Background
Clifford was born on December 6, 1905, in London.
Clifford was born on December 6, 1905, in London.
Educated at Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire and at Clare College, Cambridge University where he gained his MA.
He began practising law in 1928 at Clements Inn, London and started a solicitor’s firm in 1933, retaining his connection after he moved to Rhodesia. During the 1939-45 war he served on Eisenhower’s staff in North Africa and was demobilised as a major.
His gambler’s streak first came out when he emigrated to Rhodesia in 1948. He knew nothing about farming or
tobacco growing but bought virgin land at Feathcrstone near Enkeldoorn about 70 miles from Salisbury. Soon he was a wealthy tobacco farmer and chairman of the local farmers’ association.
He was asked to stand for Parliament while waiting at Salisbury to fly to London after the death of his first wife in 1957. He refused and caught his plane.
Shortly afterwards his daughter of 20 and son of 12 were killed in a plane crash in Libya on their way to join him. On his return to Rhodesia he plunged into politics and spent the next four years as a backbencher in the Rhodesian Federal Parliament.
As one of the founders of the Rhodesian Front he helped promote its victory in the elections of December 1962. He was nicknamed “Little Canute” for his campaign pledge to stop black nationalism at the Zambesi. Premier Winston Field appointed him Minister of Justice, Law and Order on December 17, 1962. His first actions were to banish the nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo and introduce the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act Amendment with its “Hanging Clauses”.
After a bout of ill-health following his collapse on a platform in November 1963 he was succeeded on June 23, 1964, at the Justice Ministry by Desmond Lardner-Burke. He stayed in the cabinet as Minister without Portfolio and went to London in July 1964 with a watching brief on the Common-wealth Prime Ministers’ Conference. On August 20, 1964, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and took over External Affairs from Premier Ian Smith.
The Rhodesian Front decided on August 24, 1964, that the political comeback of Sir Roy Welensky, former Federal Prime Minister, to contest a by-election at Arundel, a suburb of Salisbury, was a challenge which had to be met by “a candidate of no less than ministerial status”. This brought out the gambler in Dupont again. He resigned his seat, put his whole career at risk by 364 contesting Arundel, and beat Welensky by 1,079 votes to 633. Next came more health trouble and an operation at Cape Town on February 15, 1965.
Following UDI, an announcement on November 17, 1965, said Dupont had resigned as cabinet minister and MP and was appointed Acting Officer Administering the Government. Until Government House was vacated it said he would “continue to reside at 15a, Argyll Road, Highlands, Salisbury”. The “Acting” part of the title was dropped on December 21, 1965, when he took the oath in top hat and tails on appointment at a salary of £8,500 a year. One of his political achievements was devising letters of accreditation which enabled the Portuguese government to accept Mr Harry Reedman as Rhodesia’s first envoy.
His biggest challenge came when he signed death warrants on September 1, 1967, for three Africans who had been convicted before UDI. Reprieves were granted by Queen Elizabeth but on March 5 he rejected petitions for clemency. Ignoring a British government statement saying it would be “murder, imposing the heaviest personal responsibility”, he authorised the executions to be carried out on March 6, 1968.
Further health trouble resulted in a stomach operation at Groote Schuur hospital, Cape Town on June 3, 1968. After Sir Humphrey Gibbs retired as Governor on June 24, 1969, he moved into Government House on August 21, 1969.
In his presidential speech opening Parliament on May 28, 1971, he struck the keynote of his political creed—the need for social segregation of the races to be comprehensively applied. His health became suspect again when he left for a long rest in South Africa on January 5, 1973 and an Acting President was sworn into office.
Frail in health but a tough political animal. As a minister he was undeterred by world-wide protests at his “Hanging Clauses” introducing death penalties for people throwing petrol bombs even at empty buildings. He was equally unmoved by the international outcry at his signing death warrants for three Africans after the Queen’s prerogative of mercy had been announced in London.
Dupont initially married in London in 1933 to Barbara (Barbie). They divorced in 1942. He and Barbie had two children; Hilary and Graham. Graham died in childhood in England 1942. In 1946 he married his second wife Betty 'Timmy' Wood in Kensington Registry Office. 'Timmy' was 15 years his junior. In 1947 they had son, Stephen. Betty 'Timmy' died in 1957 in Salisbury, and is buried in Warren Hills. His two children, Hilary and Stephen, were killed in the 1958 Central African Airways plane crash near Benghazi.
On 23 May 1963 he married Armenell Mary Betty Bennet, originally from Cornwall, who was a branch organizer for the Rhodesian Front. They had no children and Armenell died on 10 April 2000 in Harare.