CHURCHILL, Randolph Henry Spencer, LORD, English statesman, 3d son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough: b. 13 Feb. 1849; d. Lon don, 24 Jan. 1895. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and entered Parliament in 1874 as member for Woodstock. After the Conservative debacle in 1880, he formed what was half satirically known as the Fourth party, consisting usually of four members, who took up an attitude of uncompromising and even obstructive opposition to the measures of government, and one also of frank and brutal criticism of the "old gang,* as Lord Randolph called the official opposition leaders. So well did he employ his powers of ready and exten sive criticism, both in the House and in the country, that on the accession of the Conserva tives to office in 1885 he became Secretary for India. His tenure of this office was rendered notable by the annexation of Upper Burma. On the defeat of Gladstone's Home Rule bill in 1886 and the return of the Unionist party to power Churchill became leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In his leadership of the House he showed tact, judgment and resource; but on 23 December of the same year, owing to demands made by the ministers responsible for the army and navy for increased outlays, to which he was opposed, he caused a sensation by unexpectedly resigning office. Subsequent events showed this to be an act of political suicide, for he never regained his old place in the party councils. A man of great natural abilities, and of boundless ambi tion, with marvelous political insight and de bating and oratorical talent of a high order, he had at the same time the defects inseparable from an unstable nervous system. He married in 1874 Jennie Jerome, a daughter of Leonard Jerome, of New York. In July 1900 Lady Ran dolph Churchill married George Cornwallis West. His elder son, Winston Leonard Spen cer Churchill (q.v.), has inherited his father's political abilities.