Churchill dies in auto accident in New York in 1931

[Wolf of Badenoch]

I've done several searches and surprisingly cannot find this as a PoD for any new TL. Apologies if I'm missing something obvious.

ACCIDENT TO WINSTON
CHURCHILL.
New York, December 15
Mr. Winston Churchill, the British
statesman, who was knocked down by
a motor car in Fifth-avenue on Sunday
night, is reported by the doctors of
the Lenox Hill Hospitol, where he is
detained, to be have succumbed to his injuries
after. developing pleurisy asa result of
a blow to the right side of the. chest.
They had expected him to survive but it
would appear that the injuries suffered
were more severe than first thought.
Mr. Churchill was in America to
deliver a series of lectures on "The
Destiny of the English-speaking People."
The accident occurred when he at
tempted to cross Fifth-avenue after
alighting from a taxi cab. A second
taxi struck him knocking him to the
roadway. The. driver of the second car I
took him to the hospital, immediately.
Stating that he had tried to cross
the street against the traffic lights.
Police have not yet completed their
investigation. Mr Churchill is a Member of
the British Parliament and well known as
a journalist, author and lecturer. His mother
was Lady Randolph Churchill,
the former Miss Jennie Jerome

 

[TruthfulPanda]

I remember seeing such a story - but that is all I remember ...

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

I remember seeing such a story - but that is all I remember ...

Thanks Panda - the 'cutting' is an edited version of what happened IRL. I will see what sort of response I get and if no one can steer me to a developed version of this TL, I may have a go at it myself. It's not quite my period but I'm particularly interested in developing the idea that the death (or survival) of one individual can have significant impacts. I know that some members of this site take a contrary view and believe that TL's are self-

healing.

 

[Resurgam]

See Turning Point: Fall of Liberty if you don't mind the ASBs.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

@Mumby has just started one called Black Pudding

 

[Mumby]

@Mumby has just started one called Black Pudding

Genuinely freaky that I literally started it yesterday.

 

[Jonathan]

The first response is a by-election for the Member of Parliament for Epping.

I imagine, his son, Randolph Churchill, aged twenty, would stand in his fathers place.

As for leader of the Conservatives after the death of Chamberlain in 1940, I’d go with John Simon.

 

[Milo]

The first response is a by-election for the Member of Parliament for Epping.

I imagine, his son, Randolph Churchill, aged twenty, would stand in his fathers place.

As for leader of the Conservatives after the death of Chamberlain in 1940, I’d go with John Simon.

I could see Eden doing it being young , senior cabinet experience and also without the baggage of Churchill e.g. Galilipoi. Conservative party also has to think who would be acceptable for Labour if they are to form a wartime coalition

 

[ShortsBelfast]

I could see Eden doing it being young , senior cabinet experience and also without the baggage of Churchill e.g. Galilipoi. Conservative party also has to think who would be acceptable for Labour if they are to form a wartime coalition

Quite a few other possibles besides Soapy Simon who wouldn't be seen as a tough enough option for war leader. Halifax, Walter Elliott, Kingsley Wood all are possibles. This TL's "Churchillian" position on appeasement would probably be occupied by Duff Cooper who also had cabinet and FO experience.

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

The first response is a by-election for the Member of Parliament for Epping.

I imagine, his son, Randolph Churchill, aged twenty, would stand in his fathers place.

As for leader of the Conservatives after the death of Chamberlain in 1940, I’d go with John Simon.

Didn't you have to be 21 to stand at that time?

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

I could see Eden doing it being young , senior cabinet experience and also without the baggage of Churchill e.g. Galilipoi. Conservative party also has to think who would be acceptable for Labour if they are to form a wartime coalition

Yes but! - surely at the date of WSC's death the idea of a European war was a long way off? It's only 12 years since Versailled sorted all that out, while Mussolini is in power, AH isn't and the war in Spain has not started. The Japanese have only just invaded Manchuria,war time coalitions are not only anyone's horizon.

I do agree that WSC was tainted (both having ratted and re-ratted across party lines) and many people remember Tonypandy and tanks in Glasgow and the General Strike as much as Gallipoli.

 

[Nivek]

So would Lord Halifax step up the challenged?

 

[Jonathan]

Didn't you have to be 21 to stand at that time?

Would they make an exception for an educated man who is representing his father? Would Clementine Churchill take the office to hold it for her son.

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

No exceptions to the age qualification I would suggest. But Clementine was a tough lady and that might well have been an option - although unlikely to be supported by the Tory grandees. The local party might well approach her although there would be a raft of would be candidates for such a safe seat.

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

So would Lord Halifax step up the challenged?

Not sure about Halifax - obviously the issue of the Tory party leadership would not arrive until WW2 started and the Norwegian invasion was cocked up - assuming that still took place.

Halifax was Foreign Secretary at the time. My reading of the Labour view at the time was that he would not have been acceptable as Prime Minister, the more so as he would have had to have led the country from the House of Lords. Given that he left the cabinet in 1941 for the British embassy in Washington, this suggests that he was still tainted by his support for appeasement prior to the invasion of the Sudetenland.

I have to say, I am toying with the idea of putting Max Aitken (still not Lord Beaverbrook) into Churchill's constituency seat with a view to making him SoS for War in the coalition. Of the candidates for coalition PM, Eden looks a possible strong candidate but one could think the unthinkable and ask Sir Archibald Sinclair (a Liberal) SoS for Air to became a caretaker PM. This would probably have been popular with Labour and the House (if not the Tories) and would have demonstrated that it was true multiparty coalition.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Given that he left the cabinet in 1941 for the British embassy in Washington, this suggests that he was still tainted by his support for appeasement prior to the invasion of the Sudetenland.

Churchill was actually very good at putting potential rivals into jobs that got them out of the country. He sent first Lothian and then Halifax to Washington, Hoare to Madrid, Moyne to Egypt and Swinton to West Africa and made Margesson a scapegoat for military failures. I think it is more indicative of Halifax being someone who might have taken all his toy soldiers and sailors away from him.

 

[Dreadpool]

Here's another POD:

What if Churchill gets killed by being hit by the person who jumped off the roof of his hotel in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929?

IRL, he was visiting New York City at the time and actually saw the guy hit the pavement close to where he was standing...

 

[Catsmate]

Didn't you have to be 21 to stand at that time?

Yes, until 2006.

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

Churchill was actually very good at putting potential rivals into jobs that got them out of the country. He sent first Lothian and then Halifax to Washington, Hoare to Madrid, Moyne to Egypt

My mother worked for Moyne in Cairo and was close at hand when he was assassinated,

 

[Wolf of Badenoch]

Churchill was actually very good at putting potential rivals into jobs that got them out of the country. He sent first Lothian and then Halifax to Washington, Hoare to Madrid, Moyne to Egypt and Swinton to West Africa and made Margesson a scapegoat for military failures. I think it is more indicative of Halifax being someone who might have taken all his toy soldiers and sailors away from him.

I'm sure you are absolutely right, but Halifax was a leader of the appeasers until 1938 and all the memoirs of the Labour members of the coalition are consistent in their criticisms of his perceived sympathies for Facism - this may be ex post facto rationalisation but I cannot see a coalition being attempted with the Holy Fox in charge. He actually did a pretty good job in Washington where British aristos did not always go down well. He even got on quite well with the arch Anglophobe, Ernie King.