Charles Stallard

Who was Charles Stallard?

Colonel the Hon. Charles Frampton Stallard QC, DSO and MC was a South African lawyer, soldier and politician.

Stallard attended Merton College, University of Oxford. He was called to the English bar. He subsequently went to South Africa and took part in the Second Boer War. He served with the City Imperial Volunteers and Paget's Horse. After the war he became an advocate in Johannesburg, from 1902. He became a King's Counsel in South Africa, in 1910.

During the First World War, he served on the staff of General Louis Botha in South West Africa and later in Flanders and Italy. Stallard was thrice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the DSO and MC.

Colonel Stallard's political career included being a member of the Transvaal Provincial Council in 1910. He was the Member of Parliament for Roodepoort 1929-38 and Maritzburg District 1939-1948 when he retired. He was a member of the South African Party until 1934, when he declined to support the fusion with the National Party to form the United Party.

Colonel Stallard was the leader of the Dominion Party from 1934 until 1948. During the Second World War he was Minister of Mines in the cabinet of Jan Smuts.