William Harper (Rhodesian politician)

William John Harper was born into a prominent Anglo-Indian merchant family in Calcutta, India. He joined the RAF in 1937 and served as an officer throughout the Second World War. Appalled by Britain’s granting of independence to India in 1947, he emigrated to Rhodesia on retiring from the Air Force two years later. Harper served as a Cabinet minister in Rhodesia from 1962 to 1968. He died in South Africa in 2006 at the age of 90, having left Rhodesia when black majority rule began in the country in 1979.

About William Harper (Rhodesian politician) in brief

William John Harper was born into a prominent Anglo-Indian merchant family in Calcutta, India. He joined the RAF in 1937 and served as an officer throughout the Second World War. Appalled by Britain’s granting of independence to India in 1947, he emigrated to Rhodesia on retiring from the Air Force two years later. Harper served as a Cabinet minister in Rhodesia from 1962 to 1968, and signed that country’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain in 1965. He died in South Africa in 2006 at the age of 90, having left Rhodesia when black majority rule began in the country in 1979. He was a member of the Dominion Party and the Rhodesian Front, which he joined in 1958. He reportedly declared that it, South Africa, and the neighbouring Portuguese territories would ‘be under white rule forever’ He was the head of a far-right group within the RF, and called for Rhodesia to abolish black representation in parliament and adopt a form of political apartheid. In 1966, when Smith brought a working document back from the HMS Tiger talks with the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Harper led opposition to the terms in Cabinet, contributing to their rejection. In 1968, soon after Smith dismissed him from the Cabinet, Harper had left for South Africa. He later became a vocal critic of the Prime Minister, greeting each step Smith made towards settlement with black nationalists during the Bush War with public indignation. He grew into a short but tough man who spoke with clipped diction, he died in 2006, aged 90, and was survived by his wife and three children.

He is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of Rhodesia in Lusaka, Zambia, where he is buried with his wife, the former First Lady, and their three children, including a son and a daughter-in-law. He also leaves behind a daughter and two step-granddaughters, both of whom are still living in the UK. Harper is survived by a son, a grandson and a step-great-grandson. He had no children of his own, and died in a car crash near Felixstowe, Suffolk, in 2007. He leaves behind three grandchildren and a great-grandchild, who he left behind to live with his brother in Australia. Harper was a keen golfer and won the World Championship in the 1940s. He saw action as one of ‘The Few’ in the Battle of Britain, during which he was wounded in action. He served in the Royal Australian Air Force from 1941 to 1941, and received the substantive rank of flight lieutenant on 12 February 1941. In September 1941, Harper was posted to No 45 RAAF in Wales, based at RAF Hawarden. He went on to become an instructor with the Royal Air Force in Australia and later a general contractor. Harper died in Soweto in 2007, aged 89, and is buried in the town of Felixstwistle, near Felix-land-land, Suffolk. He wrote a book about his time in the RAF, entitled “The Few: The Story of One of the Greatest Air Force Pilots”.

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