Stella Madzimbamuto (13 April 193030 June 2020) was a South African-born Zimbabwean nurse and plaintiff in the landmark legal case of Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke. Born as Stella Nkolombe in District Six of Cape Town in 1930, she trained as a nurse at South Africa's first hospital to treat black Africans, earning a general nursing and a midwifery certification. After working for three years at Ladysmith Provincial Hospital, she married a Southern Rhodesian and relocated. From 1956 to 1959, she worked as a general nurse at the Harare Central Hospital. In 1959, her husband, Daniel Madzimbamuto, was detained as a political prisoner. He would remain in detention until 1974, while she financially supported the family.
From 1960, Madzimbamuto worked as the nurse in charge of Ward B6, the Spinal and Head Injuries Unit, of Harare Hospital. She was trained by the only Africa-based neurosurgeon at the time, British physician Laurence Levy. He arranged for her to study abroad at Stoke-Mandeville National Spinal Injuries Centre in Buckinghamshire and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, London, earning certifications in the treatment of neurological and spinal injuries. Upon her return to Rhodesia, in 1965, she developed a curriculum based on her studies to train junior nurses. She worked as the lead nurse in Ward B6 until 1982. That year, she became the night matron of Harare Hospital and served in this role until her retirement in 1995.
In 1965, Madzimbamuto challenged the detainment of her husband in a lawsuit, maintaining that if the government of Rhodesia, which had declared independence from Britain, was illegal, then the detention orders the government had issued were invalid. Her case was defeated in the Rhodesian courts, but she appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which was the highest court for many Commonwealth countries, including Rhodesia. The Judicial Committee reversed the decision of the High Court of Rhodesia. It declared the Rhodesian government to be illegal, laws and proclamations issued by it to be invalid, and ordered Madzimbamuto's husband to be released. The Rhodesian government ignored the decision, but it has become a landmark decision regarding the issue of state sovereignty.
Early life and education Stella Nkolombe was born on 13 April 1930 in District Six of Cape Town, in the Union of South Africa to Fleecy (née Gwiba) and Enoch Nkolombe, both of Xhosa ancestry. Her mother, descended from the Nyauza-Mpondo clan, was a domestic worker and her father, descended from the Gqwashu clan, worked as a deliveryman for John William Jagger's wholesaling company. Nkolombe was the sixth child of eleven siblings and grew up speaking Xhosa. Her parents chose to live in the city so that their children had access to education and would be able to be fluent in both Afrikaans and English. Nkolombe completed her compulsory nine years of education, attending St. Philips English Church School for her primary education and then Trafalgar High School for secondary school. In 1946, she left school to allow her younger siblings an opportunity for schooling.
Career
Early nursing career (1946–1956) After leaving school in 1946, Nkolombe worked as a domestic in Sea Point, but found the job unfulfilling. A neighbour had a child who had cerebral palsy and she helped with his care. That experience led her to choose a career in nursing over teaching, which was the only other option available to her at the time. In 1948, Nkolombe moved to Durban and enrolled in general nursing courses offered by McCord Zulu Hospital, which pioneered the treatment of Africans, training of black nurses, and education for black doctors in South Africa. Three years later, upon completion of her general certification, she completed a course in midwifery, earning her certification with honours. Because of limited job choices available for blacks in Cape Town, Nkolombe returned there only to show her parents her uniform.
In 1953, after taking up a post at the Ladysmith Provincial Hospital in Ladysmith, Natal, Nkolombe debated whether to continue working or to return to school to further her education. During this time she met Daniel Madzimbamuto, who was working in Durban to create interest in the Boswell Wilkie Circus, but was originally from Southern Rhodesia. Though her parents were not keen on them marrying, in early 1956, she and Daniel married and Madzimbamuto moved to Murehwa, a small rural township near Salisbury (now Harare). As Daniel was still working in South Africa, Madzimbamuto journeyed alone by train to meet her in-laws. In July 1956, she gave birth to their oldest child, Farai, at the Harare Central Hospital, known at the time as the Gomo Hospital. When she was admitted, she encountered alumni nurses from McCord Zulu Hospital, who urged her to return to nursing because of the severe shortage at that time in Southern Rhodesia, partly because there were no facilities to train nurses. Believing it was impossible to work and care for a baby, Madzimbamuto returned to Murehwa, but the matron, Grace Houston, tracked her down and offered her a post, allowing her to bring the baby to work. Matron Houston also assisted her in obtaining housing in New Highfield, which had only outdoor toilet facilities that doubled as a cold-water shower.
When Farai was seven months old, Daniel returned to Southern Rhodesia and became involved in the Black nationalist movement. He became the chairman of the Highfield Branch of the African National Congress and his activism brought him to the attention of the Rhodesian authorities. Their second child, a daughter named Chipo, was born after Daniel's return and was six months old when he was first arrested. He was detained and confined in a detention centre from February 1959 until 8 June 1961. During the period, several times, Daniel was briefly released but after a few days returned to prison. When he was interned, Madzimbamuto had to obtain a permit to visit him. She was unsure if she and the children would be punished or deported because of his activities and was worried that her children might be taken away. Madzimbamuto considered returning to South Africa but quickly rejected the idea. Her work life was very difficult at this time, not just because of the racist attitudes of the government and some of her colleagues, but because her husband was a political prisoner: she was seen as the wife of a "gandanga", meaning terrorist.
Neurosurgical nurse (1960–1982) In 1960, Madzimbamuto replaced a British nurse who was serving as a neurosurgical nurse to the British neurosurgeon Laurence Levy, who was the only specialist in that field serving in Africa at that time. Levy trained Madzimbamuto, teaching her how to perform basic neurosurgical nursing duties and perform procedures, such as spinal taps, air encephalograms, and myelograms, which at the time were only done by doctors. She became proficient at the techniques and trained junior doctors being educated at the hospital in how to perform them. She wanted to pass on her skills to help other women and longed for women to earn the recognition due to them; at the time, women were legal minors and typically had to stop working after marriage. Upon his release from prison in 1961, Daniel was sent to the Sikombela Restriction Camp in Mapfungautsi near Gokwe Centre, where he remained until 15 January 1963. When he was released, and despite the fact that Madzimbamuto was expecting her third child, Levy encouraged her to continue her education abroad. Levy arranged for her to study abroad for two years at the Stoke-Mandeville National Spinal Injuries Centre in Buckinghamshire and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, London. Madzimbamuto decided she could only be abroad for a year. Leaving Farai and Chipo with her in-laws in Murehwa and four-month-old Tambudzai in Kenya where her mother and a sister were living, Madzimbamuto went to England in February 1964.
Daniel was rearrested on 28 April 1964 and sent to the Gonakudzingwa restriction camp and on 13 August was restricted to the Sengwe Tribal Trust Lands until 13 April 1965, when he was released. That month, Madzimbamuto left England and spent three weeks in Kenya before returning with her daughter to Southern Rhodesia. From 1965, she was in charge of Ward B6, the Spinal and Head Injuries Unit, for the next seventeen years. Madzimbamuto developed a programme to train junior nurses at Harare Hospital, teaching them what she had learned about neurological and spinal injuries. On 19 June 1965, Daniel was rearrested and sent to the Wha Wha detention centre, but was transferred from there back to Gonakudzingwa briefly before being confined in Gwelo Prison on 6 November. Madzimbamuto's passport was taken by the authorities when Daniel was arrested and she was offered it back if the entire family would leave the country, an offer she refused. The family's fourth child, a son, Tafirenyika, was born in 1966.
Madzimbamuto mostly raised her children alone because of Daniel's detainments. By 1973, she was earning Rh$327 (£130) per month and paying for Daniel's university studies and books as well as his clothing and toiletries, travel expenses of Rh$13.60 (£25) per month to visit him, and she and her children's monthly expenses. The racist policies of the government prevented her children from further education after they finished primary school, but friends such as Guy Clutton-Brock, Didymus Mutasa, and Terence Ranger helped with making arrangements for the children to study abroad. By that time, Farai was studying in Britain, and Chipo was being educated in Botswana. In 1973, Madzimbamuto had to obtain a temporary British passport in order to attend the International Congress of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Nurses, which was held in Tokyo. She returned home and again added the information she had learned to her training curricula for nurses.
Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke (1965–1968)
In April 1964, Ian Smith became Prime Minister of Rhodesia, promising to maintain the policy of white rule. Under English common law detention without trial was unlawful and under the 1961 Rhodesian Constitution detention was only permitted if a state of emergency had been legally declared. Under the 1961 Constitution and the Emergency Powers Act 1960, a state of emergency could only remain in force for three months before requiring renewal. An Emergency Maintenance of Law and Order Regulation was issued on 5 November 1965, and expired on 4 February 1966. On 11 November 1965, the government issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence without agreement by Britain to state succession. Five days later, the British Parliament passed legislation declaring the Rhodesian government to be illegal and invalidating any legislation it passed. When Smith's government passed legislation to extend the detention order, Madzimbamuto filed a lawsuit, Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke, to challenge her husband's detention. The basis of her suit was that if the government and its laws were illegal, the detention order under which Daniel was detained was invalid. She and Leo Baron, a lawyer, who was a political detainee like Daniel, filed parallel suits.