John Fieldsend
Sir John Charles Rowell Fieldsend , QC (13 September 1921 – 22 February 2017) was a judge who served as the first Chief Justice of Zimbabwe. He also served as a judge in several British overseas territories. Early life Fieldsend was the son of C. E. Fieldsend MC, a British engineer who moved to Africa with his family in the 1920s. He was educated at Michaelhouse and Rhodes University, where he studied Law. During the Second World War, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1943, serving in Egypt, Italy (where he fought at Monte Cassino) and Greece. After demobilisation, Fieldsend was called to the Southern Rhodesian bar in 1947 and entered private practice, becoming a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1959. Between 1958 and 1963, he was the President of the Special Income Tax Court of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Judicial career In 1963, Fieldsend was appointed to the High Court of Southern Rhodesia. In 1965, as a member of the Appellate Division of the High Court, he was the sole dissenter in Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke, a challenge to the legality of Southern Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) earlier that year. He wrote that "while the