1. Godfrey Huggins served as the fourth Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1933 to 1953 and remained in office as the first prime minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland until October 1956, becoming the longest serving prime minister in British Commonwealth history, until 1961.
Godfrey Huggins was educated at Brunswick House, a preparatory school in Hove and then moved to Sutherland House, a similar school in Folkestone.
Godfrey Huggins returned to the UK in late 1914 following the outbreak of war and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps with the rank of lieutenant from October 1914.
Godfrey Huggins was first stationed at Colchester Hospital in Essex, which had become a casualty clearing station.
Godfrey Huggins returned to Southern Rhodesia at the end of the war, just in time to deal with the 1918 influenza epidemic, and bought Craig Farm on the outskirts of Salisbury, now Harare, which was to remain his home for the rest of his life.
Godfrey Huggins began again as a surgeon, quickly becoming the best known, albeit in a small field, in Southern Rhodesia.
Godfrey Huggins married in 1921 to Blanche Slatter of Pietermaritzburg, the daughter of a Major in the South African Constabulary.
Godfrey Huggins and his wife had two sons, born in 1922 and 1928.
Godfrey Huggins entered politics in 1924 as a Rhodesia Party member and was elected, unopposed, in the Salisbury North constituency, to the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly of the newly created self-governing colony.
Godfrey Huggins became Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia following the 1933 general election which his Reform Party won by a one-seat majority with 16 out of 30 seats in the Legislative Assembly.
The Reform Party was believed by many in Rhodesia to be a left-wing party but Godfrey Huggins presented a cautiously conservative Cabinet after winning power in 1933.
Godfrey Huggins decided to approach Sir Percy Fynn, leader of the Rhodesia Party, who pledged support for a National Government under Godfrey Huggins.
The November 1934 election resulted in a landslide for Godfrey Huggins' United Party, which won 24 out of 30 seats, while the Reform Party returned only one seat in the new legislature.
Godfrey Huggins himself switched electoral districts and ran and defeated Reform Party MP Thomas Nangle who had been one of the Reform Party's founders.
Godfrey Huggins was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 1941 New Year Honours, and appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, granting the title "The Right Honourable", in the 1947 Birthday Honours.
Godfrey Huggins was a guest at the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Godfrey Huggins became an advocate of federating Southern Rhodesia with some of the neighbouring British colonies in the region so that they would become an independent state within the British Empire while maintaining white minority rule with only a small number of educated blacks having the vote in addition to white settlers.
Godfrey Huggins remained in office until October 1956 and was elevated to the Peerage of the United Kingdom as Viscount Malvern in March 1955, over a year and a half before his retirement.
Godfrey Huggins was succeeded as federal prime minister by Sir Roy Welensky.
Godfrey Huggins is the only prime minister in British Commonwealth history to serve under four monarchs.