The senior-most clergymen of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, disclosed on Saturday that he has discovered he is the illegitimate son of Britain’s war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s private secretary.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby, 60, had decided to take a DNA test after being approached by The Daily Telegraph with research that indicated he may be the son of Sir Anthony Montague Browne, the last private secretary of Churchill.
The test showed a 99.9779 percent probability they were father and son. Until the test last month, Welby had believed his father was whisky salesman Gavin Welby, who died in 1977. His mother, Lady Jane Williams of Elvel, has confirmed she had a “liaison” with Sir Anthony just before she wed in 1955.
Lady Williams had also worked as secretary to Churchill during his final years as prime minister.
The newspaper had spoken to Lady Montague Browne, Sir Anthony’s widow, who said she had been aware her husband may have had another child. Welby said his mother Jane Williams and Gavin Welby were both alcoholics, adding his mother had been in recovery since 1968, and had not touched alcohol for almost 50 years. Gavin Welby, a whisky salesman, died “as a result of the alcohol and smoking” when Welby was 21.
Lady Williams said the news had come as an “almost unbelievable shock” as her son was born almost nine months to the day after she married Gavin Welby in the US in 1955. She said her then-husband was putting pressure on her to leave her job as personal secretary to the Prime Minister and run away with him at the age of 25.
In a statement she said:
Lady Williams said she saw Sir Anthony occasionally after her marriage to Gavin Welby broke up in 1958, but that he gave no hints he might have thought he was the Archbishop’s father. He died in 2013.
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