Ernest Lucas Guest

Who was Ernest Lucas Guest?

Sir Ernest Lucas Guest KBE, CMG, CVO, LLD was a Rhodesian politician, lawyer and soldier. He held senior ministerial positions in the government, most notably as Minister for Air during the Second World War.

Guest was born in Grahamstown, Cape Colony. His grandfather had moved the family there, leaving Kidderminster, England, where it had been in the printing business for three generations. He saw active service in the Second Boer War, enlisting despite being underage, and again in the First World War, when he was injured in France. His legal career began while back in Southern Rhodesia between those two wars. He won a case against Sir Charles Coghlan, at the time Premier of Southern Rhodesia, and Coghlan invited him to become a partner in his firm, which became known as Coghlan, Welsh & Guest. On his return from the First World War, Guest took responsibility for the Salisbury practice.

He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1928 as a member of Coghlan's Rhodesia Party, representing the constituency of Charter, which he held until 1946. He first became a cabinet minister in Godfrey Huggins' government, appointed Minister of Mines and Public Works in June 1938.