The University of Essex is celebrating Sir Winston Churchill’s contribution to the county of Essex with a free public lecture in Loughton on 16 October.

Sir Winston Churchill

Allen Packwood, Director of the Churchill Archives Centre will speak at the University’s East 15 Acting School which falls within the former Epping constituency where Churchill was MP between 1924 and 1945.

Mr Packwood will talk about Churchill’s 40-year career as an Essex MP, in Epping and later Woodford (1945-1964), and the contribution he made to the foundation of the University, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Churchill was one of the founding donors who made the creation of the University possible and described it as “a great and most commendable enterprise” in 1963. He had previously visited troops who were stationed at Wivenhoe Park - now home of the University’s Colchester Campus - when he was Prime Minister during World War II.

Today, the University, which is ranked first in the UK for political science research and is holder of the UK’s only Regius Professorship for political science, holds a collection of books by Churchill in its Albert Sloman Library. These include a signed copy of The Second World War for which Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953.

Allen Packwood, a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, was appointed Director of the Churchill Archives Centre in 2002. In 2012 he co-curated Churchill: The Power of Words at the Morgan Library in New York.

The lecture takes place on the eve of the 2015 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death and the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and his “finest hour” speech.’

‘Bringing Churchill back to Loughton and Essex’ with Allen Packwood takes place at the Corbett Theatre, East 15 Acting School, Loughton, at 7pm on 16 October. The event is free but to book your place email: corbett@essex.ac.uk.

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More information
For further information please contact the University of Essex Communications Office, telephone: 01206 873529 or email: comms@essex.ac.uk.

The Churchill Archives Centre houses Churchill’s papers including his first childhood letters, his great war-time speeches and the writings that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. As well as the Churchill papers, the Centre is home to the papers of Baroness Thatcher and those of almost six hundred other politicians, diplomats, civil servants, military leaders and scientists of the Churchill era and beyond.