1. Clifford Dupont returned a year later, started a ranch and emigrated full-time during the early 1950s, by which time the country had become a territory of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
16 Facts About Clifford Dupont
1. 2.
Smith attempted to have Clifford Dupont named as Governor-General in place of the British-appointed Governor, Humphrey Gibbs, but failing this instead made him Officer Administering the Government.
3.
Clifford Dupont held this post until 1970, when he became president following the declaration of a republic.
4.
Clifford Dupont's father founded a commercial firm dealing largely in the "rag trade".
5.
Clifford Dupont himself was educated at Bishop's Stortford College and Clare College, Cambridge where he read law.
6.
Clifford Dupont served in North Africa and was on General Eisenhower's staff during the liberation of Europe in 1944; he ended the war as a War Office official.
7.
In 1947 Clifford Dupont briefly visited Southern Rhodesia, returning in 1948.
8.
Clifford Dupont bought land at Featherstone, south of Salisbury, which he turned into a successful cattle ranch.
9.
Clifford Dupont entered politics in 1958, winning on the Dominion Party ticket in the Fort Victoria federal constituency.
10.
However, Clifford Dupont was not pleased with the performance of the prime minister, Winston Field, and after Field's failure to win independence from the United Kingdom in 1963 following the dissolution of the Central African Federation, he and Desmond Lardner-Burke, known as "the cowboys", joined forces to overthrow Field and install Ian Smith as prime minister.
11.
In October 1964, Clifford Dupont thwarted Sir Roy Welensky's attempt to re-enter politics in Rhodesia following the break-up of the Federation.
12.
Welensky had assumed the leadership of the opposition United Federal Party, and was contesting a by-election in Arundel, but Clifford Dupont deliberately resigned his constituency in Charter to oppose him.
13.
From August 1964 Clifford Dupont was deputy prime minister of Rhodesia, and served as Smith's minister of external affairs.
14.
When Smith issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence on 11 November 1965, Clifford Dupont was the second signatory to the UDI document.
15.
Clifford Dupont would continue to use the title until the declaration of a republic in 1970.
16.
On 28 June 1978, Clifford Dupont died while undergoing radium treatment for what was believed to be cancer.