Richard Manning Jefferies (February 27, 1889 - April 20, 1964), a longtime state legislator and Governor of South Carolina from 1942 to 1943, was born in Union County, SC on February 27, 1889. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1910 and moved to the town of Ridgeland. There, he read law and served as superintendent of the elementary school. Moving to Walterboro after his admission to the bar, he practiced law and was elected pr...
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Richard Manning Jefferies (February 27, 1889 - April 20, 1964), a longtime state legislator and Governor of South Carolina from 1942 to 1943, was born in Union County, SC on February 27, 1889. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1910 and moved to the town of Ridgeland. There, he read law and served as superintendent of the elementary school. Moving to Walterboro after his admission to the bar, he practiced law and was elected probate judge of Colleton County in 1918. In 1926, he was elected to his first term in the South Carolina State Senate. In the senate, he became associated with a group of like-minded legislators, largely from the rural South Carolina lowcountry, that was known as the "Barnwell Ring." Due to their legislative seniority, these fiscal conservatives held the lion's share of political power in South Carolina from the 1930s to the 1960s. Jefferies was in his fourth four-year term in the senate in 1941 when he was elected chair of the powerful finance...
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