Education
Reginald was educated at Southland High School, Otaga University, and Glenleith Theological College.
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Reginald Stephen Garfield Todd
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After two years as Minister at Oamuru Church of Christ from 1932 to 1934 he emigrated to Rhodesia and became superintendent of Dadaya Mission, near Shabani, from 1934 to 1953. Missionary work was not synonymous with poverty. He acquired a 50,0 acre ranch above the Ngezi River which became very profitable.
As Prime Minister he had a paternalist attitude which stopped well short of softness. He used troops to break a strike of Africans at Wankie collieries. But his liberalism, exemplified by his moves to extend the franchise, brought his downfall in February 1958 engineered by four right-wingers of the United Federal Party resigning from his government. He tried to fight back by forming the United Rhodesia Party. It was an ignominious failure. His new party did not win a single seat at the elections in June 1958.
After 18 months leading the Central Africa Parly, he resigned on July 29, 1960, and subsequently announced his retirement from active politics on September 5, 1960, “to concentrate on farming”. As Rhodesia drifted politically to the right he emerged as a more militant liberal, warning of the dangers of separate development and urging the need for racial partnership.
His outspokenness led to him being restricted to his farm for 12 months from October 1965 by the Smith government. He was deprived of his freedom again, when he was arrested with his daughter Judith on January 18, 1972, following their vigorous opposition to the independence proposals agreed between Sir Alec Douglas-Home and lan Smith.
Personality
Man of principle whose missionary zeal and increasing radicalism over the years have combined to give him a stature outside politics, equal if not greater, than he had as Prime Minister. Despised by white the hards, he has become with his daughter Judith a symbol of enlightened white thinking since UD1.
A fast talker sometimes at more than 200 words a minute—though not always a patient listener, he endured with dignity being shut off from society following his arrest in January 1972 and subsequent restriction to his farm without being allowed to receive visitors or even telephone calls. His influence remains marginal politically but it is thought important enough by the Smith regime to keep him silenced.
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Born
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Nationality
New Zealand
Career
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September 7, 1953 - February 17, 1958