John Gilbert Winant

Winant was born on East Side, New York City, the son of Frederick and Jeanette Winant. His father was a partner in a prosperous real estate company. Winant attended St. Paul's School in Concord and progressed to Princeton University, but he was a poor student, and left without graduating. He was appointed an instructor in history at St. Paul's in 1913, remaining there until 1917. He was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1916. In 1917, he joined the United States Army Air Service, trained as a pilot, and commanded the 8th Aero Squadron (Observation) in France, with the rank of captain.[2]

Winant returned to his position at St. Paul's in 1919 after his military service, and was elected to the New Hampshire Senate in 1920. He lost money in oil stocks in 1929, which he had profited from through the 1920s.

John Winant Jr. (far right) with other Prominente after their release.

Winant married Constance Rivington Russell (1899–1983) in 1919.[2][8] They had a daughter, Constance Russell Winant (1921–1978), and two sons, John Gilbert Winant Jr. (1922–1993) and Rivington Russell Winant (1925–2011).[9] The younger Constance married Carlos Valando, a Peruvian scientist, in 1941.[10] John Winant Jr. served as a bomber pilot in World War II and was taken prisoner by the Germans.[2] Sent to Colditz, he was removed in April 1945 as one of the Prominente to be used as a bargaining chip by Himmler and the SS as the end of the war approached; he was eventually released.[11] Rivington Winant also served in World War II and later became treasurer at the United Nations.[2][12]

John Gilbert Winant (c.1943)

Winant shot himself in the head at his Concord home on 3 November 1947, the day his book Letter from Grosvenor Square was published.[2][13][14] The book Citizens of London reports that after Roosevelt's death, with Winant distanced from his Republican Party base, "[h]e hoped that he was going to become secretary-general of the new UN... On top of that [disappointed hope], his affair with Sarah Churchill ended badly. 'He was an exhausted, sick man after the war'," author Olson continued in the interview on NPR.[15]

Winston Churchill sent four dozen yellow roses to Winant's funeral, and the British king and queen sent their condolences by telegram.[16]

Winant was buried at Blossom Hill cemetery in Concord; his wish to be buried in the St Paul's School's consecrated cemetery refused by the Episcopalian rector on the grounds that suicide was a sin. However, in the more secular culture of 1968, his casket was reinterred at St Paul's.[17] His epitaph was his 1946 quote:

Doing the day's work day by day, doing a little, adding a little, broadening our bases wanting not only for ourselves but for others also, a fairer chance for all people everywhere. Forever moving forward, always remembering that it is the things of the spirit that in the end prevail. That caring counts and that where there is no vision the people perish. That hope and faith count and that without charity, there can be nothing good. That having dared to live dangerously, and in believing in the inherent goodness of man, we can stride forward into the unknown with growing confidence.[18]

In 1947, Winant was only the second (and last) American citizen, after General Dwight Eisenhower, to be made an honorary member of the British Order of Merit. In 1943, he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Aberdeen.

In what amounted to a eulogy, The New York Times wrote of Winant two days after his death:

Here was a man who truly loved mankind and tried all his life to make the lot of his fellow-men better and happier... Governor Winant was a liberal Republican. When President Roosevelt summoned him to a larger field as head of the Social Security Board, his political opponents called him "a Republican New Dealer."[3]

In 1948, the Winant Clayton Volunteers formed in honor of Winant and the Reverend Philip "Tubby" Clayton, organizer of the Toc H Christian charity in the First World War. Initially, American volunteers came to London to help British families rebuild churches and community centers damaged during World War II. In 1959 the exchange was reciprocated with Winant volunteers traveling from America to England while the Claytons go from England to work in the United States.

In 1982, The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire established The John G. Winant Fellowship for students interested in working in non-profit or governmental organizations.[19]

In 2009, Rivington Winant, with his wife Joan, donated 85 acres of land in Concord for the creation of Winant Park in honor of his late father and mother. The property sits on what was formerly the Winants' estate and offers the public biking, hiking and cross-country ski trails.[20] Rivington Winant said his goal was to create "something that would be useful to the people of Concord, and something my father would like."[21]

Two positions have been endowed in Winant's honour at the University of Oxford: the John G. Winant Lectureship in U.S. Foreign Policy and the John Gilbert Winant Visiting Professorship of American Government, which is held at Oxford's Rothermere American Institute.[22]

On June 30, 2017, a statue of Winant was unveiled outside the New Hampshire State Library in Concord. The campaign to build the statue with private funds was led by Van McLeod, longtime head of New Hampshire's Department of Cultural Resources, and state lawmaker Steve Shurtleff.[23]

• Bellush, Bernard. He Walked Alone: A Biography of John Gilbert Winant. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
• Winant, John Gilbert. A Letter from Grosvenor Square: An Account of a Stewardship. Hodder & Stoughton, 1947.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Gilbert Winant.

• Winant Clayton Volunteers UK
• New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources – John G. Winant
• Social Security Pioneers – John Gilbert Winant
• Winant Memorial
• John Gilbert Winant at Find a Grave