Edgar Whitehead

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Sir Edgar Cuthbert Fremantle Whitehead OBE (February 8, 1905–September 23, 1971) was a Rhodesian politician. He was a longstanding member of the Southern Rhodesia Legislative Assembly, although his career was interrupted by other posts and by illness; as an ally of Sir Roy Welensky, he was Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1958 to 1962. His government was defeated in the 1962 general election by the Rhodesian Front.

Whitehead was born in the British Embassy in Berlin, Germany, where his father was a diplomat. He was educated at Shrewsbury School and the University of Oxford, and moved to the colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1928 for health reasons. After working briefly for the civil service at Gwelo, he moved to a farm in the Vumba mountains near Umtali. Whitehead became active in the local farming unions.

He became a member of the Southern Rhodesia legislative assembly in 1939, but his service was interrupted by the Second World War. During the Second World War, he was in West Africa and was an Air Despatcher with the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom. He served as Acting High Commissioner for Southern Rhodesia in London from 1945 to 1946, before returning to Salisbury as Minister of Finance and Posts & Telegraphs. During the Federation period, Whitehead served as Minister for Rhodesia & Nyasaland Affairs in Washington, D.C. from 1957 to 1958, and was appointed as Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and Minister of Native Affairs in 1958 - a post he held until he was defeated by Winston Field of the Rhodesian Front in the 1962 elections. He was awarded the O.B.E. in 1944 and was knighted in 1954.

Sir Edgar Whitehead's party, the United Federal Party, was paternalistic but broadly liberal. The party's desire for a great Central African Federation was viewed with suspicion by many black inhabitants of the Federation; while white colonists reacted to Whitehead's comparatively liberal views on race with alarm. This led to the party's defeat in the 1962 general election and the beginning of a Rhodesian Front government that would continue, from 1964 under the leadership of Ian Douglas Smith, until the end of minority rule in 1979. Whitehead himself retired back to the United Kingdom, where he died in 1971.

Preceded by: Garfield Todd

Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia 1958-1962

Succeeded by: Winston Field