Victor Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill

Major Victor Albert Francis Charles Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill (23 October 1864 – 3 January 1934), known as the Hon. Victor Albert Spencer until 1886 and as The Lord Churchill between 1886 and 1902, was a British peer and courtier. He was from the Spencer family.

Early life Spencer was born at 32, Albemarle Street, London, the son of Francis Spencer, 2nd Baron Churchill, and his wife Jane (née Conyngham). He was a Page of Honour to Queen Victoria from 1876 to 1881, and in 1886 he succeeded to his father's title of Baron Churchill. He was a grandson of Francis Spencer, 1st Baron Churchill.

Educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1884 as a lieutenant, staying in the Guards until 1889.

Career On 12 July 1905 he was commissioned as a Major in the part-time Oxfordshire Imperial Yeomanry (Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars), which his father and grandfather had commanded, and in which several of his Spencer-Churchill kinsmen also served. He was later a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorial Army Reserve and served as a temporary Colonel in Home Defence from 1915 to 1918.

Spencer was a Lord in Waiting from 1889 to 1892 and 1895 to 1905 in both of Salisbury's governments and was created Viscount Churchill, of Rolleston, in the County of Leicester, on 15 July 1902 (it had already been announced in the Coronation Honours list the previous month that he would be created a Viscount ).

Business career He was chairman and director of several transport companies, including the Great Western Railway 1908–34 and was the longest serving chairman of the company. Churchill married as his second wife Christine McRae Sinclair, daughter of William Sinclair. They had two children: Foreign honours Knight 1st class of the Order of the Crown – 1899 – in connection with the visit of Emperor Wilhelm II to the United Kingdom. The Red Eagle of the Kingdom of Prussia image = Coat of arms of Victor Spencer, 1st Viscount Churchill, GCVO.svg

crest = Out of a ducal Coronet or, a griffin’s head between two Wings expanded argent, gorged with a bar gemel gules, armed gold. escutcheon = Quarterly: 1st & 4th, quarterly argent and gules, in the second and third quarters charged with a fret or, over all on a bend sable with three escallops argent (Spencer); 2nd & 3rd, Sable, a lion rampant argent, on a canton of the last, a cross gules (Churchill). supporters = Dexter: A griffin wings erect per fess argent and or gorged with a collar of the last, thereon three escallops sable, line reflexed over the back also or. Sinister: A wyvern the wings erect gules, collared as the dexter. motto = Dieu defend le droit (God defend the right). orders = Royal Victorian Order (Knight Grand Cross - GCVO)