Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill still owes the exclusive Bangalore Club 13 rupees in unpaid bills.
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill still owes the exclusive Bangalore Club 13 rupees in unpaid bills.
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An entry in the ledger book of the club from June 1899 has 'Lt WLS Churchill' named as one of 17 defaulters, reports the BBC.
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Churchill arrived in Bangalore in 1896 as a young army officer and left three years later to fight in the North-West Frontier - now in Pakistan.
The Bangalore club was formed in 1868 by a group of British officers.
Today, it is one of India's most elite clubs, retaining much of its late 19th- and early 20th-Century splendour.
Col Krishnan Dakshina Murthy, the club secretary, said: "It is seldom that the prime minister of a country would be owing something to a club in another country. It''s the rarest of the rare case."
The ledger book with handwritten entries of bill defaulters is displayed in the main club building which is more than 150 years old.
A framed photograph of a strapping young Churchill with fellow officers adorns the wall above the display.
The entry in the ledger is clear and concise. It is dated 1 June 1899.
"The sub committee approved the following unrecovered sums being written off," it reads.
Churchill's is the 12th name from the top in a list of 17 names.
His debt to the club was discovered posthumously and, after it became public, many visiting British citizens have offered to clear the dues.
But Col Murthy says: "We tell them that history is history, it can't be rewritten."
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