Jock Colville

Colville is portrayed by James D'Arcy in the 2009 film Into the Storm and by Nicholas Rowe in the Netflix television series The Crown.

Colville was knighted in 1974, having previously been appointed CB in 1955, and CVO in 1949. He died in November 1987, aged 72.

He was an Executive Director of Hill Samuel Ltd, 1955–80. Colville was instrumental in raising funds for the establishment of Churchill College, Cambridge, as a national memorial to Winston Churchill, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the College in 1971. He was joint honorary secretary of the Other Club for many years. Colville was a Trustee of both Sir Winston and Lady Churchill's estates. At various times in his life, he was Company Director of the Provident Life Association, the London Committee, the Ottoman Bank, and Eucalyptus Pulp Mills Ltd.

In 1948, Colville married Lady Margaret Egerton (1918–2004), daughter of John Egerton, 4th Earl of Ellesmere; she served as a Lady-in-Waiting to the then Princess Elizabeth from 1946 to 1949, and later to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother from 1990 to 2002. The Colvilles had two sons and one daughter and lived in Hampshire.

He served as Private Secretary to the then Princess Elizabeth 1947–49 and was Joint Principal Private Secretary to the prime minister, Winston Churchill, 1951–55.

Churchill was, as appears from the diaries, fond of Colville, and, from reading the published diaries, it is apparent that Colville was close to the rest of the Churchill family. When Churchill was ill with pneumonia, it was Colville who was summoned from his brief stint of active service in the RAF to accompany Clementine Churchill on an aeroplane to Egypt to visit him, although it was clear on their arrival that Churchill's life was not in danger. Typical of the badinage between Churchill and his private secretary was the exchange when, immediately before Colville's departure for RAF service in 1941, Churchill asked him his age. On being told, Churchill pointed out that, at 26, Napoleon was commanding the armies of Italy. Colville replied that the Younger Pitt was Prime Minister at the age of 24.

Colville served in World War II as a pilot in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR), 1941–44.

Colville kept a diary from 1939 to 1957, parts of which have been published (The Fringes of Power: 10 Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955). The original diaries are held at the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University and, with the exception of the final volume, are open to the public.

Colville served alongside Harry Legge-Bourke (his half–second cousin) as a Page of Honour between 1927 and 1931, thanks to his mother's connections as attendant to the queen. She also ensured he saw the other side of life, by taking him to the infant welfare centre she ran in Shoreditch in London. He was educated at West Downs School, Winchester; Harrow; and Trinity College, Cambridge. In preparation for a career in the diplomatic service, he twice spent a few months in the Black Forest to improve his German. The first time in the village of Marxzell was just before university in 1933, and the second was just after in 1937. He thus saw the very beginning of Hitler's chancellorship, and its effects once it had bedded in: "There was increasing Strength matched by diminishing Joy" (This was an ironic reference to the Nazi morale-building programme of Kraft durch Freude, Strength through Joy).

Sir John Rupert Colville, CB, CVO (28 January 1915 – 19 November 1987) was a British civil servant. He is best known for his diaries, which provide an intimate view of number 10 Downing Street during the wartime Premiership of Winston Churchill.

Colville had two elder brothers, David Richard (11 May 1909 – 9 February 1987) and Major Philip Robert Colville (7 November 1910 – 11 April 1997). Colville's first cousin and schoolmate was Terence O'Neill, later Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1964 to 1969. Other relatives include O'Neill's successor James Chichester-Clark and Colville's aunt Mary Innes-Ker, Duchess of Roxburghe. Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, a Conservative politician who served as Foreign Secretary in the Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1982, was his second cousin.

His mother was Lady Cynthia, a courtier and social worker. She was the daughter of Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe, by his first wife, the former Sibyl Graham, daughter of the Graham Baronets of Netherby. Colville never knew his maternal grandmother, who died young; his maternal grandfather, a Liberal Cabinet minister, remarried Margaret (Peggy) Primrose, daughter of Lord Rosebery, Liberal Prime Minister in 1894–1895, and his wife Hannah, heiress to her father’s Rothschild fortune. Lionel Nathan de Rothschild was a close friend of Colville's. Lady Cynthia, in addition to her duties as a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Mary, devoted her energies to alleviating the suffering of Shoreditch, one of the poorest areas of the East End of London.