Sir Henry Channon (7 March 1897 – 7 October 1958), often known as Chips Channon, was an American-born
British Conservative politician, author and diarist. Channon moved to England in 1920 and became strongly anti-American, feeling that American cultural and economic views threatened traditional European and British civilisation. He wrote extensively about these views. Channon quickly became enamoured of London society and became a social and political climber.
Channon was first elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1935. In his political career he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to
Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician. ''The Times'' obituary c ...
at the Foreign Office from 1938 in the
Chamberlain
Chamberlain may refer to:
Profession
*Chamberlain (office), the officer in charge of managing the household of a sovereign or other noble figure
People
*Chamberlain (surname)
**Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), German-British philosop ...
administration and though he retained that position under
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
he did not subsequently achieve ministerial office, partly as a result of his close association with the Chamberlain faction. He is remembered as one of the most famous political and social diarists of the 20th century. His diaries were first published in an expurgated edition in 1967; however, edited by
Simon Heffer
Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
, they have more recently been published in full by
Hutchinson. The first volume appeared on 4 March 2021, and the second on 9 September in the same year. The third and last volume was published on 8 September 2022.
Biography
Early years
Channon was born in Chicago to an Anglo-American family. In adult life he took to giving 1899 as his year of birth, and was embarrassed when a British newspaper revealed that the true year was 1897.
[Davenport-Hines, Richard, "Channon, Sir Henry (1897–1958)"]
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, accessed 29 August 2009 His grandfather had immigrated to the US in the mid-nineteenth century and established a profitable fleet of vessels on the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
, which formed the basis of the family's wealth.
['']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' obituary, 9 October 1958, p. 16 Channon's paternal grandmother was descended from eighteenth-century English settlers.
[
Channon's parents were Vesta (''née'' Westover) and Henry Channon II,][ known as Harry.][ After graduating from Francis W. Parker School and taking classes at the ]University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, Channon travelled to France with the American Red Cross in October 1917 and became an honorary attaché at the American embassy in Paris the next year.[ Channon associated with the artistic elite of Paris, having dinners with the writer Marcel Proust and poet ]Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
.
In 1920 and 1921, Channon was at Christ Church, Oxford where he received a pass degree in French, and acquired the nickname "Chips".[ He began a lifelong friendship with Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, whom in his diaries he called "the person I have loved most". The '']Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
(ODNB)'' said of this phase of Channon's life, "adoring London society, privilege, rank, and wealth, he became an energetic, implacable, but endearing social climber."[ He also became an author. For a time, Channon lived in the same London house with Prince Paul and another of Channon's confidants, Lord Gage.]
Author
Channon rejected his American background and was passionate about Europe in general and England in particular. The US, he said, was "a menace to the peace and future of the world. If it triumphs, the old civilisations, which love beauty and peace and the arts and rank and privilege, will pass from the picture."[McSmith, A, "Original Westminster hellraiser: The secret world of Chips Channon", '']The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', 13 April 2007
His anti-Americanism was reflected in his novel, ''Joan Kennedy'' (1929), described by the publishers as "the story of an English girl's marriage to a wealthy American and of her attempts to bridge the gulf created by differences of race and education." Channon's anti-Americanism did not prevent his living off his family's money, which had been made in America. A grant of $90,000 from his father, and an $85,000 inheritance from his grandfather made him financially comfortable with no need to work.[
He wrote two more books: a second novel, ''Paradise City'' (1931) about the disastrous effects of American capitalism,][ and a non-fiction work, ''The Ludwigs of Bavaria'' (1933). The latter, a study of the last generations of the ruling ]Wittelsbach
The House of Wittelsbach () is a German dynasty, with branches that have ruled over territories including Bavaria, the Palatinate, Holland and Zeeland, Sweden (with Finland), Denmark, Norway, Hungary (with Romania), Bohemia, the Electorate ...
dynasty of Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n kings, received excellent notices, and was in print twenty years later. Some critical reservations reflected Channon's adulation of minor European royalty: ''The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' said of his account of the 1918 revolution, "he seems to have depended almost exclusively on aristocratic sources, which are most clearly insufficient." Despite this, the book was described on its reissue in 1952 as "a fascinating study... excellently written".
Reviews of both the 1933 edition and the reissue singled out a section on architecture and décor, Channon's area of expertise, which took a practical form shortly after the publication of the book when he had first a large town house and then a country house in which to engage his passion for design.
Marriage and politics
In 1933, Channon married the brewing heiress Lady Honor Guinness (1909–1976), eldest daughter of Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh
Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh, (29 March 1874 – 14 September 1967) was an Anglo-Irish businessman, politician, oarsman and philanthropist. Born in London, he was the eldest son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh. ...
. In 1935, their only child was born, a son, whom they named Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
.[ On 31 January 1936, the Channons moved into a grand London house at 5 ]Belgrave Square
Belgrave Square is a large 19th-century garden square in London. It is the centrepiece of Belgravia, and its architecture resembles the original scheme of property contractor Thomas Cubitt who engaged George Basevi for all of the terraces fo ...
, near the London house of the Duke of Kent
Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edwar ...
, and two years later also acquired a country estate, Kelvedon Hall
Kelvedon Hall is a country house in the village of Kelvedon Hatch, near Brentwood, Essex, England. Originally the site of an important medieval manor, the current house was built in the mid-18th century by a family of Catholic landowners, the W ...
, at Kelvedon Hatch
Kelvedon Hatch is a village in civil parish of Kelvedon Hatch, in the Borough of Brentwood in south Essex, England. It is situated just north of Pilgrims Hatch, approximately to the north of Brentwood and is surrounded by Metropolitan Green ...
near Brentwood in Essex.[ Channon quickly established himself as a society host, in his blue and silver dining room designed by ]Stéphane Boudin
Stéphane Boudin (28 October 1888 – 18 October 1967) was a French interior designer and a president of Maison Jansen, the influential Paris-based interior decorating firm.
Boudin is best known for being asked by U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kenne ...
and modelled on the Amalienburg in Munich. Perhaps the apogee of his career in that role came on 19 November 1936, with a guest list headed by Edward VIII, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, then Regent and his wife Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark
Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark ( el, Όλγα; 11 June 1903 – 16 October 1997) was a Greek princess who became princess of Yugoslavia as the wife of Prince Paul, Regent of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Princess Olga was a daughter of P ...
, the Duke of Kent
Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edwar ...
and his wife Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark
Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (27 August 1968), born Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark ( el, Μαρίνα), was a Greek princess by birth and a British princess by marriage. She was a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark a ...
and Mrs Simpson
Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (born Bessie Wallis Warfield, later Simpson; June 19, 1896 – April 24, 1986), was an American socialite and wife of the former King Edward VIII. Their intention to marry and her status as a divorcée caused ...
, of whom Channon was a friend and admirer. Twenty-two days later, on 11 December, Edward abdicated
Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of duty, in other societ ...
.
Channon, who was a naturalised British subject (as of 11 July 1933), joined the Conservative Party. At the 1935 general election, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for Southend
Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...
, the seat previously held by his mother-in-law Gwendolen Guinness, Countess of Iveagh
Gwendolen Florence Mary Guinness, Countess of Iveagh (''née'' Onslow; 22 July 1881 – 16 February 1966) was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat and Conservative politician. She was, by marriage, a member of the Guinness brewing dynasty.
Early life
Sh ...
. After boundary changes in 1950, he was returned for the new Southend West constituency, holding the seat until his death in 1958.[
In March 1938, the rising Conservative minister ]Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), also known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative Party politician. ''The Times'' obituary c ...
, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister ...
at the Foreign Office appointed Channon his Parliamentary Private Secretary.[ Butler was associated with the appeasement wing of the Conservative party, and Channon, as with the abdication, found himself on the losing side. In the words of the ''ODNB'': "Always ferociously anti-communist, he was an early dupe of the ]Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
s because his attractive German princelings hoped that Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
might be preparing for a Hohenzollern restoration." At the invitation of Joachim von Ribbentrop, Channon attended the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, where he was very impressed.
Channon visited a concentration camp, which he praised in his diary as "tidy, even gay", being described in a 2021 article as "impressed" by what he saw. Normally a snob, Channon wrote that the purpose of these camps was to "wipe out class feeling". Speaking of the Nazi concept of the ''Volksgemeinschaft
''Volksgemeinschaft'' () is a German expression meaning "people's community", "folk community", Richard Grunberger, ''A Social History of the Third Reich'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971, p. 44. "national community", or "racial community", ...
'' (people's community), Channon noted that "class feeling has become practically non-existent in Germany".
In September 1938 during the Sudetenland crisis, Butler was in Geneva heading the British delegation to the League of Nations. As the parliamentary private secretary to Butler, Channon was also in Geneva, where he expressed much loathing for the League in his diary, calling it "that absurd little Assembly" whose meetings were "unsittthroughable".
President Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš (; 28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1945 to 1948. He also led the Czechoslovak government-in-exile 1939 to 194 ...
of Czechoslovakia was known to be a supporter of the "new diplomacy" associated with the League of Nations, and a major fear of the British government was that if Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, Beneš would try to activate the collective security provisions of the League, which in theory would commit all of the League member states to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia. Britain as a permanent member of the League Council had the power of the veto, so in practice, there was no chance of the League ordering Britain to go to war, but the Chamberlain government felt it would be embarrassing to veto a Czechoslovak request for help from the League. As a consequence, Butler and Channon fought hard to prevent the League from discussing the Sudetenland crisis at all in September 1938.
After George VI
George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of I ...
's accession Channon's standing in royal circles went from high to low and, as an appeaser, so did his standing in the Conservative party after the failure of appeasement and the appointment of the anti-appeaser Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
as prime minister. Channon remained loyal to the supplanted Neville Chamberlain, toasting him after his fall as "the King over the Water", and sharing Butler's denigration of Churchill as "a half-breed American". Channon's interest in politics waned after this, and he took an increasing interest in the Guinness family brewing interests, though remaining a conscientious and popular constituency MP.[
In July 1939, Channon met the landscape designer Peter Daniel Coats (1910–1990), with whom he began an affair that may have contributed to Channon's separation from his wife the following year. His wife, who had conducted extra-marital affairs from at least 1937, asked Channon for a divorce in 1941 as a result of her affair with Frank Woodsman, a farmer and horse dealer who was based close to their ]Kelvedon Hall
Kelvedon Hall is a country house in the village of Kelvedon Hatch, near Brentwood, Essex, England. Originally the site of an important medieval manor, the current house was built in the mid-18th century by a family of Catholic landowners, the W ...
estate. Their marriage was finally dissolved in 1945.[ Channon formally sued for divorce and his wife did not contest the suit. Among others with whom Channon had a relationship was the playwright ]Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
. Channon was on close terms with Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and the Duke of Kent
Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edwar ...
, although whether those relationships extended beyond the platonic is not known.[
Once it became clear that he would not achieve ministerial office, Channon focused on his other goal of elevation to the peerage, but in this, too, he was unsuccessful. The highest honour he achieved was a knighthood in 1957, the year before his death.][ His friend Princess Marthe Bibesco sent him a telegram, "Goodbye Mr. Chips".
]
Legacy
Diaries
At various points in his life Channon kept a series of diaries. Under his will, he left his diaries and other material to the British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
"on condition that the said diaries shall not be read ... until 60 years from my death." An expurgated selection from the diaries was published in 1967. The necessity for expurgation is illustrated by the reaction of an Oxford contemporary who, when told that no diaries from that period existed, said, "Thank God!"[Diaries p. 6.] The editor of the original edition, Robert Rhodes James, said he saw well-connected people go white when they heard that Channon had kept a journal.[
An entry in Channon's diary for 1941, describing his introduction to a young member of the Greek royal family at an Athens cocktail party, is the earliest known reference to the future marriage of Prince Philip of Greece and then 15-year-old heiress presumptive to the British throne, Princess Elizabeth: "He is extraordinarily handsome, and I recalled my afternoon's conversation with Princess Nicholas n aunt of Philip's He is to be our Prince Consort, and that is why he is serving in our Navy!!? He is here on leave for a few days with his more than mad mother. He is a charmeur; but I should deplore such a marriage: he and Princess Elizabeth are too inter-related and the Mountbatten–Hesse family are famous for their ill-luck and madness. Disaster pursues them."]
In his comments accompanying the published selection, Rhodes James stated that "Peter Coats edited the original MS of the Diaries."[Diaries p. 253n.] He also stated that Coats arranged the preparation of a complete typescript of the Diaries as Channon's handwriting was often difficult to read.[Diaries p. 22.] Coats also carried out an initial expurgation before the editorial discretion exercised by Rhodes James.
Robert Rhodes James quotes in his introduction to the diaries a self-portrait written by Channon on 19 July 1935:
:Sometimes I think I have an unusual character – able but trivial; I have flair, intuition, great good taste but only second rate ambition: I am far too susceptible to flattery; I hate and am uninterested in all the things most men like such as sports, business, statistics, debates, speeches, war, and the weather; but I am riveted by lust, furniture, glamour and society and jewels. I am an excellent organiser and have a will of iron; I can only be appealed to through my vanity. Occasionally I must have solitude: my soul craves for it. All thought is done in solitude; only then am I partly happy.[Diaries p. 11.]
Reviewing the published diaries in ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' in November 1967, Malcolm Muggeridge
Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge (24 March 1903 – 14 November 1990) was an English journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament (for Romford, in Essex). In ...
wrote, "Grovellingly sycophantic and snobbish as only a well-heeled American nesting among the English upper classes can be, with a commonness that positively hurts at times. And yet – how sharp an eye! What neat malice! How, in their own fashion, well written and truthful and honest they are! … What a relief to turn to him after Sir Winston's windy rhetoric, and all those leaden narratives by field-marshals, air-marshals and admirals!"
The diaries, even in their bowdlerised form, provoked a writ for libel from one of Channon's fellow MPs, though the case did not come to court, being settled privately in the decade after Channon's death. Historian Alan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (13 April 1928 – 5 September 1999) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), author and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Tr ...
, a Conservative MP from February 1974, refers on multiple occasions to Channon's diaries in his own diaries.
Four previously unknown volumes turned up at a car boot sale in 1991.['']The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'
obituary of Paul Channon
30 January 2007 It was reported after Paul Channon's death that his heir, the diarist's grandson, was considering authorising the publication of the uncensored texts.[ An unexpurgated three-volume edition, edited by journalist and historian ]Simon Heffer
Simon James Heffer (born 18 July 1960) is an English historian, journalist, author and political commentator. He has published several biographies and a series of books on the social history of Great Britain from the mid-nineteenth century unti ...
has now been published; the first volume was published in March 2021. While the 1967 edition began in 1934, the complete version begins in 1918, and runs to 1938. However, diaries Channon wrote between 1929 and 1933 remain missing. The second volume, running from 1938 to 1943, was published on 9 September 2021; the third volume, covering years from 1943 to 1957, was published on 8 September 2022.
Reviewing the first volume, Lord Lexden
Alistair Basil Cooke, Baron Lexden, (born 20 April 1945) is a British historian, author and politician who sits as a Conservative life peer in the House of Lords.
Lord Lexden has been official historian of the Conservative Party since 2 ...
reported in '' The House'' magazine, "If diaries are to achieve immortality, the diarist must be a first-class writer. Channon passes that test with flying colours."
Reputation
Richard Davenport-Hines
Richard Peter Treadwell Davenport-Hines (born 21 June 1953 in London) is a British historian and literary biographer, is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
Early life
Davenport-Hines was educated at St Paul's School, London, 1967- 71 ...
, the author of Channon's entry in the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'' (ODNB) claims that Elliot Templeton in W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
's novel '' The Razor's Edge'' (1944) and the disappointed schoolmaster Crocker-Harris in Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
's play '' The Browning Version'' (1948) were partly inspired by Channon.
Among his contemporaries his reputation ranged from high to low. Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford (28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973), known as Nancy Mitford, was an English novelist, biographer, and journalist. The eldest of the Mitford sisters, she was regarded as one of the "bright young things" on the London ...
said of the diary, "you can't think how vile & spiteful & ''silly'' it is. One always thought Chips was rather a dear, but he was ''black'' inside how sinister!" Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 19 ...
thought Channon a "toady"[ but Cooper's widow, ]Lady Diana Cooper
Diana, Viscountess Norwich (née Lady Diana Olivia Winifred Maud Manners; 29 August 1892 – 16 June 1986) was an English actress and aristocrat who was a well-known social figure in London and Paris.
As a young woman, she moved in a celebrat ...
, wrote immediately after Channon's death, "never was there a surer or more enlivening friend ... . He installed the mighty in his gilded chairs and exalted the humble ... without stint he gave of his riches and his compassion."
Max Hastings
Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings (; born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Telegraph'', and editor of the ''Evening Standard'' ...
referred to Channon as a "consummate ass".[Hastings, Max., ''Winston's War, Churchill 1940–1945''. 2010, Knopf, New York, p. 14]
Notes
References
*
*
*
*Colville, John. ''The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries'', Volume 1. London, Sceptre, 1986,
Further reading
*
External links
*
Kelvedon Hall
{{DEFAULTSORT:Channon, Henry
1897 births
1958 deaths
20th-century diarists
American emigrants to the United Kingdom
American people of English descent
Anti-Americanism
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English diarists
English male non-fiction writers
Henry Channon
Sir Henry Channon (7 March 1897 – 7 October 1958), often known as Chips Channon, was an American-born British Conservative politician, author and diarist. Channon moved to England in 1920 and became strongly anti-American, feeling that Amer ...
LGBT members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
LGBT politicians from England
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Politicians from Chicago
UK MPs 1935–1945
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UK MPs 1950–1951
UK MPs 1951–1955
UK MPs 1955–1959
Francis W. Parker School (Chicago) alumni
Writers from Chicago