Jane Williams (Lady Williams of Elvel, to provide her formal title) died peacefully at her London home on July 15. She was a longtime friend of the International Churchill Society (ICS) and the society’s senior honorary member. Her death marks a final break of sorts: she was among the most prominent of the last surviving members of Sir Winston Churchill’s personal staff. This, however, was only one of many remarkable facts about her in a long and incredible life that extended just far enough to enable her to watch her son Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, crown King Charles III in Westminster Abbey this past May.
Jane Portal was born in 1929, the daughter of Iris Butler, a journalist and historian, whose brother R. A. “Rab” Butler was a leading Conservative politician of the mid-twentieth century who served in Churchill’s wartime and postwar governments. The father of Iris and Rab, Sir Montagu Butler, served as Governor of the Central Provinces of India and was the grandson of a Head Master of Harrow, Churchill’s old school. Jane’s father, Gervase Portal, who could trace his heritage back to King Charles II, was a half-brother of Sir Charles Portal, who served as Chief of
