Lady Randolph Churchill Later marriages
How many marriages did she have?
How many marriages did Lady Randolph Churchill have?
Lord Randolph died in 1895, aged 45. His death freed Jennie to move effortlessly in spite of her impecuniosity; she mixed in the highest London society circles, and was much-admired by the Prince of Wales. Attending a party hosted by Daisy Warwick, Jennie was introduced to George Cornwallis-West, who was just 26 days older than Winston; he was instantly smitten, and they spent much time together. A captain in the Scots Guards, George had two sisters: Constance (known as Shelagh) was the first wife of the 2nd Duke of Westminster; Daisy was married to the Prince of Pless. George and Jennie were married on 28 July 1900 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge. Around this time, Jennie became well-known for chartering the hospital ship RFA Maine to care for those wounded in the Second Boer War, for which she received the decoration of the Royal Red Cross (RRC) in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902. In 1908, she wrote her memoirs The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. George doted on Jennie, amorously nicknaming her "pussycat". However, they drifted apart. The Churchills were becoming a dedicated-literary family, and George, who was a financial failure in the City, slowly fell out of love with his wife, who was old enough to be his mother. Short of money, Jennie contemplated selling the family home in Hertfordshire to move into the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. George was in fragile health when he recuperated at the royal skiing resort of St Moritz. Jennie took to writing plays for the West End, in many of which the star was Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Jennie separated from George in 1912, and they were divorced in April 1914, whereupon, in a bit of irony, Cornwallis-West married Mrs. Campbell. Jennie dropped the surname Cornwallis-West, and resumed, by deed poll, the name Lady Randolph Churchill. Her third marriage, on 1 June 1918, was to Montagu Phippen Porch (1877-1964), a member of the British Civil Service in Nigeria, who was younger than Winston by three years. At the end of World War I, Porch resigned from the colonial service. After Jennie's death, he returned to West Africa, where his business investments had proven successful. CANNOTANSWER
Her third marriage,
Jennie Spencer-Churchill  (; 9 January 1854 – 29 June 1921), known as Lady Randolph Churchill, was an American-born British socialite, the wife of Lord Randolph Churchill, and the mother of British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill.

Early life
Jennie Jerome was born in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn in 1854, the second of four daughters (one died in childhood) of financier, sportsman, and speculator Leonard Jerome and his wife Clarissa (always called Clara), daughter of Ambrose Hall, a landowner. Jerome's father was of Huguenot extraction, his forebears having emigrated to America from the Isle of Wight in 1710. Hall family lore insists that Jennie had Iroquois ancestry through her maternal grandmother; however, there is no research or evidence to corroborate this.

She was raised in Brooklyn, Paris, and New York City. She had two surviving sisters, Clarita (1851–1935) and Leonie (1859–1943). Another sister, Camille (1855–1863) died when Jennie was nine.

There is some disagreement regarding the time and place of her birth. A plaque at 426 Henry St. gives her year of birth as 1850, not 1854. However, on 9 January 1854, the Jeromes lived nearby at number 8 Amity Street (since renumbered as 197). It is believed that the Jeromes were temporarily staying at the Henry Street address, which was owned by Leonard's brother Addison, and that Jennie was born there during a snowstorm.

She was a noted beauty; an admirer, Lord d'Abernon, said that there was "more of the panther than of the woman in her look."

Personal life
Jennie was a talented amateur pianist, having been tutored as a girl by Stephen Heller, a friend of Chopin. Heller believed that his young pupil was good enough to attain "concert standard" with the necessary "hard work", of which, according to author Mary S Lovell, he was not confident she was capable.

Lady Randolph launched The Anglo-Saxon Review (June 1899-September 1901), a short-lived quarterly magazine.

In 1909, when American impresario Charles Frohman became sole manager of The Globe Theatre, the first production was His Borrowed Plumes, written by Lady Randolph Churchill. Although Mrs Patrick Campbell produced and took the lead role in the play, it was a commercial failure. It was at this point that Campbell began an affair with Lady Randolph's then husband, George Cornwallis-West.

Lady Randolph served as the chair of the hospital committee for the American Women's War Relief Fund starting in 1914. This organization helped fund and staff two hospitals during World War I.

First marriage

Jennie Jerome was married for the first time on 15 April 1874, aged 20, at the British Embassy in Paris, to Lord Randolph Churchill, the third son of John Winston Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough and Lady Frances Anne Vane. The couple had met at a sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August 1873, having been introduced by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. Although they became engaged within three days of this initial meeting, the marriage was delayed for months while their parents argued over settlements. By this marriage, she was properly known as Lady Randolph Churchill and would have been addressed in conversation as Lady Randolph.

The Churchills had two sons: Winston (1874–1965), the future prime minister, was born less than eight months after the marriage. According to his biographer William Manchester, Winston was most likely conceived before the marriage, rather than born prematurely. A recent biography has stated that he was born two months prematurely after Lady Randolph "had a fall". When asked about the circumstances of his birth, Winston Churchill replied: "Although present on the occasion, I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it." Lady Randolph's sisters believed that the biological father of the second son, John (1880–1947) was Evelyn Boscawen, 7th Viscount Falmouth.<ref>Anne Sebba, American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill", Norton, 2008</ref> although most discredited that due to the boys' striking likeness to their father and each other.

Lady Randolph is believed to have had numerous lovers during her marriage, including the Prince of Wales, Milan I of Serbia, Prince Karl Kinsky, and Herbert von Bismarck.

As was the custom of the day in her social class, Lady Randolph played a limited role in her sons' upbringing, relying largely upon nannies, especially Elizabeth Everest. Winston worshipped his mother, writing her numerous letters during his time at school and begging her to visit him, which she rarely did. He wrote about her in My Early Life: "She shone for me like the evening star. I loved her dearly – but at a distance." After he became an adult, they became good friends and strong allies, to the point where Winston regarded her almost as a political mentor, more as a big sister than a mother.

Lady Randolph was well-respected and influential in the highest British social and political circles. She was said to be intelligent, witty, and quick to laughter. It was said that Queen Alexandra especially enjoyed her company, although Lady Randolph had been involved in an affair with her husband, the king, which was well known to Alexandra. Through her family contacts and her extramarital romantic relationships, Lady Randolph greatly helped her husband's early career, as well as that of her son Winston.

Later marriages
Lord Randolph died in 1895, aged 45. His death freed Jennie to move on effortlessly despite her lack of money; she mixed in the highest London society circles, and was much admired by the Prince of Wales. Attending a party hosted by Daisy Warwick, Jennie was introduced to George Cornwallis-West, a captain in the Scots Guards who was just 16 days older than Winston; he was instantly smitten, and they spent much time together. George and Jennie were married on 28 July 1900 at St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge.

Around this time, Jennie became well known for chartering the hospital ship  to care for those wounded in the Second Boer War, for which she was awarded the decoration of the Royal Red Cross (RRC) in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902. She received the decoration in person from King Edward VII on 2 October that year, during a visit to Balmoral Castle. In 1908, she wrote her memoirs The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill. George doted on Jennie, amorously nicknaming her "pussycat". However, they drifted apart. The Churchills were becoming a dedicated literary family, and George, who was a financial failure in the City, slowly fell out of love with his wife, who was old enough to be his mother. Short of money, Jennie contemplated selling the family home in Hertfordshire to move into the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. George was in fragile health when he recuperated at the royal skiing resort of St Moritz. Jennie took to writing plays for the West End, in many of which the star was Mrs. Patrick Campbell.

Jennie separated from George in 1912, and they were divorced in April 1914, whereupon Cornwallis-West married Mrs. Campbell. Jennie dropped the surname Cornwallis-West, and resumed, by deed poll, the name Lady Randolph Churchill.Her third marriage, on 1 June 1918, was to Montagu Phippen Porch (1877–1964), a member of the British Civil Service in Nigeria, who was younger than Winston by three years. At the end of World War I, Porch resigned from the colonial service. After Jennie's death, he returned to West Africa, where his business investments had proven successful.

Death

In May 1921, while Montagu Porch was away in Africa, Jennie slipped while coming down a friend's staircase wearing new high-heeled shoes, breaking her ankle. Gangrene set in, and her left leg was amputated above the knee on 10 June.  At age 67, she died at her home at 8 Westbourne Street in London on 29 June, following a haemorrhage of an artery in her thigh resulting from the amputation.

She was buried in the Churchill family plot at St Martin's Church, Bladon, Oxfordshire, next to her first husband.

Cocktail misattribution
The invention of the Manhattan cocktail is sometimes erroneously attributed to Jennie Churchill, who supposedly asked a bartender to make a special drink to celebrate the election of Samuel J. Tilden to the New York governorship in 1874. However, though the drink is believed to have been invented by the Manhattan Club (an association of New York Democrats) on that occasion, Jennie could not have been involved as she was in Europe at the time, about to give birth to her son Winston later that month.

Portrayals

 Jennie Churchill was portrayed by Anne Bancroft in the film Young Winston (1972) and by Lee Remick in the British television series Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill (1974).
 A play "Lady Randy" written by Anne Undeland was staged in 2019 at the WAM Theatre in Lenox, Massachusetts.

See also
 The Anglo-Saxon Review, a quarterly miscellany edited by Lady Randolph Churchill

Notes

References

Further reading
 Churchill, Lady Randolph Spencer. The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill, 1908 (Autobiography)
 
 Leslie, Anita. Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, 1969
 Martin, Ralph G. Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill – The Romantic Years, 1854–1895 (Prentice-Hall, Ninth printing, 1969)
 Martin, Ralph G. Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill – Volume II, The Dramatic Years, 1895–1921 (Prentice-Hall, 1971) 
 Martin, Ralph G.  Reissue of both volumes of Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, (Sourcebooks, 2007) 
 Sebba, Anne. American Jennie: The Remarkable Life of Lady Randolph Churchill'' (W.W. Norton, 2007)

External links

 Interview with Anne Sebba, author of American Jennie

1854 births
1921 deaths
Socialites from London
Mistresses of Edward VII
Randolph Churchill, Lady
Winston Churchill
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People from Cobble Hill, Brooklyn
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Companions of the Order of the Crown of India
Dames of Grace of the Order of St John
British amputees
Burials at St Martin's Church, Bladon
Women autobiographers
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20th-century American women writers
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The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No. 55 of 1949, was an apartheid law in South Africa that prohibited marriages between "whites" and "non-whites". It was among the first pieces of apartheid legislation to be passed following the National Party's rise to power in 1948. Subsequent legislation, especially the Population Registration and Immorality Acts of 1950, facilitated its implementation by requiring all individuals living in South Africa to register as a member of one of four officially defined racial groups and prohibiting extramarital sexual relationships between those classified as "white" on the one hand and those classified as "non-White" (Blacks, Coloureds, later also Asians) on the other. It did not criminalize sexual relationships between those classified as "Blacks", "Coloureds", and "Asians".

History

Background
Mixed races relationships occurred in South Africa as far back as 1652, and often took place between Dutch colonizers and indigenous South African women. Mixed marriages did not become completely taboo until the rise of the National Party in 1948.  However, in the years immediately preceding the passing of this Act, mixed marriages accounted for just a small fraction of all marriages in South Africa, and occurred almost evenly between the four defined racial groups (Black, Coloured, White, and Asiatic).

Implementation
It was implemented in 1951, 
Enforcement of the act was left to the police, who often followed people to their homes to ensure they were not in violation and raided the homes of those believed to be in a mixed marriage. The act applied to all mixed marriages between South Africans, so even marriages which took place in another country were not recognized within South Africa. The punishment for people found to be in a mixed marriage involved arrest and a jail sentence. Anyone who knowingly officiated a marriage that violated the act was also subject to a punishment: a fine was imposed  not exceeding 50 pounds. Anyone who was found to have lied to an officiant was also subject to the legal punishment for perjury.

Some of the social consequences of entering into a mixed-race marriage included being ostracized from or ridiculed by one's family and community. One example is a white South African sex worker named Ethal, who indicated that she  felt more accepted by her peers when she was a sex worker than when she married a black African man.

Legislative history
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act of 1968 updated the original legislation to invalidate interracial marriages involving a South African citizen that were contracted in other countries.

The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act was repealed by the Immorality and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Amendment Act, 1985, which was passed during the presidency of P. W. Botha.

Immorality amendment Act ,1950

Anti-miscegenation laws
Apartheid legislation in South Africa
Interracial marriage

References

Further reading
 Mixed Marriages Act, South End Museum
 The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act commences, SA History

External links

1949 in South African law
Apartheid laws in South Africa
Marriage reform
Marriage, unions and partnerships in South Africa
Marriage law
Interracial marriage The Schulze Registers are the only surviving record of clandestine marriages in Ireland.

Canon law in the 18th and 19th centuries in Ireland stipulated that banns should be called or a marriage licence obtained before a marriage could take place and that the marriage should be celebrated in the parish where at least one of the parties was resident. Also, the marriage had to be celebrated by a clergyman of one of the religious denominations then in Ireland.

Some clergymen were willing, for a fee, to marry couples in secret, in "irregular" or "clandestine" marriages. This might have been necessary for a number of reasons, for example, objections of parents, problems with religious affiliation, or financial difficulty. While most of these "couple-beggars" did not keep a record of the marriages, some did—among them J.G.F. Schulze (died February 1839), minister of the Lutheran Church in Poolbeg Street, Dublin.  He was licensed to act only in his own congregation, but is known to have married couples of all sects, recording over 6,000 marriages between 1806 and 1837. Two of his registers of marriage survive, and are held by the General Register Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Dublin.
The marriages performed by Schulze, over 6000, have also been indexed in a book 'Irregular Marriages in Dublin before 1837' by Henry (Harry) McDowell (2015).

See also
 Fleet Marriage

References

19th century in Ireland
History of Dublin (city)
Marriage in Ireland