Harry Davies (politician)
Harry Herbert Davies (9 June 1878 – 31 August 1957) was a Southern Rhodesian Labour politician and Leader of the Opposition in the territory's Legislative Assembly from 1929 to 1944.[1] Originally from Wales, he moved to Southern Rhodesia in 1920 and became an estate agent in Bulawayo.[2] He ran for the Southern Rhodesian Labour Party in Bulawayo District in the 1924 general election, but was not elected.[3] After standing successfully in Bulawayo South in the 1928 election, he sat in the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly for 20 years.[2] In 1929 he was elected leader of the Southern Rhodesian Labour Party, thereby becoming Leader of the Opposition, a post he held until 1944.[1]
Re-elected in Bulawayo South in the 1933 and 1934 elections, in 1939 Davies switched to the new Hillside constituency in southern Bulawayo, which he won, and held in 1946.[3] On the outbreak of the Second World War he accepted the Prime Minister Godfrey Huggins's offer to come into a national government with ministers from both sides of the House, and served as Minister of Internal Affairs from 1939 to 1943.[2] Davies's co-operation with Huggins infuriated many of his Labour contemporaries and caused an acrimonious split in the party. The two Labour factions reconciled in 1943 and briefly threatened Huggins's premiership, but a heated dispute over whether Labour should become multiracial led to the party's disintegration in 1944.[4] Davies's political career ended after his defeat in Hillside by Julian Greenfield of Huggins's United Party in the 1948 general election.[3] The former Labour leader died in Salisbury on 31 August 1957, at the age of 79.[1]
