Preceded by Edgar Whitehead Died March 17, 1969, Rhodesia Political party Rhodesian Front Party Rhodesian Front | Name Winston Field Succeeded by Ian Smith Role Politician | |
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Monarch Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom Similar People Ian Smith, P K van der Byl, Henry Everard, Clifford Dupont, William Harper | ||
Organizations founded Rhodesian Front | ||
Winston Joseph Field MBE (June 6, 1904– March 17, 1969) was a Rhodesian politician. Field was a former Dominion Party MP who founded the Rhodesian Front political party with Ian Douglas Smith.
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Early life
Field was born and brought up in Bromsgrove and educated at Bromsgrove School as a Day boy, in Worcestershire, England, and moved to Southern Rhodesia in 1921. A tobacco farmer near Marandellas (now known as Marondera), in Mashonaland East, Field was President of the powerful Rhodesian Tobacco Association from 1938 to 1940, when he left for military service during the Second World War.
Political career
Field was elected Federal MP for Mtoko in 1957 under the Dominion Party banner. The Federation Minister of Justice, Julian Greenfield, found him "somewhat impulsive and opinionated but entirely straightforward".
When the Rhodesian Front was formed in early 1962 by Ian Smith and 'Boss' Lilford, a very wealthy and right-wing tobacco farmer, they needed an Establishment figurehead. Field was chosen. He was a solid, trustworthy figure and no racist, even though "nearly everyone else in the new party was to the right of him". His wife said "he didn't really want to take it on, he wasn't really a political animal".
The "imperious and intolerant" Field was elected, to his and many others' surprise, as Rhodesia's first Rhodesian Front Prime Minister in the 1962 general election and served until he was replaced by Ian Smith in 1964. Field lent an air of respectability to the Rhodesian Front government, though his Cabinet was derided by one newspaper as "by no means an inspiring list". At the time of Field's election it was assumed that Britain would delay the process of independence for Rhodesia until "an African majority assumed power in Salisbury".
The caucus of the Rhodesian Front decided to ask for his resignation on 2 April 1964 and the decision was conveyed to Field the next day, though the formal demand was not made until a Cabinet meeting a few days later. Field was replaced as leader of the Rhodesian Front and as Prime Minister by Smith on 14 April 1964, despite the Governor Sir Humphrey Gibbs urging him to fight the rebels against him in his party.
Field died in Rhodesia in 1969.