On March 11 The Times reported the forthcoming sale of a rare wager slip recording a bet made by Winston Churchill in January 1901. Alistair Lexden cast further light on the incident in a letter published in the paper on March 16.
Sir, It is untrue that Churchill “didn’t have this money to spare” when in January 1901 he bet an American host £100 that the British Empire would not shrink over the following decade (“How Churchill bet his bottom dollar on the Empire”, Mar. 11). He was in fact flush with funds, having pocketed some £1,600 (over £190,000 today) lecturing on his hair-raising exploits as a journalist during the Boer War. Takings were a little disappointing in the United States because of “a strong pro-Boer feeling which has been fomented against me”, as he reported to his mother, but he had “magnificent audiences” in Canada.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords