Winston Churchill was ‘probably sexually abused’ at school, says novelist Lord Dobbs

WINSTON CHURCHILL was “probably sexually abused” as a child, the novelist Lord Dobbs has claimed.

The Conservative peer, who has researched the life of the former prime minister and wartime leader and written numerous fictional novels about his time in office, made the allegation while giving a talk entitled “Churchill: the origins of greatness”.

Although he did not say who might have sexually abused Churchill, Lord Dobbs gave a vivid account of how at the age of eight Churchill was stripped naked by the founder of his boys’ school and repeatedly thrashed.

The experience at St George’s School in Ascot, Berkshire, was said to have left him physically and emotionally scarred. Lord Dobbs, the author of the House of Cards political thriller series, told Chalke Valley History Festival in Wiltshire: “He [Churchill] was neglected, he was abused physically, emotionally and probably sexually, too.”

Explaining how as a novelist he began his research, the peer said: “Before I got to grips with Winston, I wanted to know who the man was. What made him react, what made him joyful, what drove him on? He was a driven man. He was obsessive in many ways.

“You don’t become great by being nice and kind and cuddly. You become great by doing things that other people simply don’t have the gumption or the opportunity to do. I felt it necessary to understand the young child. He didn’t have a difficult childhood – he had an impossible childhood. He was neglected, he was abused physically, emotionally and probably sexually too.”

The Rev Herbert William Sneydkynnersley, who founded St George’s in 1877, was well known for severely flogging his pupils.