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Sir Henry Ellis Isidore Phillips CMG MBE was a British army officer, a Far East prisoner of war and a colonial administrator in Nyasaland, later Malawi.
Henry Phillips was born on 30 August 1914. He attended The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School and graduated as Bachelor of Arts from University College London, in 1936, receiving his MA subsequently in 1939. His essay 'The Last Years of the Court of Star Chamber, 1630-41', won him the Alexander Prize of the Royal Historical Society in 1938.
Phillips received a commission in the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment early in the Second World War and was sent to Singapore with the 5th battalion of his regiment, a part of the 18th Infantry Division, arriving shortly before Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942. From December of that year until April 1944, he worked as an intelligence officer on the Thailand-Burma Railway, in the jungle prison camp at Tarsao, collecting and disseminating information from the outside world, from local newspapers and hidden radios, in order to boost the morale of his fellow prisoners. In February 1945 he was interrogated by the Kempeitai (Japanese Military Police) and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He arrived at Singapore’s Outram Road Jail, known as “The Belsen of the East”, in July 1945 but was released after only a month. For his work during this time in Burma and Singapore he was awarded the MBE in 1946.
Shortly after the end of the war he left England for Nyasaland (now Malawi) in Central Africa where he served as an assistant district commissioner in the northern area of Karonga on Lake Nyasa. He moved to Salisbury (now Harare) in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1953, serving in the Treasury of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland which was formed in that year.
He returned to Nyasaland in 1957 as Financial Secretary. In 1960 he was appointed CMG. As the senior official responsible for finance, he expected to hand over the reins on independence to Dunduzu Chisiza, a prominent young member of the group, headed by Hastings Kamuzu Banda, which was to govern after Nyasaland achieved independence. Chisiza, however, was killed in a car crash in September 1962, and so Phillips was asked by Banda to occupy the post of Minister of Finance until another candidate could be schooled for this position. (In the event, his successor was John Tembo). He left Nyasaland, now Malawi, in 1964, shortly after the country finally achieved its independence, and was knighted.
He returned to England and in 1966 he was appointed CEO of the Standard Bank Development Corporation. He died on 21 December 2004, at the age of 90.
Nyasaland was a British protectorate located in Africa that was established in 1907 when the former British Central Africa Protectorate changed its name. Between 1953 and 1963, Nyasaland was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. After the Federation was dissolved, Nyasaland became independent from Britain on 6 July 1964 and was renamed Malawi.
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was the prime minister and later president of Malawi from 1964 to 1994. In 1966, the country became a republic and he became president. His rule has been characterized as a "highly repressive autocracy."
Sir Roland "Roy" Welensky, was a Northern Rhodesian politician and the second and last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Yatuta Chisiza was a Malawi minister of home affairs who led a brief guerrilla incursion into the country in October 1967.
Kanyama Chiume, born Murray William Kanyama Chiume, was a leading nationalist in the struggle for Malawi's independence in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also one of the leaders of the Nyasaland African Congress and served as the Minister of Education and the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the 1960s before fleeing the country after the 1964 Cabinet Crisis.
Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza (8 August 1930 – 2 September 1962), also known as Gladstone Chisiza, was an African nationalist who was active in the independence movements in Rhodesia and Nyasaland, respectively present-day Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Henry Masauko Blasius Chipembere was a Malawian nationalist politician who played a significant role in bringing independence from colonial rule to his native country, formerly known as Nyasaland. From an early age Chipembere was a strong believer in natural justice and, on his return in 1954 from university in South Africa, he joined his country's independence struggle as a nationalist strategist and spokesman. In 1957, considering that the independence movement need such a strong leader similar to Kwame Nkrumah, and considering himself too young for this task, he joined with other young nationalists in inviting Hastings Kamuzu Banda to return to Nyasaland as the movement's leader.
Sir Glyn Smallwood Jones, was a British colonial administrator in Southern Africa. He was the last governor of Nyasaland from 1961 until it achieved independence in 1964. He served as the only governor-general of Malawi from 1964 until it became a republic in 1966. In 1964, he was appointed a GCMG.
The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, also known as the Central African Federation or CAF, was a colonial federation that consisted of three southern African territories: the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia and the British protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It existed between 1953 and 1963.
Sir Peter William Youens, CMG, OBE was a British diplomat who played an important role in the transition of Nyasaland to independence as Malawi in 1964. He was Deputy Chief Secretary of Nyasaland from 1953 to 1963, and secretary to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Malawi from 1963 to 1966, where he enjoyed the confidence of the prime minister Hastings Banda. After leaving Malawi he was prominent as a director of Lonrho.
Orton Chirwa was a lawyer and political leader in colonial Nyasaland and after independence became Malawi's Minister of Justice and Attorney General. After a dispute with Malawi's autocratic President Hastings Kamuzu Banda, he and his wife Vera were exiled. After being kidnapped abroad they were tried in Malawi on charges of treason and sentenced to death. Amnesty International named the couple prisoners of conscience. After spending nearly eleven years on death row in Malawi, Orton Chirwa died in prison on 20 October 1992.
Thamar Dillon Thomas Banda ("TDT") was a politician in Nyasaland in the years prior to independence. He was President-General of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) from 1957 to 1958, and founded the Congress Liberation Party in 1959.
Charles Jameson Matinga was a politician in Nyasaland before the colony obtained independence from the British.
Sir Robert Perceval Armitage was a British colonial administrator who held senior positions in Kenya and the Gold Coast, and was Governor of Cyprus and then of Nyasaland during the period when the former British colonies were gaining independence.
The cabinet crisis of 1964 in Malawi occurred in August and September 1964 shortly after independence when, after an unresolved confrontation between the Prime Minister, Hastings Banda and the cabinet ministers present on 26 August 1964, three ministers and a parliamentary secretary were dismissed on 7 September. These dismissals were followed by the resignations of three more cabinet ministers and another parliamentary secretary, in sympathy with those dismissed. Initially, this only left the President and one other minister in post, although one of those who had resigned rescinded his resignation within a few hours. The reasons that the ex-ministers put forward for the confrontation and subsequent resignations were the autocratic attitude of Banda, who failed to consult other ministers and kept power in his own hands, his insistence on maintaining diplomatic relations with South Africa and Portugal and a number of domestic austerity measures. It is unclear whether the former ministers intended to remove Banda entirely, to reduce his role to that of a non-executive figurehead or simply to force him to recognise collective cabinet responsibility. Banda seized the initiative, firstly, by dismissing some of the dissidents rather than negotiating, and secondly, by holding a debate on a motion of confidence on 8 and 9 September 1964. As the result of the debate was an overwhelming vote of confidence, Banda declined to reinstate any of the ministers or offer them any other posts, despite the urging of the Governor-General to compromise. After some unrest, and clashes between supporters of the ex-ministers and of Banda, most of the former left Malawi in October with their families and leading supporters, for Zambia or Tanzania. One ex-minister, Henry Chipembere went into hiding inside Malawi and, in February 1965 led a small, unsuccessful armed uprising. After its failure, he was able to arrange for his transfer to the USA. Another ex-minister, Yatuta Chisiza, organised an even smaller incursion from Mozambique in 1967, in which he was killed. Several of the former ministers died in exile or, in the case of Orton Chirwa in a Malawian jail, but some survived to return to Malawi after Banda was deposed and to return to public life.
Operation Sunrise was the name given to a police and military action conducted by the authorities in the Central African protectorate of Nyasaland which started on 3 March 1959, initially to detain and intern 350 individuals who were considered a potential threat to law and order in anticipation of the declaration of a State of Emergency. Although it is sometimes considered to involve only the incidents of 3 March, the Devlin Commission report is clear that it was one of two distinct operations by the security forces, reinforced from outside Nyasaland, involving the arrest and detention members of the Nyasaland African Congress. It involved not only those members of Congress initially arrested, but others arrested and detained without trial in the course of the emergency. The operation was described in some detail in the Devlin Commission report and that account has been amplified by Colonial Office documents not made available to the Devlin Commission.
The Monckton Commission, officially the Advisory Commission for the Review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, was set up by the British government under the chairmanship of Walter Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, in 1960. Its purpose was to investigate and make proposals for the future of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, made up of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland—respectively equivalent to today's Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
The Nyasaland Emergency 1959 was a state of emergency in the protectorate of Nyasaland, which was declared by its governor, Sir Robert Armitage on 3 March 1959 and which ended on 16 June 1960. Under the emergency powers that operated during the Emergency, over 1,300 members or supporters of the Nyasaland African Congress (Congress) were detained without trial, and most of the party's leaders including its president, Dr. Hastings Banda, were imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia after being arrested on 3 March. Many other Africans were jailed for offences related to the Emergency, including rioting and criminal damage. In the week before the Emergency was declared and during its first month, over 50 Africans were killed and many more wounded by the colonial security forces, which included many European troops from Southern Rhodesia. Others were beaten by troops or armed police or had their huts destroyed and their property seized during punitive operations undertaken during the Emergency.
Peter Mackay was a British journalist and political activist in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Tanzania.
The history of the Jews in Malawi formerly known as Nyasaland, and part of the former Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
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