Beschreibung:

CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer (1874-1965). Autograph memorandum, n.p. [Whitehall], n.d. [May 1940], with autograph annotations by Neville CHAMBERLAIN (1869-1940). One page, 202 x 82mm, in pencil, on Prime Ministerial notepaper, laid down onto lined paper with endorsement note. Provenance : Sir John ‘Jock’ Colville (1915-1987), Assistant Private secretary to both Chamberlain and Churchill in 1940; by descent. Churchill forms his War Ministry in May 1940, with the guidance of Neville Chamberlain . Two suggestions are made: that Thomas Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote, become Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs – ‘I thought Caldecote cd go back to Dominions & lead the Lords’ – and that Maurice, 1st Baron Hankey, become Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – ‘& also that Hankey at the Duchy cd continue his many secret C[ommit]t[e]es’. Chamberlain endorses both suggestions – ‘That sounds to me a good arrangement’ – before adding the names of [General John] Dill and [Sir Stafford] Cripps at the base of the memorandum. Following his resignation as Prime Minister and in his new role as Lord President of the Council, Chamberlain served as an important member in the War Cabinet of his successor, Winston Churchill Here, Churchill plans to return Lord Caldecote – whose controversial appointment as Minister for Coordination of Defence in 1936 was made by Baldwin in the face of Churchill’s own lobbying for the post – to the role of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, as well as making him Leader of the Lords, while Maurice Hankey – brought out of his retirement from politics by Chamberlain – was to be removed from the War Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. [With:] Neville CHAMBERLAIN. Autograph note, n.d. [c. May 1940], draft of a condolence letter to the wife of Sir Terence O’Connor. One page, 82 x 202mm, laid down on the verso.