When Sir Winston Churchill was buried 50 years ago today he received the only non-royal state funeral of the century.

Big Ben was hushed. A gun in Hyde Park fired once a minute for 90 minutes – one for each year of his life.

Representatives from 113 countries – including four kings and a queen, four presidents and 16 prime ministers – all came together under the impressive roof of St Paul’s Cathedral in London to mourn his passing.

Perhaps most memorable of the many honours paid to the great man, who had led the nation in war and in peace, on that day was when London’s dockland cranes dipped in salute as his body was carried down the Thames.

Under the headline “The World Gathered To Say Farewell”, the Daily Echo carried a large front page photograph of his coffin being carried into St Paul’s while inside the newspaper there was a further two pages containing a full description of the events of the day.

“They carried the remains of Sir Winston Churchill beneath the vaulted roof of the great cathedral of St Paul’s today and bade him farewell on his final journey into history,” reported the Daily Echo on January 30, 1965.

“Here, among the vast congregation of over 3,000 gathered to pay him homage, stood his Queen and her husband, together with Prince Charles, the Queen Mother and other members of the Royal Family.

“But the world itself seemed to have gathered beneath this great dome on which, in the first winter of his war-time Premiership, Sir Winston himself looked upon – miraculously spared and black against the background of a city in flames.”

Daily Echo:

Churchill’s only instruction for his funeral was that there be “plenty of bands” and so it was to the sound of music that the gun-carriage, upon which his coffin rested, journeyed through the streets of the capital from Westminster Hall, where his body lay in state and where 321,360 people came pay their respects, to St Paul’s.

The route was thick with spectators, many of whom had spent the night in the bitter cold, sleeping in shop doorways, covered with newspapers, blankets and overcoats, to ensure a clear view of the passing cortege.

In an alley off Ludgate Hill an elderly woman knelt on a shawl to pray facing the direction of the cathedral.

At the same time in Southampton the muffled bells of St Mary’s Church rang out across the city as local people attended a memorial service for Sir Winston.

In St Paul’s, immediately in front of the coffin on which lay Sir Winston’s insignia of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, walked the pall bearers, including Earl Attlee and, from Romsey, Lord Mountbatten, all of them old friends and associated with him in his war-time leadership.

The Dean of St Paul’s, Dr W R Matthews, told the congregation: “We shall think of him with thanksgiving that he was raised up in our days of desperate need to be a leader and inspirer of the nation, for his dauntless resolution and untiring vigilance and for his example of courage and endurance.”

Great crowds round St Paul’s stood with the Queen and saw the gun carriage move away bearing Sir Winston on his final journey.

Other members of the Royal Family gathered on the steps. Soon there was a great concourse of royalty, heads of state and world leaders.

When the cortege reached the narrow entrance to Tower Pier the mourners boarded the Port of London Authority launch Haven-gore as the bearer party once again took over the flag draped coffin.

The Daily Echo said: “Slowly to the sound of a piper’s lament, they bore the coffin down the long pier and as it was placed on board Havengore the flag of an Elder Brother of Trinity House was broken at the jackstaff.

“They then bore his body along the dark waters of a thousand years of history which is the River Thames, and Sir Winston Churchill was nearing the end of his last journey. The journey to his grave in the quiet of an English churchyard.

“With him went the thoughts and prayers of the mighty and humble who gathered to bid their last farewells.

“From the far corners of Earth they came to pay homage with all pomp and pageantry of State ceremonial. With sadness, for sorrow there must be in such a journey: but with pride and affection and thankfulness too.

“As befitted the giant stature of the man in life, the nation’s final tribute in death was the greatest ever accorded a commoner – if such be the right description for such a rare, uncommon man.”