Fact Check: This Viral Story About Winston Churchill & Alexander Fleming Is Heartwarming, But False

Story claims Alexander Fleming’s dad saved Winston Churchill from drowning & latter’s father then financed Fleming’s education. It says Fleming’s discovery, penicillin, later saved Churchill’s life.

Screenshot of the false post.

Source : Factly/Pixabay/NobelPrize.org (Modified)

A story about Winston Churchill and Alexander Fleming is being widely circulated on social media platforms (here, here, here, here, and here). According to this story, a young Winston Churchill was once saved from drowning in a bog or a pond by a Scottish farmer named Fleming. As a gesture of gratitude, Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill, supposedly paid for Fleming’s son, Alexander Fleming’s education. Years later, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, which allegedly saved Churchill’s life when he was suffering from pneumonia during World War II. Through this article, let’s fact-check the authenticity of this story.

The archived version of this post can be found here.

Claim: The father of Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, saved a young Winston Churchill from drowning. In gratitude, Churchill’s father paid for Fleming’s education. Later on, Fleming’s penicillin saved Winston Churchill’s life from pneumonia. Fact: This story about Winston Churchill and Alexander Fleming is not true; it is a fictional tale. There is no historical evidence to support the claim that Alexander Fleming or his father saved Churchill’s life. Churchill’s official biographers and medical records indicate that he was treated with sulfa drugs (sulphonamides), not penicillin, during his illness. In the book ‘Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution’, a biography of Alexander Fleming, the author, Kevin Brown, stated that Alexander Fleming referred to this story as a ‘very nice fable’. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.

To verify the authenticity of this viral story about Winston Churchill and Alexander Fleming, we conducted a relevant keyword search. However, we did not find any credible reports or historical evidence supporting the claim that Alexander Fleming or his father saved Churchill’s life.

In the book Penicillin Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution, a biography of Alexander Fleming, the author, Kevin Brown, mentioned that Fleming referred to this story as a “very nice fable”.

'No Record'

Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, was the first to identify a flaw in the story — the ages of Churchill and Alexander Fleming. The story claims that Fleming himself saved the drowning Churchill. However, Alexander Fleming was seven years younger than Churchill. Could he have been ploughing a field at, say, the age of seven when Churchill was 14? Hugh Fleming (1816–1888) could have saved a drowning Churchill up to around the age of 14 (as Churchill was born in 1874). However, there is no record of Churchill nearly drowning in Scotland at that age or any other. Furthermore, Sir Martin concluded that there is no record of Lord Randolph Churchill paying for Alexander Fleming’s education.

Dr John Mather, an expert on Churchill’s medical history, stated: “In 1943, Churchill suffered a serious illness. He was treated not with penicillin but with ‘M&B’, a sulfadiazine produced by May & Baker Pharmaceuticals.” ‘M&B’ was a commonly used short name for this sulfadiazine.

Churchill’s official biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, also noted that the diaries of Lord Moran (Churchill’s doctor), while mentioning M&B, make no reference to penicillin.

To sum it up, this widely circulated story about Winston Churchill and Alexander Fleming is not true; it is a fictional tale.

This story was originally published by Factly, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline and excerpt, this story has not been edited by ABP LIVE staff.