CLICKABLE TABLE OF CONTENTS Move Cursor to heading, Hold CTRL and Click. Note page numbers in this table of contents are different from those at bottom of pages in the book as in the book the diagrams and photos are not numbered pages. Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................................................................... 3 THOMAS BELL LINDSAY CHURCHILL .................................................................................................................................. 4 THE MARLBOROUGH CHURCHILLS: AUTHORS REMARKS .................................................................................................. 5 ILLUSTRATIONS: ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 ABBREVIATIONS AND FAMILY TREE DIAGRAMS: .......................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER ONE: THE VILLAGE OF CHURCHILL AND ORIGINS OF THE FAMILY NAME: ................................................ 30 CHAPTER TWO: CHURCHILLS OF THE 13th, 14th AND 15th CENTURIES............................................................................ 33 CHAPTER THREE: THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY CHURCHILLS OF BANBURY, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF A PEDIGREE ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 43 CHAPTER FOUR: THE CHURCHILLS OF BANBURY (continued) ............................................................................................ 47 CHAPTER FIVE: THE CHURCHILLS OF NORTH ASTON ..................................................................................................... 51 CHAPTER SIX: THE MOVE TO DEDDINGTON AND STEEPLE CLAYDON ........................................................................ 60 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE FIRST THREE GENERATIONS AT DEDDINGTON ...................................................................... 71 CHAPTER EIGHT: TALLOW CHANDLERS, GROCERS AND SOLICITORS ........................................................................... 75 CHAPTER NINE: DEDDINGTON FOLK, AND A MOVE TO LONDON ............................................................................... 83 PLATES .............................................................................................................................................................................. 86 CHAPTER TEN: CAPTAIN THOMAS CHURCHILL, THE PAYMASTER THE COLONIAL CIVIL SERVICE; THE FIRST WORLD WAR ................................................................................................................................................................... 110 CHAPTER ELEVEN: A VISIT FROM THE SHERIFFS........................................................................................................ 119 CHAPTER TWELVE: THE STEEPLE CLAYDON CHURCHILLS ......................................................................................... 123 CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE DEDDINGTON CHURCHILLS AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR....................................... 137 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................................................. 152 LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................................................ 153 APPENDIX I: The Guild of Knowle. .................................................................................................................................... 154 APPENDIX II An extract from Jackson's Oxford Journal 9th January 1768 (Advertisement): ................................................... 155 APPENDIX III Early leaves of the North Wales Gazette from April 7 to June 28 1825: ........................................................... 155 APPENDIX IV: College of Arms discussion ......................................................................................................................... 156 APPENDIX V letter from author ...................................................................................................................................... 157 APPENDIX VI Fleetwood Churchill MD............................................................................................................................ 158 E CHURCHILL CHRONICLES, Annals of a yeoman family By THOMAS B. CHURCHILL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help given to me thirty-three years ago by Dr. E. G. W. Bill, now the Librarian of Lambeth Palace Library. In those distant days Geoffrey Bill provided me with much information concerning Churchill landholdings in the Christ Church Manor of Deddington in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Equally, I am happy to thank my distant kinsman, Dr. Gerald Tibbitts, Sub-Librarian of University of London Library, for many stimulating discussions on the origins of our common ancestors. Finally, I must record my deep indebtedness to Mr. Colin G. Harris of the Bodleian Library, who has always responded most generously from his vast store of knowledge to any of my frequent enquiries over the past ten years. Thomas B. L. Churchill. IN MEMORIAM PARENTUM" THOMAS BELL LINDSAY CHURCHILL General Tom Churchill comes of an old Oxfordshire yeoman family whose origins go back to the fifteenth century. During the days of Empire representatives of his family served in India and Ceylon as soldiers and civil engineers, and in the two World Wars they fought and died in the service of their king. In 1926, Tom Churchill passed in 7th to the Royal Military College (as it was called then), Sandhurst, thereby gaining a prize cadetship, and he passed out sixth, winning the prize sword for Military History in the following year. He joined The Manchester Regiment in Burma in 1927 and three years later moved to Secunderabad, Deccan, India. In 1931 the Regiment was recalled to Burma because the Burma Rebellion had broken out, and a force of brigade strength was sent to that country to quell the outbreak. Churchill commanded his platoon in an isolated village post a few miles east of Prome in the southern Irrawaddy District, and after a month of ceaseless searching in the paddy fields, villages and jungle by day and night, managed to confront a rebel gang, kill the leader and two of his confederates, and capture the remainder. Churchill was mentioned in Despatches and awarded the Military Cross for his leadership in the hunt. He was aged 24. After being made Adjutant of his Regiment (the youngest in the Army), he moved with his battalion to the Sudan, and then in 1933, returned to England. Two years later Tom Churchill was appointed instructor in the interpretation of air photographs, and in due course became the expert in this form of intelligence. When war was imminent he ran courses to teach RAF Bomber Command intelligence officers how to estimate bomb damage to factories, railway yards and ports. Later he assisted in establishing the inter-service interpretation establishment at Medmenham, where later the German flying bombs were discovered. He was attached to RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, but, tiring of a job on the staff, he joined the Army Commandos for the invasion of Sicily, and the landing at Salerno in Italy. When his friend Sir Robert Laycock was made Director of Combined Operations, in succession to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Tom succeeded Laycock as commander of the Commando Brigade in Italy. He led it in the landing at Anzio, and then took command of the island of Vis in the Adriatic, which he put in a state of defence, as the Germans were occupying all the other Yugoslav islands lying between Split and Dubrovnik. In June 1944, Marshal Josip Broz Tito was chased out of Yugoslavia by a German parachute raid at Drvar in Montenegro, and was brought by British destroyer to Vis. Churchill and his Commando Brigade guaranteed his safety, and Tom came to know him well. It was also on Vis Island that he met Fitzroy Maclean, later Sir Fitzroy, and made a lasting friend of this outstanding guerrilla leader. In September 1944 he landed with his Commando Brigade in Albania, where, after a hard fight in appalling weather, he defeated the Germans at Sarande (Santa Quaranta), cut off their retreat to Germany, and went on to liberate the island of Corfu. After the war, Churchill commanded the British Zone in Austria He was then appointed as Major General in charge of administration in the Far East Command, with headquarters at Singapore, and then became Vice Quartermaster General to the Forces at the War Office. His final appointment was as Deputy Chief of Staff of the Land Forces in NATO at Fontainebleau. In 1948 Churchill was sent a copy of General Eisenhower's book, Crusade In Europe. On the fly-leaf Ike had written: - For Brigadier T.B.L Churchill For admiration and high esteem to a brilliant leader in World War II. Dwight D Eisenhower. THE MARLBOROUGH CHURCHILLS: AUTHORS REMARKS The first Winston Churchill (1620 - 1688), the father of John Churchill (created 1st Duke of Marlborough) alleged (but without proof) that he was descended from Gitto de Leon (living in 1055) of a noble family in Normandy; and he averred that Gitte’s grandson, Roger de Courcil, attended William, Duke of Normandy in