Denis Walker
Wilfrid Denis Walker (born 29 December 1933), is a former Rhodesian cabinet minister resident in the United Kingdom. He is known for his monarchist activities and anti-communism and is also company secretary, director and treasurer of the International Monarchist League and its UK subsidiary, the Constitutional Monarchy Association. He holds the prefix The Honourable because of his government posts in Rhodesia.[1]
Early life
Walker became a Methodist missionary in southern Africa. He left the mission service and later settled in Bulawayo, Rhodesia.
Political career in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
In the Rhodesia general election of 1974, he gained the seat of Bulawayo North as a Rhodesian Front candidate, polling 93·4% of the vote among the electorate. He was re-elected in the 1977 and 1979 elections. Walker served as Minister for Education from 1977 in Ian Smith's government and also held office under Abel Muzorewa in 1979–80.
Following the end of white minority rule and the creation of Zimbabwe, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of Parliamentary Committees, but came under pressure from the new government of Robert Mugabe. He was to have been arrested (on suspicion of attempting to overthrow the government) on 10 December 1981 together with the MP for Bulawayo South, but had fortuitously left on a prearranged holiday. When he returned in January 1982, he briefly re-attended Parliament before learning that the Mugabe government had stationed police around the building to arrest him on sight. Walker fled the country and returned to Britain.
Return to Britain
On 10 February 1982 he delivered a letter to Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street highlighting the political situation in Zimbabwe.
Walker entered into a number of small business concerns, such as (in April 1988) Fax Network International Limited, based in Chingford (in March 1999 this company was renamed Computer Systems UK Ltd).
Monday Club
On 29 September 1986 Denis Walker was the guest-of-honour at a Conservative Monday Club Foreign Affairs Committee Dinner at Bailey's Hotel, Gloucester Road, South Kensington, chaired by Richard Stallabrass, who had previously served in Rhodesia. He subsequently joined the Club and in 1990 joined the Executive Council. On 1 November 1989 Denis Walker produced a paper for the Club's Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Gregory Lauder-Frost, on Land Reform in Zimbabwe. In his last paragraph, he stated:
once the land has been redistributed, the commercial farms will be broken up, the remaining white farmers reduced by exile or imprisonment; Zimbabwe's government, already morally bankrupt, will decline towards economic collapse.
Other activities
A robust anti-communist, Denis Walker was a guest on 25 September 1989 at the Western Goals Institute Dinner at Simpsons-in-the-Strand, London, in honour of the President of El Salvador, Alfredo Cristiani, and his inner cabinet. Others present included Sir Alfred Sherman (policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher), Monday Club vice-president Professor Antony Flew, Dr Zigmunt Szkopiak (foreign affairs minister for the Polish government-in-exile), the Monday Club's Colonel Barry Turner RE (Retd), Sam Swerling (former Monday Club chairman), Andrew VR Smith, Stuart Notholt and Gideon Sherman (WGI Directors), Gregory Lauder-Frost and Harvey Ward of the Monday Club's Foreign Affairs Committee and both vice-presidents of Western Goals.
Walker is the Director of the South Africa-oriented Good Hope Christian Group, and the Rhodesia Christian Group, organisations which were set up to assist refugees from those countries. He is also General Secretary of The Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Relief Fund, a registered charity, of which the chairman is Sir Nicholas Winterton (The former Conservative Member of Parliament for Macclesfield).
Denis Walker was appointed in mid-1989 as the Chairman of the Schools Liaison Steering Committee for the British Institute of Management, City of London Branch. His portrait photograph appears on the front page of their Autumn 1989 Newsletter with another in the August/September 2005 Rhodesia Christian Group Newsletter.
Walker was introduced as an Ordinary Member onto the Grand Council of the International Monarchist League on 14 March 1990 by Gregory Lauder-Frost (seconded by Lord Sudeley),[2] and is now the director of that organisation.
He administers the International Monarchist League, the Monday Club, and other business activities from an office at Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, and now lives at Woodford Green, London. Walker is married and has one son.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Arthur Smith |
Minister of Education 1977–78 |
Succeeded by Rowan Cronjé and Godfrey Magaramombe |
| Preceded by Rollo Hayman |
Co-Minister of Internal Affairs, Local Government and Housing, and Works With Chief Kayisa Ndiweni 1979 |
Succeeded by Herbert Zimuto (Home Affairs) Walter Mthimkhulu (Local Government and Housing) Chief Kayisa Ndiweni (Works) |
| Preceded by Post not created |
Deputy Minister of Mines and Works 1979 |
Succeeded by Post abolished |
References
- The European Foundation Archived 21 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- The Monarchist League Newsletter, Spring, 1990, p.4
- Fax Network International booklet, London, 1989, company number 2248589.
- Western Goals Institute archives.
- Rhodesia Herald
- Companies House UK http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/
- Rhodesia Christian Group Newsletter.