# John Wallace Downie

John Wallace Downie CMG (1876 – 22 August 1940) served as High Commissioner of Southern Rhodesia from 1930 to 1935.

## Early life

The son of Christopher Downie, a Guard on the Caledonian Railway and later Lanark Station Master, was born on 28 December 1876 in Hutchesontown, Glasgow, emigrating to South Africa in 1897 to work on the Cape Railways. Here he worked on the line in the construction process from Bechuanaland to Bulawayo. He worked for a time as a postmaster in Francistown, Bechuanaland Protectorate. On 15 October 1899, following the declaration of the Anglo-Boer War, Downie volunteered to join the Francistown Defence Force under the leadership of Umfreville Percy Swinburne.
In 1900 he returned to Glasgow in order to study, coming back to Africa in 1901. On his return, he was appointed secretary of a small mining company. Subsequently, he joined the firm of Haddon, Cotton & Butt, a Rhodesian shipping and forwarding house, where he later rose to be managing director. He was interested in a number of gold mining ventures, and in addition to his firm acted as manager of the Portland Cement Works for some time. John Downie later sold his interests in the firm, and in 1920 he became manager of the Salisbury Farmer's Co-operative, holding this post till the period of the end of Chartered Company Rule in 1923.

## Political career

Downie was a keen advocate of responsible government and served as treasurer of the Responsible Government Party. Subsequently he became Chairman of the Rhodesia Party and was responsible for much of the work of party organisation. At the first general election for the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly on 29 April 1924, he was elected with Francis James Newton to the seat of Mazoe under the system of double member constituencies then in existence. On 1 September 1924, he was appointed to Premier Charles Coghlan's ministry as Colonial Secretary.
On 2 January 1925, he became Minister of Agriculture and Lands and in this capacity he played an important part in popularising Rhodesian tobacco in London, in encouraging the cotton industry and in promoting agricultural co-operative efforts. Following the replacement of Coghlan by Howard Unwin Moffat as premier, on 14 October 1927, Downie was reshuffled into the portfolio of Mines and Public Works, but continued to take a considerable interest in agricultural affairs.
John Downie was strongly critical of the management of the railways and several times clashed with the railway companies on that score. On the other hand, he was able to reach a satisfactory arrangement with the Chartered Company to solve the problems of simplifying the collection of mining revenue, and he took an important part in settling some of the differences between miners and farmers. In 1929 John Downie received the award of the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). Elected for a second term as the single member for Mazoe in the 1928 general election, in late 1930 Downie was appointed to be Newton's successor as the second High Commissioner for Southern Rhodesia in London, and Downie subsequently resigned from the ministry and his legislative assembly seat on 30 October 1930. On 4 November 1930, he was granted retention for life of the title The Honourable.

## Later life

Downie served as High Commissioner for Southern Rhodesia in London until 1935, when he retired to become Chairman of Rhodesia and Nyasaland Airways. He was a member of the Southern Rhodesian delegation to the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa in 1932. In 1939 he returned to the work of administrator as Controller of Suppliers.
John Wallace Downie died on 22 August 1940 in Salisbury Hospital. He left considerable estate and in his will endowed the John Downie Bursaries for Prince Edward School and the Girls High School, Salisbury. He left a widow, Clara Mortimer Carrol (1884–1964) and two children, Clara Isabella Ross Downie (1912–1977) and Robert Gordon Downie (1918–1944).