Treasure trove of Churchill papers to go online

An "Aladdin's Cave" of papers belonging to World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill is to be made available online, it was announced yesterday.

The move to digitise the one million-page archive is hoped to improve public access to details about the man recently voted the most famous Briton of all time.

The archive - The Papers of Sir Winston Churchill - details the minutiae of his life, from his days as a schoolboy to his time as a World War I serviceman and his career as a politician.

Sir Winston famously led Britain through the dark days of World War II.

He made a number of rousing speeches, including the much quoted Fight on the Beaches and Never in the Field of Human Conflict addresses.

Archive highlights include the drafts and notes for these speeches but there are also lesser-known details, such as his initial opposition to giving women equal voting rights and his love of gambling.

Previously, those wishing to view the collection had to make an appointment to visit The Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge.

But Bloomsbury Publishing has reached an agreement to publish the archive online in 2012.

The resource reveals fascinating details of efforts by the intelligence services to protect the then Prime Minister during the war.

MI5 were concerned Sir Winston might be given a deadly cigar, laced with poison or primed to explode.

The files also open the lid on Sir Winston's vast menagerie of pets - his black geese, pigs and sheep to the black cat Nelson, his dogs, Rufus I and Rufus II and even his budgerigar, Toby.

His biographer Sir Martin Gilbert said: "The Churchill Papers collection is an Aladdin's Cave of historical riches."