Peter Hewlett

Hewlett was born on 18 July 1941 in Fort Victoria, Southern Rhodesia (now Masvingo, Zimbabwe).[1][2] He attended Ruzawi School and Peterhouse School for his primary and secondary education, both located near the town of Marandellas.[1] He decided to become a farmer like his parents, and went to the United States for two years to study modern farming methods.[1] There, he studied cattle ranching and irrigation at the University of Missouri and beef production at the University of Texas at Austin.[1]

After his two-year tour of study, Hewlett returned to Southern Rhodesia and leased a farm near Fort Victoria.[1] In the 1960s, he purchased a farm near Que Que (now Kwekwe), where he grew maize and wheat.[1] He bought East Range Farm in 1975 and developed it into a cattle ranch.[1] He went on to start his own butcheries and later entered the meat processing industry.[1] In 1982, he purchased the 3,288-hectare Lorraine farm in Kwekwe District.[2][3] He eventually owned seven farms in total in the Kwekwe area.[4] By 1995, he was running a gourmet shop in Harare.[5] In 1998, his company Umshandige Ranches, owned two farms covering a total 14,180 hectares.[6]

In the March 1990 general election, Hewlett ran as the ZANU–PF candidate for the Zhombe constituency.[7] He was elected with 92 percent of the vote against Rodger Ross of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement, who received six percent, and independent candidate Raphael Muroyiwa, who got two percent.[7] Hewlett was one of three white members of parliament, alongside Max Rosenfels and Sean Hundermark, both also of ZANU–PF.[8] In March 1992, after Parliament passed legislation allowing for seizure of white-owned farms with partial compensation, Hewlett warned that the law would destroy the Zimbabwean economy.[9] He called on the government to slow down the land reform process and utilize the farms it had already purchased before acquiring more.[4] Hewlett, who was absent for the vote, had himself already sold five of his seven farms to the government.[4][9]

In the April 1995 election, Hewlett was reelected to parliament unopposed for the newly-created Kwekwe North constituency.[5][10] He was once again one of three white MPs, along with Allan Elliot and Jacobus de Wet.[5] He did not run for reelection in 2000. That year, his Lorraine farm was listed among those set to be acquired without compensation by the Zimbabwean government.[3][11]

Hewlett was married to the Northern Rhodesian-born Geraldine Ann Thomas.[1] Together, they had two children, Grant and Mireille.[1] Grant is a Kwekwe-based businessman,[12] while Mireille is a competitive rower.[13] Geraldine, Grant, and Mireille Hewlett were among the Zimbabweans named in the Panama Papers.[14] Hewlett speaks Shona fluently.[8][15]