From the archive: The death of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill’s funeral, 31 January 1965. Photograph: Mondadori/Getty Images

Winston Churchill died 50 years ago on 24 January 1965. The following day the Guardian reported the former prime minister was to have a state funeral at St Paul’s cathedral. Before this his body was to lie in state in Westminster Hall for three days - an honour not accorded any English statesman since Gladstone in 1898.

The Guardian 25 January 1965. Click to read.

Over 300,000 people were to file past where Churchill lay in state. The Guardian’s editorial about the wartime leader concluded by saying that: ‘If one word can sum up his career it is magnanimity - greatness in combat and also greatness in tolerance and reconciliation.’

The subject of greatness was also explored in Patrick O’Donovan’s Observer piece about the funeral in which he noted this was the last time such an event could happen:

This was the last time that London would be the capital of the world. This was an act of mourning for the imperial past. This marked the final act in Britain’s greatness. This was a great gesture of self-pity and after this the coldness of reality and the status of Scandinavia.

The Observer, 31 January 1965. Click to read.

On the back page of the paper, Pendennis provided more detail about those who attended the funeral - everyone from Baroness Asquith, who Churchill met in 1906, to Aristotle Onassis, who met him in 1956.

The Observer, 31January 1965. Click to read the full article.

United once again in common purpose was how the Guardian’s Michael Wall described the day, while colour photographs from the funeral were printed in the following week’s Observer magazine.

The Observer, 31 January 1965 Photograph: The Observer