Royal Albert Hall, London 2014

© Leslie Hossack

During his Wilderness Years, from 1929 to 1939, Winston Churchill did a great deal of writing; he made a very good living with his pen. His work appeared in many newspapers and magazines, and in 1930 he published My Early Life, an autobiography covering the years from his birth in 1874 to his marriage in 1908. In 1931, he published The Eastern Front, the final volume of The World Crisis, a series examining World War I. Also in 1931, Churchill published a collection of speeches entitled India.

Churchill spoke out against his party’s support for the India Act. On March 18th 1931, he made a speech entitled Our Duty to India at Royal Albert Hall. This was just one of many occasions when Churchill took to the stage at Albert Hall; in fact, he made 16 appearances there between 1911 and 1959. In 1911, when he was Home Secretary, Churchill attended the Shakespeare Memorial Ball along with Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. One of his most famous speeches at Royal Albert Hall was delivered on November 23rd 1944, American Thanksgiving Day, when he stood under a huge image of Abraham Lincoln and gave thanks to the United States for their support in the war effort.

Years later, on November 30th 1954, Royal Albert Hall was the venue for a concert celebrating Churchill’s 80th birthday. To this day, Albert Hall continues to host ‘Churchill Songs’ concerts for students from Harrow School. Shown above as it appeared in 2014, the Royal Albert Hall was opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria and dedicated to her deceased husband Prince Albert. Now it is best known as the venue of the Proms concerts that have been held there every summer since 1941.

The image featured above is part of the limited edition collector’s portfolio created by Leslie Hossack. She presents locations that chart Sir Winston Churchill’s personal and political life, from his birth at Blenheim Palace in 1874 until his death in London in 1965. THE CHURCHILL PHOTOGRAPHS are part of Hossack’s larger body of work that explores Nazi architecture in Berlin, Stalinist structures in Moscow, contested sites in Jerusalem, a Cold War bunker in Ottawa, NATO’s Headquarter Camp in Kosovo, and buildings linked to the Japanese Canadian internment during World War II.

To view more photographs, please visit Leslie’s website.  lesliehossack.com