Montagu Phippen Porch (15 March 1877 – 8 November 1964) was a British colonial officer who in 1918 became

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 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

's stepfather, although he was three years his junior.

Early life

Porch was born on 15 March 1877 in

Glastonbury Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury ...

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, the younger son of Reginald Porch (1838-1886) LL.M., of the

Bengal Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

, and grandson of Thomas Porch Porch, JP, of Edgarley, just outside Glastonbury. His mother was Ann Rebecca (1847-1932), a daughter of James Austin, JP, of The Abbey, Glastonbury.''Walford's County Families of the United Kingdom'' (1913), p. 959 On 8 June 1886, his father died at

Puri Puri () is a coastal city and a Nagar Palika, municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state capital of Bhubaneswar. It is als ...

in British India, leaving an estate valued at £5,212. Porch was educated at

Magdalen College Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the st ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, and while there in 1900 he joined the Imperial Yeomanry which was a Cavalry regiment of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

, seeing active service as a trooper in the

South African War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

. Returning to Oxford after the war, he graduated BA in 1902 and MA in 1904.

Career

In 1906, he gained a place as an officer of the Colonial Service and served in it until 1919, with most of his time spent in Africa. After his marriage in 1918, Porch resigned from the colonial service.Mary S. Lovell, ''The Churchills'' (Little Brown, 2011, ), p. 332 After his wife's death in 1921, Porch returned to West Africa, where he had some successful investments.

Personal life

On 1 June 1918 Porch married Lady Randolph Churchill, the mother of

. There was a substantial age difference, as Porch was 41 and Lady Randolph (Jennie Jerome) was 64. This was Jennie's third marriage, Porch's first. In her final years, Jennie Porch ran up large debts, as her spending was far higher than the regular cheques for £60 Porch was sending her. The couple remained married for three years, until Jennie's death in 1921. After her death, her sister Leonie Leslie commented that "It is Winston who weeps copiously, but it is Jack, his brother, and poor Porchy who are paying off her debts."Anne Sebba, ''Jennie Churchill: Winston's American Mother'' (2012), p. 322 A Roman Catholic, in 1926 Porch married secondly

Donna Donna may refer to the short form of the honorific ''nobildonna'', the female form of Don (honorific) in Italian. People *Donna (given name); includes name origin and list of people and characters with the name * Roberto Di Donna (born 1968), Ita ...

Giulia Patrizi, the only daughter of the Marchese Patrizi della Rocco,''The Catholic Who's Who 1953'', Volume 35 (Burns & Oates, 1952), p. 371 and lived in Italy until she died in 1938. He then returned to Glastonbury where he died in November 1964, aged 87. Until the end, he avoided all discussion of his life with his first wife.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Porch, Montagu 1877 births 1964 deaths Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Colonial Service officers People from Glastonbury Spencer family