Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

In 1900, the young Clementine Hozier was brought to live Berkhamsted by her parents so that she could compelete her education at Berkhamsted School for Girls. She lived at 107 High Street, overlooking the Cemetery. This bright young 15-year-old was the daughter of Lady Blanche Hozier and moved in high social circles. In her teens she fell in love with the painter Walter Sickert and the MP Sir Sidney Peel. Her affairs of the heart after leaving Berkhamsted eventually led her into a romance with a young politician named Winston Churchill. They married in 1908, a marriage that established Clementine’s notabliity as the wife of the celebrated wartime prime minister.

During World War II, Clementine was Chairman of the Red Cross Aid to Russia Fund, the President of the YWCA War Time Appeal. In 1946, she was appointed a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire. After Winston’s death in 1965, she was created a life peer as Baroness Spencer-Churchill and sat in the House of Lords. She died in 1977 and is buried at St Martin’s Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire. In 1979 her youngest daughter, Baroness Soames, unveiled a plaque on Clementine’s Berkhamsted house.