DOVER BELLS GREET MR. CHURCHILL AS NEW LORD WARDEN - An original press photograph of Winston S. Churchill (minus an epaulette) inspecting the guard of honour at Dover Castle following the ceremony for his installation as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports on 14 August 1946

London: Copyright Keystone Press Agency Ltd., published by The Daily Telegraph, 15 August 1946. Photograph. This original press photograph captures Winston S. Churchill dressed in his regalia for his installation as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports on 14 August 1946.

The gelatin silver print on matte photo paper measures 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3 cm). Condition is very good. The paper is clean and the image clear, with only light wear and slight cockling to the edges. This photograph features hand-applied retouching to the uniforms and painted crop markings in white on the left and right sides of the image. The verso features the copyright stamp of “Keystone Press Agency Ltd.”, and a “PUBLISHED” stamp of “The Daily Telegraph” dated “15 AUG 1946”. There are two captions affixed to the verso. The first is a newspaper clipping of the caption as it appeared in print that reads “MR. CHURCHILL inspecting the guard of honour at Dover Castle yesterday after being installed Warden of the Cinque Ports. The missing epaulette from the ceremonial uniform of his office was later found in his car.” The second, lengthier, original typed caption is titled “DOVER BELLS GREET MR. CHURCHILL AS NEW LORD WARDEN.” The caption is dated “14.8.46” and reads “The bells of Dover pealed from the town below today as Mr. Winston Churchill drove over the drawbridge into Dover Castle to be installed Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports. Mr. Churchill wore naval dress uniform with an Admiral’s “fore and aft” dress hat.”

The Lord Warden is a Royal appointment dating back to the 12th century associated with defense of the realm. The Cinque Ports comprise Dover, Sandwich, New Romney, Hastings, and Hythe, to which Rye and Winchelsea were later added. Although the post was largely ceremonial by the time Churchill was appointed the 158th Lord Warden by the King in 1941, Churchill was then consumed with distinctly non-ceremonial duties as wartime Prime Minister. This explains why the elaborate formal Installation ceremony did not take place until 14 August 1946. As Churchill said in his remarks during the Installation, eliciting laughter from his amused audience: “…I took a keen interest in my duties which at the time were by no means ceremonial…” On 14 August Churchill rode through cheering crowds, dressed in his elaborate Lord Warden regalia and flashing his famous V sign, to the Court of Shepway for the formal Installation ceremony.

Upon Churchill’s appointment in 1941 The Times had written: “To this august tradition of Keeper of the Gates of England and Watcher of the English Seas, Mr. Churchill now succeeds. As First Lord in two wars he has fully qualified to preside in this ancient shrine of the seafaring tradition. As the dauntless leader of the Nation in the moment of its greatest peril he can wear the symbolic dignity as no other man can do.” The August 1946 Installation must have been bittersweet for Churchill; although Churchill had done perhaps more during the Second World War to protect the Realm than perhaps any preceding Lord Warden, less than a year earlier Churchill had lost his premiership when Labour outpolled the Conservatives in the General Election of July 1945. The Lord Warden would remain Leader of the Opposition until his second and final premiership following the General Election of October 1951.

This press photo once belonged to The Daily Telegraph working archives. During the first half of the twentieth century, photojournalism grew as a practice, fundamentally changing the way the public interacted with current events. Newspapers assembled expansive archives, with physical copies of all photographs published or deemed useful for potential future use, their versos typically marked with ink stamps and notes providing provenance and captions. Photo departments would often take brush, paint, pencil, and marker to the surface of photographs themselves to edit them before publication. Today these photographs exist as repositories of historical memory, technological artifacts, and often striking pieces of vernacular art.