“Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.”

Sir Winston Churchill (1874 to 1965)

Conservative Prime Minister twice: from 1940 to 1945 (before being defeated in the 1945 general election by the Labour leader Clement Attlee) and from 1951 to 1955.

A soldier (joined the Royal Cavalry in 1895) and part-time journalist (reported on the Second Boer War, 1899-1902). Elected an MP in 1900. Was the First Lord of the Admiralty by the time of the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign of WWI, which he created and was forced to resign, subsequently travelling to the Western Front to fight.