[3] He worked with John Hays Hammond to help draft the Rhodesian mining laws, which brought him in contact with Cecil Rhodes,[1] leading to his appointment in 1894 as public prosecutor in Rhodesia.
[3] Wilson-Fox returned to England for a holiday in May 1897, when he was offered the role of manager of the British South Africa Company (BSAC).
BSAC's role in the Jameson Raid and the Matabele Wars, along with its manipulation of share prices, made it the best-known charter company.
[9] In 1912 he suggested that collisions between submarines could be avoided if "the example of the whale should be followed, and that by means of a small pump a spout of spray should be discharged into the air at regular intervals".
[14] The articles were reprinted and widely circulated, leading to an inaugural meeting on 31 October 1916 of a body which became the Empire Resources Development Committee (ERDC).
The principal founders were Wilson-Fox, the Conservative MP Alfred Bigland (an early supporter of the Tariff Reform League), and Moreton Frewen.
[15] The full list was: Waldorf Astor, Alfred Bigland, Henry Birchenough, Harry Brittain, Wiliam Bull, Henry Page Croft, Henry Cust, Lord Desborough, the Earl of Dunraven, Sir Laming Worthington-Evans, Algernon Firth, Victor Fisher, Moreton Frewen, the Earl Grey, Rupert Gwynne, John Hodge, Lord Islington, Sir Starr Jameson, Rudyard Kipling, Arthur Lawley W. H. Lynch, Halford Mackinder, Ian Macpherson, V. A. Malcolmson, George Croydon Marks, Walter Grant Morden, Horace Plunkett, the Earl of Plymouth, J.
[18] In a paper delivered in 1918 to the Royal Colonial Institute on behalf of the committee, Wilson-Fox set out their vision more poetically: Looking into the future, we can visualise the State as an owner of vast herds of cattle Overseas raised on lands which are today unutilized; as a proprietor of forests and valuable plantations of tropical shrubs and trees grown on areas which are still virgin; as the harnesser of mighty waterfalls fed by the eternal snows of India and Africa; as an organiser of great commercial air services; and as the reaper on an immense scale of the manifold harvest of the seas.His other writings epitomised the committee's values.
He opposed laissez-faire in industry, supported productivity agreements to replace wage-bargaining, and sought an economy devoted to building national resources rather than satisfying consumer demand.
[19] In England, the Manchester Guardian and the Aborigines Protection Society' attacked the proposed creation of state monopolies, and the usurpation of the land rights of Africans who would become labourers rather than farmers.
This created a vacancy for Newdegate's parliamentary seat of Tamworth in Staffordshire, and on 13 February Wilson-Fox was adopted as the Unionist (Conservative) candidate for the resulting by-election.
[25] In July 1917, he moved an amendment to the Finance Bill which would have given a reduction in the income tax paid on the returns from investments made within the Empire.
[28] In October 1921, Wilson-Fox was part of a delegation of MPs from the Empire Development Parliamentary Committee, who met with Winston Churchill, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
Led by Alfred Bigland, they pressed the case for more rapid development of the Empire "to find openings for our millions of surplus population".
The by-election for his seat in the Commons was held on 17 January 1922, and won by the Conservative candidate Sir Percy Newson, Bt.
[37] She had been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1918 for her work as Chairman of the South African Comforts Committee in London.