Notable Parishioners

walkter Windham

Born on 15 September 1868, the grandson of Lord Charles Russell and the great-grandson of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, Walter Windham was educated at Bedford School. Between 1884 and 1888 he circumnavigated the world four times under sail, and participated in the first London to Brighton Rally in 1896. He was a King's Messenger between 1900 and 1909, driving the first motor vehicle into Whitehall Court, carrying foreign dispatches, on 12 November 1902, and carrying the Anglo-Russian Entente from Saint Petersburg to London in 1907. In 1908 he offered a gold cup to the first airman to fly the English Channel, and this trophy was won by Louis Blériot in 1909. Two weeks later, on 10 August 1909, Hubert Latham flew a letter addressed to Windham from France to England, believed to be the first letter ever transported by air. Windham controlled the first aerial meeting in England, held at Doncaster; and at Bournemouth, in 1910, he entered a monoplane and a biplane which he had constructed, winning a prize in the competition.

In December 1910, Windham made the first passenger flight in Asia and, in 1911, he founded the world's first two airmail services: the first, established in February 1911, from Allahabad crossing the Ganges, and the second, established in September 1911, between Hendon and Windsor. Special stamps and envelopes were issued. He served in the Royal Indian Navy during the First World War, rising to the rank of Commander.

Commander Sir Walter Windham was invested as a Knight Bachelor in 1923 and made a Freeman of the City of London in 1933. He died in Builth Wells on 5 July 1942, aged 73.

John Moran

John Moran was the son of Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran, who was personal physician to Sir Winston Churchill from 1940 until the latter’s death in 1965. His book The Struggle for Survival revealed much about Churchill’s physical and psychological state while coping with the strain of high office. Some believed that it breached patient-physician confidentiality.

Charles Wilson (John Moran’s father) enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War, rising to major. He was medical officer to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers from 1914 to 1917 and medical officer in charge of the medical facilities at the British 7th Stationary Hospital in Boulogne from 1917 to 1918. He won the Military Cross in 1916 for services during the Battle of the Somme, and the Italian Silver Medal of Military Valour in 1917 and was twice mentioned in despatches. At the end of war he researched into the effects of mustard gas.

Charles Wilson was knighted in 1938 and was created Baron Moran, of Manton in the County of Wilts on 8 March 1943 and made his maiden speech in the House of Lords, the same year, on the Beveridge Report. He was also involved in many other debates on the National Health Service. His skilfulness in negotiations with the British Medical Association and the Ministry of Health gave him the nickname "Corkscrew Charlie".

During his time as Sir Winston Churchill's private physician, which began in May 1940, two weeks into Churchill's first term as Prime Minister, Moran accompanied Churchill on most of his travels, and met several prominent figures, including Anthony Eden, Field-Marshal Montgomery (later the 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein), Lord Mountbatten of Burma and Lord Beaverbrook. He also selected appropriate consulting specialists for Churchill when necessary.

Although Moran found the travels frustrating when they conflicted with business planning the NHS in London, according to one biographer, Professor Richard Lovell, Moran saw his patient as "the greatest Englishman since Chatham and regarded his care of him as his wartime duty".

Lord Moran married in 1919 Dorothy Dufton, daughter of Samuel Felix Dufton, HM Inspector of Schools for Yorkshire. She was a research physiologist, who had been awarded the MBE for work with the Ministry of Munitions in World War I. They had two sons, John (the second Baron) and Geoffrey. He died in 1977 aged 94 at the latter son's home in Newton Valence, Hampshire, and was buried in the churchyard there.

He was survived by his wife, who died in 1983. Moran said he was a descendant of essayist William Hazlitt, whose surname was given as a middle name to his own second son. Richard Lovell notes the ancestor was surnamed Haslett.