Winston Churchill Grows Up Poor?

NOTE: The implications of this scenario would have effects past 1900 but since Winston Churchill was born 26 years prior to 1900 I have decided to place it in this category.

I was trying to envision a scenario involving Churchill becoming a member of the Labour party (tricky, I know) given the fact that he arguably was, especially in his youth and early career rather liberal for his time (I know some, as in many, would argue against him ever approaching anything liberal) even though he was throughout most of his life an avid anti-socialist, which he considered the labour party to be.

Anyway a quick look on Wikipedia to try and see the origins of his anti-labour stance led me to this qoute in the "Political Ideology",

"In Jenkins' view, Churchill's privileged background prevented him from empathising with the poor, and instead he "sympathize[d] with them from on high."

So my question this is, how could it posited that Churchill come from a poor background in spite of his aristocratic and noble roots?

I know many families of noble descent have endured some levels of poverty despite their genteel origins.

Perhaps a bad business deal here and there in Winstons family tree could lead to his families reduced circumstances by his birth without effecting his ancestry?
 
There is also the problem that you need to make the Churchills a poor family. OK, you can have John Churchill remain a nobody and not become Duke of Marlborough. That affects the War of the Spanish Succession and also English domestic politics of this period. But then the Churchill men all marry the same women, who also have to come from poor families.

You could completely change the environment that Winston Churchill grows up in, and completely change his genetic inheritance, but then its not the same personality.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
This is ASB, btw. But it would depend where and how he grew up. In optimal conditions, if he was a protestant in Liverpool he'd likely have been a local publican and big noise in the Orange Lodge. If he'd grown up as a South Wales miner he'd have likely been important in the Union and possibly a local councillor. If he'd been brought up in the Scottish highlands he'd have wound up running a successful business in Canada.

But, given his substance abuse problems, if he'd been brought up in anything but optimal conditions he'd likely have ended up dead in his 30's from poverty alcoholism.
 
Wasn't his mom (an American named Jenny Jerome) from money in the U.S., though? This would make it supremely difficult, since if she was poor, she'd be of no interest to Lord Randolph, and if she was British and well-titled, but poor (a la Rose du Witt-Bukater - where "your father left us a lot of bad debts, hidden by a good name"), Winston would likewise be a different person with the same name.

Of course, Randy could just be a spendthrift (or Jenny could run off with one of her foreign lovers who then abandons her, and when Lord R tries to get Winston back, she claims Winston isn't his - plausible since he was born early, and her second son certainly wasn't Randy's). Winston gets raised abroad by his distant and fallen mother... goes back to England as one of the poor and gets into politics that way. But it's a stretch.
 
Wasn't his mom (an American named Jenny Jerome) from money in the U.S., though? This would make it supremely difficult, since if she was poor, she'd be of no interest to Lord Randolph, and if she was British and well-titled, but poor (a la Rose du Witt-Bukater - where "your father left us a lot of bad debts, hidden by a good name"), Winston would likewise be a different person with the same name.

Of course, Randy could just be a spendthrift (or Jenny could run off with one of her foreign lovers who then abandons her, and when Lord R tries to get Winston back, she claims Winston isn't his - plausible since he was born early, and her second son certainly wasn't Randy's). Winston gets raised abroad by his distant and fallen mother... goes back to England as one of the poor and gets into politics that way. But it's a stretch.
They were spendthrifts and were frequently in debt.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
But he'd be happy because he was poor - even if he could not afford tea and had to suck on a piece of damp cloth ...
 
If Churchill had grown up poor would anyone have heard of him?
Further more he was aleady of nobility British high class origin with best connections ( the Duke of Marlborough was an ancestor) so unless maybe his father Randolph Churchill ruins the family financially, Winston will not grow up poor.
 
Further more he was aleady of nobility British high class origin with best connections ( the Duke of Marlborough was an ancestor) so unless maybe his father Randolph Churchill ruins the family financially, Winston will not grow up poor.

Agreed. A POD that lets Churchill be born but the family loses their fortune means that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong in Britain.
 
Churchill was always just a bit on the make. You need something in it for him.

Pretty vague, but I wonder if a somewhat different Labour and Tory movements where you get a stronger push for Tory democracy and Tory socialism might do the trick.
 
The Duke of Marlborough is his GRANDFATHER. He's not going to have a poor BACKGROUND, but you can play with history to have him have a poor UPBRINGING
 
His family name would still suffice to get him into the Army ...

( ... which was often considered a choice for poor relatives)
 
Is there any possibility of a “switched at birth” scenario in a pre-hospital birth era among noble families?
 
NOTE: The implications of this scenario would have effects past 1900 but since Winston Churchill was born 26 years prior to 1900 I have decided to place it in this category.

I was trying to envision a scenario involving Churchill becoming a member of the Labour party (tricky, I know) given the fact that he arguably was, especially in his youth and early career rather liberal for his time (I know some, as in many, would argue against him ever approaching anything liberal) even though he was throughout most of his life an avid anti-socialist, which he considered the labour party to be.

Anyway a quick look on Wikipedia to try and see the origins of his anti-labour stance led me to this qoute in the "Political Ideology",

"In Jenkins' view, Churchill's privileged background prevented him from empathising with the poor, and instead he "sympathize[d] with them from on high."

So my question this is, how could it posited that Churchill come from a poor background in spite of his aristocratic and noble roots?

I know many families of noble descent have endured some levels of poverty despite their genteel origins.

Perhaps a bad business deal here and there in Winstons family tree could lead to his families reduced circumstances by his birth without effecting his ancestry?
Maybe Randolph Churchill's career ends much earlier and he succumbs way earlier to syphilis ? Churchill's mother widowed. Maybe going back to America with the two Brothers ? But shes Millionaire's daughter, so still unlikely for Winston to grow up poor.
 
Thinking about it but Churchill does have to be strictly poor for a lack of funds to seriously derail his career. Churchill entered the cavalry because he passed his Sandhurst exams with too low a score to enter the infantry but to the disgruntlement of his father who had to pay for the more expensive equipment of the mounted branch. Without such funding Churchill simply does not go into the Army likely derailing his career as a war correspondent and very likely removing his springboard into Parliament (getting captured and escaping from the Boers).

Maybe he just become a noted writer with a right of centre bent?
 
Maybe, he isn't poor for long? Something happens where an unscrupulous relative gains guardianship of Winston (Parental tragedy, etc.) and then forces him into poverty while spending any funds set aside for his raising.
 
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