Director of Prisons of Rhodesia to 1954, prisons in Southern Rhodesia were administered by the Southern Rhodesia Prison Department (SRPD). On 30 November 1954, the Federal Assembly of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland passed the Prisons Department Act (49/1954), which incorporated the SRPD into the Federal Prison Service (FPS), effective 1 December 1954. This arrangement continued until December 1963, when the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland dissolved and autonomy was returned to the individual colonies of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland, the latter two of which gained independence in 1964 as Zambia and Malawi, respectively. From 1963, the service continued as the Southern
Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia Rhodesia" in 1974. The national anthem lost its legal status in December 1979, when the UK took interim control of the country pending its internationally recognised independence as Zimbabwe five months later. Rhodesia's use of the well-known Beethoven tune has since caused the playing of "Ode to Joy" to be controversial in modern-day Zimbabwe. A dispute over the terms for the granting of full statehood to the self-governing colony of Rhodesia led its predominantly white minority government, headed by Prime Minister Ian Smith, to unilaterally declare independence from the UK on 11 November 1965. As Whitehall had been insisting on