‘To Back up the British Government’: Sidney Waterson's Role as South African High Commissioner in Wartime Britain, 1939–42.

Unlike the high commissioners from the other dominions, Sidney Waterson was not in London before the war and represented his country only until the end of 1942. Because of this, while Waterson is the focus of this essay, a discussion of his predecessor, Charles Te Water (1929–39), and of his two successors, Deneys Reitz (1943–44) and George Heaton Nicholls (1945–47), places his term of office in context. The essay touches on Waterson's background and examines his attitude to Britain and the war effort. Initially inexperienced and without the political clout of high commissioners like Massey of Canada and Bruce of Australia, he was also overshadowed by Smuts who, enjoying direct contact with Churchill and other British officials, frequently bypassed him. Smuts's instructions to his high commissioners were explicit: their task of representing South African interests in London was to take second place to that of offering uncritical support to the British government in its prosecution of the war. Despite his commitment to the war effort, Waterson found it difficult giving this support. Throughout his term of office he was critical of the way in which the British government prosecuted the war and was resentful of Churchill's attitude to the dominions in general and the high commissioners in particular, believing that he fobbed them off with second-rate men as secretaries of state for the dominions. Thus, although he was a highly successful high commissioner and under him South Africa House was run as a tight ship, he never succeeded in persuading Smuts of the necessity of urging Churchill to pay more attention to the dominions nor did he succeed in gaining more political clout for the high commissioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]