About Roy Welensky
Sir Roland "Roy" Welensky (né Raphael Welensky; 20 January 1907 – 5 December 1991) was a Northern Rhodesian politician and the second and last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) to an Afrikaner mother and a Lithuanian Jewish father, he moved to Northern Rhodesia, became involved with the trade unions, and entered the colonial legislative council in 1938. There, he campaigned for the amalgamation of Northern and Southern Rhodesia (the latter under white self-government, the former under the colonial office). Although unsuccessful, he succeeded in the formation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, a state within the British Empire that sought to retain predominant power for the white minority while moving in a progressive political direction, in contrast to South Africa under the apartheid system. Becoming Prime Minister of the Federation in 1956, Welensky opposed British moves towards black majority rule, and he used force to suppress politically motivated violence in the territories. After the advent of black majority rule in two of the Federation's three territories (Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, now Zambia and Malawi, respectively), the Federation collapsed in 1963. Welensky retired to Salisbury, where he re-entered politics and attempted to stop Rhodesia (formerly Southern Rhodesia) from unilaterally declaring itself independent. Following the end of white minority rule in 1979, and the recognised independence of Rhodesia as the Republic of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe in 1980, Welensky emigrated to the United Kingdom, where he died in England in 1991. A fervent admirer of Britain and its Empire, Welensky described himself as "half Jewish, half Afrikaner [and] 100% British". During this time, Welensky met his first wife, Elizabeth Henderson, who was working at a café in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia at the time. While working on the railways, he became the professional heavyweight boxing champion of Southern Rhodesia at 19 years old and held the position until he was 21.
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