Maureen Thelma Watson

Maureen Thelma Watson (née Eastwood; 15 September 1925 – 29 August 1994) was a Rhodesian politician.

A Bulawayo native, she was a housewife and family planning advocate before entering politics. Elected to the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly in 1958, she was the second woman ever elected to Parliament. She was reelected in 1962 but opted not to run for reelection in 1965. A member of the United Federal Party, and later the Rhodesia Party, she was a moderate who opposed the conservative agenda of the Rhodesian Front.

Early life and family Maureen Thelma Eastwood was born on 15 September 1925 in Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia. Her parents were Elizabeth "Bessie" (née Dempsey), a Johannesburg native, and William Hives Eastwood, born in England. She attended Eveline High School in Bulawayo and Kingsmead College in Johannesburg, South Africa. She became a housewife and they had one son and two daughters. In 1955, the association opened the first family planning clinic for whites in Bulawayo in the Margaret Roe Child Welfare Centre. Watson was reelected in 1962 with 56% of the vote, defeating Rhodesian Front candidate William Redpath Kinleyside. She also continued her advocacy for birth control and women's autonomy. In 1963, she opposed legislation that banned "any native" from having sexual intercourse with a "white woman or girl." Watson, the sole woman MP, complained that "this Act [constitutes] an unwarranted act of paternalism by a largely male Parliament against the European women of this country." In the late 1960s, she served on the board of the National Free Library of Rhodesia.

Maureen Watson died of emphysema in Bulawayo on 29 August 1994, at the age of 68.

Electoral history