Their finest hour: Lord Moran papers open for study
21 January 2011
In May 1940, Sir Charles Wilson (1882-1977) received a summons from the War Cabinet to act as the physician of Winston Churchill, who had become Prime Minister just two weeks before.
The health of a political leader is always important; when he is in his mid-60s and has taken office at a time when nothing less than national survival is at stake, his every move, cough or dizzy spell is a matter of historic importance.
For the next twenty-five years, Wilson - who became Baron Moran of Manton in 1943 - was Churchill's doctor. Moran was thus privileged to have a front-row seat at the making of history; and we, decades later, are lucky that it was this man who filled the seat. Moran's life was marked by a commitment to honesty and an unwillingness to play the game of medical politics, even at a cost to his career.
When summoned by the War Cabinet, he was Dean of the medical school at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, and a Harley Street physician; however, he was poor by Harley Street standards and had long looked forward to the establishment of some form of National Health Service, coming into conflict with his fellow professionals over this. Although he regarded Churchill as the greatest Englishman since Pitt the Elder (see his 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' entry), he was clear-eyed about Churchill's character failings or lapses of behaviour.
Controversially, Moran published a book of his experiences not long after Churchill's death: 'Winston Churchill: the Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965' (1966). The manuscripts on which Moran drew for this book have remained closed for sixty years, but their closure period has begun to elapse: last year, one notebook was released (along with two other files relating to medical administration) and earlier this month, a major batch of drafts relating to the war became available for study, along with other papers from Moran's archive (full listing below). The majority of the Moran papers will have been opened by 1 January 2026.
In the papers released today, we read Moran's accounts of journeys to Canada to meet Roosevelt and to Casablanca for the first big conference of the three Allied leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. The interpersonal tensions between men stretched to the limit are clear. Stalin was particularly difficult to work with: "As for the twelve different items the Allies had in mind to put on the Agenda [for the Casablanca summit], Stalin brushed them aside: they did not interest him, he said in his rude way." ( PP/CMW/K.5/1/2)
Churchill himself is examined closely in passages written towards the end of the conflict. In particular, Moran notes the supreme self-confidence that enabled Churchill to take on and hold the responsibility of wartime leadership but that led to problems in his management of subordinates. In a particularly revealing file, PP/CMW/K.5/5/1, we read:
"While he could concentrate for six hours at a stretch on intricate documents and feel at the end of it that he was just beginning the night's work…he also had grave disabilities which added to the strain. He had no gift of devolution…
Perhaps Winston found that when he did choose a man to do a job of work he so often let him down. For he had no gift of picking people. It was his Achilles heel…That is the secret of his inability to pick the right people, he isn't interested in them."
When Moran published his memories in 1966, Churchill the war hero was still fresh in people's memories and the candour of his physician was bound to be controversial. Yet the picture that emerges from the book and from these manuscripts is a more human one and in the end - as Moran himself asserted - one that, if anything, adds to our admiration of the wartime leader. In Moran's papers we can see the human wear and tear of life at the nerve-centre during the nation's finest hour; we can catch our breath and wonder how we might have measured up. It is our good fortune that these pivotal years in the nation's history were recorded by this clear-eyed observer and that he captured his impressions for us.
Items from the Moran papers opened 1 January 2011:
Lord Moran papers
PP/CMW/D.1/2: Minutes, 2nd-4th meeting; 22 Jul, 29-30 Dec 1949 and 17-18 Jan 1950; 1949-1950.
PP/CMW/D.1/3: Agendas and minutes, 5th-13th meeting; Jan-Dec 1950.
PP/CMW/D.2/1: Official lists of consultants and proposed awards (papers A3-A7, A12-A16); Jan-Feb 1950; Also lists of regional hospital boards, chairmen of medical committees of teaching hospitals and notes on grading of specialists.
PP/CMW/D.2/2: Further official lists of doctors and recommended awards with associated documents (papers A21-24, A28-29, A31-33); Feb-Mar 1950.
PP/CMW/D.2/3: Review of the Committee's Work up to June 1950 (Paper A35); Jun-50.
PP/CMW/D.6/1/2: Lists for London regions, some headed 'not on photostat list', surgeons (carbon typescript) with covering letter to selectors Jan 1950, paediatricians (carbon typescript), general medicine (carbon typescript), lists of surgeons (pencil manuscript, not Moran); c.1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/2: Schedules of consultants listed by speciality for Professional Assessment Committee; c.1949-1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/2/1: South East metropolitan region, with recommendations; c.1949-1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/2/2: South West metropolitan region, annotated by Moran with recommended grades; 1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/2/3: North West metropolitan region, Supplementary list, annotated by Moran with recommended grades; 1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/3: 'Results of 1950 Voting'. Manuscript lists, annotated by Moran, for Birmingham, Bristol, East Anglia, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Sheffield, Wales and London regions; 1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/4: Surgeons. Lists of recommendations by Association of Surgeons and Royal College of Surgeons; 1949-1950.
PP/CMW/D.6/5: Whole-time clinical teachers. Lists and manuscript notes by Moran; 1950.
PP/CMW/D.13/1: 1950 (?) Awards; 1945-1950.
PP/CMW/D.13/1/1: Bristol, Sheffield, North East, North West, South East Metropolitan Regions, Association of Surgeons (with partial index); 1949-1950.
PP/CMW/D.13/1/2: London Teaching Hospitals (with index); 1949-1950.
PP/CMW/D.13/1/3: 'Faculties', Anaesthetics, ENT, Orthopaedics, Radiology, Ophthalmology, Royal College of Surgeons and Royal College of Physicians recommendations. All areas; 1945-1950.
PP/CMW/K.5/1/1: Casablanca (1st Version, with Sir Desmond MacCarthy's comments), covering Jan-Feb 1943; c.1950.
PP/CMW/K.5/1/2: Untitled typescript, with Desmond MacCarthy's comments, covering Feb-Oct 1943; c.1950.
PP/CMW/K.5/1/3: Red Twinlock, revised version of Casablanca by CMW with comments and annotations by CMW, John Wilson and others. Covering Dec 1941-Feb 1945; c.1950.
PP/CMW/K.5/5/1: Mr Churchill's fall from Power, '1st typing, with Sir Desmond MacCarthy's comments'. Period covered Feb 1945-Dec 1947; c.1950.
PP/CMW/K.6/1/1: 'Mr Churchill's Fall from Power' (1945 period); c.1950.
PP/CMW/K.6/2: Early revisions of war-time volumes; c.1949-1950.
Image: Charles M. Wilson (Lord Moran) at Marshalls Manor, writing in the garden. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
