tsar, bringing the tsarship to an end.

Pamela’s husband Victor was the head of the League of Nations’ Lytton Commission in 1932 which investigated the Japanese occupation of Manchuria.

Victor, named after his godmother Queen Victoria, began his public service in 1901 as assistant private secretary to George Wyndham, chief secretary for Ireland. During World War I, he held administrative positions in the Admiralty and was briefly British commissioner for propaganda in France. He was under-secretary of state for India in 1920 and governor of Bengal in 1922, serving as acting viceroy of India for four months in 1925.*

He became involved in the League of Nations as a representative of India, then Britain. In 1932, he led a League commission to investigate the situation in Manchuria. The year before, a Japanese soldier had exploded a small bomb near a Japanese railway line in north-east China (the ‘Mukden Incident’). This was blamed on Chinese dissidents and the event was used as the basis for the Japanese invasion of mineral-rich Manchuria, leading to the formation of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo.

The commission and other officials spent five months in China and Japan, producing a report in 1932 that pointed to Japanese aggression and Chinese provocation. It recommended partial Japanese withdrawal, Chinese sovereignty and bilateral negotiations. The League adopted the report in 1933, whereupon Japan left the League. After the end of World War II, Manchuria was restored to China, but ramifications from the occupation continue to this day.

One of the effects of the Lytton Report was to add to the growing awareness that the League of Nations was ineffective in preventing international conflict, its primary objective. The League was superseded by the United Nations in October 1945 and dissolved in April 1946.

Victor died at Knebworth House in 1947, aged 71, and was buried in St Mary’s churchyard, Knebworth. Pamela, two years younger, lived until 1971, aged 97, and was buried in the same place. Although Knebworth House passed to Victor’s daughter, his titles passed to his younger brother Neville, an artist and former international amateur tennis champion. The current (5th) Earl of Lytton is Neville’s grandson John Lytton, a chartered surveyor and a member of the House of Lords.

* His 21-year daughter Hermione was acting vicereine, as Pamela was in England at the time.

3. Biographical summary

OccupationAristocrat
CountryUK
CareerHospital director (World War I). Chatelaine of Knebworth House, Hertfordshire (1902-47). Accompanied husband Victor to India for some of his tenure as governor of Bengal (1922-27).
BornLondon, 1874 (same year as Churchill)
FatherTrevor Chichele-Plowden (1846-1905); died age 59
MotherMillicent Foster (1849-92); died age 42 after a snakebite; daughter of General Sir Charles Foster
SiblingsSecond child by father’s first wife Millicent Foster:
1. Beryl (1871-1954); married Major Edgar Lafone
2. Pamela (1874-1971)
Three step-siblings by father’s second wife Beatrice Fitzherbert:
– Trevor (1896-1900); died age 3
– Wilhelmina (1901-82); married Commander Kenneth Poland
– Hester (1902-93)
Education 
SpouseVictor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton (1876-1947), m. 1902 until his death; politician and colonial administrator; under-secretary of state for India (1920-22); governor of Bengal (1922-27); acting viceroy of India (1925); vice-chairman (1935-8) and chairman (1938-45) of the League of Nations Union
RelationshipsWinston Churchill; Julian Grenfell, soldier and war poet (1910); Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster
Children1. Antony, Viscount Knebworth (1903-33), Conservative MP for Hitchen; died aged 29 in an air crash while serving with the Auxiliary Air Force
2. Hermione (1905-2004); married Cameron Cobbold, 1st Baron Cobbold in 1930; inherited Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, on her father’s death
3. Davidema ‘Davina’ (1909-1995); 2 marriages (John Crichton, 5th Earl Erne; Christopher ‘Monty’ Woodhouse, 5th Baron Terrington)
4. Alexander, Viscount Knebworth (1910-1942); army major; killed in action in 2nd Battle of El Alamein, aged 32
Died1971, aged 97 (six years after Churchill)
BuriedSt Mary’s churchyard, Knebworth, Hertfordshire
ChartwellMany occasions
Other Club–
Nickname–
Height5’7” (1.7 m)

4. See also

Churchill’s female friends

Suffragettes

5. Further reading

Pamela Plowden and Churchill

Bulwer-Lytton family

  • Jenkins, Lyndsey, Lady Constance Lytton: Aristocrat, Suffragette, Martyr (Biteback Publishing, 2015)
  • Lytton, Constance, and Jane Warton, Prisons and Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences (Cambridge University Press, 2011) (suffragette)
  • Mitchell, Leslie, Bulwer Lytton: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Man of Letters (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003) (Edward Bulwer-Lytton, author and politician)
  • Ridley, Jane, The Architect and His Wife: A Life of Edwin Lutyens (Chatto & Windus, 2002) (Lutyens and Pamela’s sister-in-law Emily Bulwer-Lytton)

Churchill and women (particularly family)

Properties

Miscellaneous

  • Crawford, Rosemary, and Donald Crawford, Michael and Natasha (Thomson Reuters Australia, Limited, 1998) (Grand Duke Michael)
  • Nish, Ian, Japan’s Struggle with Internationalism: Japan, China and the League of Nations, 1931-1933 (Taylor & Francis, 2012) (the Lytton Commission)
  • Rice, Scott, ‘Our Story’, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest
  • Shields, Pamela, Hertfordshire Secrets & Spies (Amberley Publishing, 2009) (includes a chapter on Grand Duke Michael; also the Churchill family; General Charles de Gaulle; T.E. Lawrence; Kim Philby (Soviet Spies)

6. References

1. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 1: Youth, 1874–1900 (Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p. 285.

2. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 1: Youth, 1874–1900, p. 527.

3. Michael Shelden, Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill (Simon & Schuster, 2013), p. 4.

4. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill. Companion Volume 1, Part 2. 1896-1900 (Houghton Mifflin, 1967), p. 989.

5. Shelden, p. 16.

6. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (Random House, 2000), p. 174.

7. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 2: Young Statesman, 1901–1914 (Houghton Mifflin, 1966), p. 260.

8. Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, p. 675.

9. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 8: Never Despair, 1945–1965 (Random House, 1988), p. 562.

10. Winston S. Churchill and Clementine Churchill, Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill, ed. by Mary Soames (Black Swan, 1999), p. 5.

11. Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill: Volume 1: Youth, 1874–1900, p. 432.

12. Winston S. Churchill, ‘Churchill, Winston S. Autograph Letter Signed’, Christie’s.

13. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu, Or, The Conspiracy: A Play in Five Acts (G. Routledge and Sons, 1874), p. 37.

14. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (Baudry’s European Library, 1838), p. x in Dedicatory Epistle.

15. Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford, p. 1.