Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #587

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Winston Churchill Wore False Teeth to Deliver Historic Wartime Speeches. Now, They’re for Sale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azz3zfO5fvE
By Sarah Kuta
One lucky collector will soon have the chance to own a unique piece of British history, as a set of Winston Churchill’s false teeth heads to auc- tion next month.
The used dentures won’t be cheap: They’re expected to sell for up to £8,000 (roughly $10,000), according to the
Cotswold Auction Company, which is hosting the auction on February 6.
The teeth “must be among the most unusual items we have ever sold,” says Liz Poole, the auction house’s director, in a statement, per CNN’s Issy Ronald.
Churchill long suf- fered dental problems and had lost some of his teeth by his 20s,
so he had several sets of upper den- tures made. The false teeth helped Churchill maintain his distinc- tive speaking style, and he usually carried two sets with him at all times.
One set is thought to have been buried with Churchill, who died in 1965, while another is on display at the Royal College of Surgeons’ Hunterian Museum in London.
The gold-mounted partial dentures now being auctioned off date to around the beginning of World War II, when Churchill was serving as the British prime minister. He likely wore them while delivering many of his historic speech- es, including his famous “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” address in June 1940, per BBC News’ Chris Lockyer.
His dentist, Wilfred Fish, designed the custom dentures
before passing the specs on to dental technician Derek Cudlipp, who pro- duced them.
The Cudlipp family held onto the den- tures for many years, until Cudlipp’s son, Nigel, sold them in 2010 for £15,200 (about $23,700).
“According to Nigel Cudlipp, his father said he could always tell how the war was going from the dis- tance Winston hurled the teeth,” said Andrew Bullock, a spokesperson for the auction house that sold the dentures in 2010, to CNN’s Simon Hooper at the time. “They were prone to breaking, especially when Churchill got a bit angry.”
In 2008, a letter from Churchill to his dentist was also put up for auction. In the letter, Churchill wrote that he was happy to have nominated Fish
for knighthood. He also mailed Fish a pair of his dentures and asked him to “tighten them up a lit- tle for me.”
“The others are work- ing very well,” he con- cluded.
Fish was “one of the most eminent dentists of his generation,” according to
the British Dental Journal. He was the first president of the General Dental Council and served as a dean at the Royal College of Surgeons.
Other historic artifacts are also for sale in the upcoming auction, including the radio microphone Churchill used to announce the end of the war in Europe on May 8, 1945. It features a brass plaque with an engraved inscription: “The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance. Winston S. Churchill.”
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