Winston Churchill Dies
The final decade of Churchill's life has been described as a "long sunset." He continued to be feted and honored, and he enjoyed a final visit to the White House in 1959.
During this period he published his last great work, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. In Britain, he established Churchill College, Cambridge. In America, he became the second person after Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette to receive honorary U.S. citizenship.
Sir Winston Churchill died on January 24, 1965, seventy years to the day after the death of his father. He received a state funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral and, in recognition of his American ties, the congregation rose to sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Churchill is buried with his parents in the small village churchyard at Bladon, within sight of Blenheim Palace, the place where his remarkable life had begun ninety years earlier.
Correspondence to Mr. Anthony Montague-Browne (private secretary to Sir Winston Churchill) dated January 1958, confirmed the Queen had, some years earlier, approved the proposal that Sir Winston Churchill should have a full State Funeral.
Notes of 1959 confirmed the Earl Marshall of England, the Duke of Norfolk would co-ordinate the state funeral. There would be a lying-in-state on the fourth day after the death; the funeral service would take place in St. Paul’s on the eighth day.
By March 1959 a detailed timetable was outlined, the arrangements entitled, ‘Operation Hope Not’.