Arabella Bob Churchill

Arabella Spencer-Churchill (30 October 1949 – 20 December 2007) was an English charity founder, festival co-founder, and fundraiser. She was a granddaughter of Sir Winston Churchill, the former British Prime Minister, and was known for her involvement in the development and management of the Glastonbury Festival and for her charitable activities.

Born in London, she was the daughter of Randolph Churchill and June Osborne. Her father, Randolph Churchill, was a son of Sir Winston Churchill, making her the granddaughter of the wartime Prime Minister. Her mother, June Osborne, was the daughter of Colonel Rex Hamilton Osborne. Arabella had a half-brother, Winston Churchill, who was born to Randolph and his first wife Pamela Beryl Digby, later known as Pamela Harriman. Her parents divorced in 1961.

At the age of two, she appeared in a family portrait of Winston Churchill's family, which is displayed at the National Portrait Gallery. She visited her grandfather at Chartwell and during his final illness in January 1965, she would regularly call at his house in London. In March 1954, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine as part of a feature on potential future spouses of Prince Charles, then five years old.

Her education included attending Fritham School for Girls, where she served as Head Girl, and Ladymede School near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. In 1967, she was named "Debutante of the Year" and participated in a January feature in UK Vogue titled "Youthquakers Face '67," photographed by Norman Parkinson.

In her early career, Churchill worked as a public relations trainee for Lepra, an international leprosy charity. In 1969, she helped organize a charity ball at Kensington Town Hall to benefit starving children in Biafra, an area affected by war and famine. In 1970, she toured leper colonies in Tanzania and Zambia, and was briefly linked romantically to Crown Prince Carl of Sweden.

In 1971, she declined an invitation to be Britain's "Azalea Queen" at the Norfolk NATO Festival in Virginia to protest the Vietnam War. She wrote to the organizers expressing her opposition, comparing the situation to the "final curtain" facing the world's major powers. Her stance challenged her family's views and precipitated some familial disagreement.

In the same year, she granted an interview to Rolling Stone where she expressed her desire to pursue a different life from familial expectations and class roles. Subsequently, she became involved with the early planning stages of the Glastonbury Festival, collaborating with Andrew Kerr and Michael Eavis. She helped direct a reallocation of family resources to fund the festival's early infrastructure, including the iconic Pyramid Stage. The inaugural festival in 1971 attracted 12,000 attendees and featured performances by Hawkwind, David Bowie, Joan Baez, and Fairport Convention.

Following the festival, she reportedly withdrew from public life for a time, living in a commune outside London. In the mid-1970s, she resided in Bristol Gardens, Maida Vale, living in a squatted street and running a small restaurant. In a 1976 radio interview, she described her community as a place where she felt accepted outside her aristocratic background.

By 1979, she was again managing the Glastonbury Festival, establishing the children's area, theatre, circus, and cabaret tents. In 1981, she founded Children's World, a charity offering creative and educational workshops for children in the South West of England, which hosted the annual Glastonbury Children's Festival for over three decades.

She married Scottish schoolteacher Jim Barton in 1972, with whom she had a son, Nicholas Jake Gompo Barton, born in 1973. In 1987, she married Haggis McLeod, a professional juggler, and they had a daughter, Jessica Churchill-McLeod, in 1988.

In her later years, she traveled to Aceh after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami to assist with rebuilding efforts and work with children. She was known to be a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, adopting teachings from Sogyal Rinpoche and refusing conventional cancer treatments for pancreatic cancer, which led to her death on 20 December 2007 at St Edmund's Cottages in Bove Town, Glastonbury, Somerset, aged 58.

Her death was marked by a simple farewell parade during the Glastonbury Festival in June 2008. Tributes to her included statements from festival founder Michael Eavis and other associated individuals. In 2010, a bridge dedicated to her memory was constructed at the festival site using timber from the old Caen Hill Locks, and multiple tributes commemorated her contributions to the festival and charitable causes.