Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), British colonial statesman and financier, one of the main promoters of British rule in southern Africa.

Rhodes was born on July 5, 1853, in Bishop's Stortford, England. After a protracted illness he was sent, in 1870, to live with his brother in Natal, in the area now known as the Republic of South Africa. Diamond fields were discovered at Kimberley in Cape Colony that year, and Rhodes became a diamond prospector. By the time he was 19 years old he had accumulated a large fortune. In 1873 he returned to England to study at the University of Oxford; until 1881, when he received his degree, he divided his time between the university and the diamond fields. His most important achievement during this period was the amalgamation of a large number of diamond-mining claims to form De Beers Mining Company, which he controlled. In 1881 he entered the Cape Colony Parliament and held the seat for the rest of his life. Rhodes was largely responsible for the annexation to the British Empire of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1885. In 1888, with the founding of De Beers Consolidated Mines, Rhodes monopolized the diamond production of Kimberley. In the same year he wrested exclusive mining rights from Lobengula, the ruler of Matabeleland (now in Zimbabwe). In 1889 the British government granted Rhodes a charter for a new company, the British South Africa Company, to develop the territory. He extended the company's influence over an area which in 1894 was named Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia) in his honour and which the company controlled until 1923.

In 1890 Rhodes became prime minister of Cape Colony. Five years later he supported a conspiracy by British settlers in the Transvaal Republic (in what is now north-eastern South Africa) to overthrow the government, which was dominated by the Boers. The revolt was to be backed by a British South Africa Company force led by Sir Leander Starr Jameson, British administrator of the lands constituting present-day Zimbabwe. On December 29, 1895, Jameson invaded the Transvaal prematurely and unsuccessfully. Rhodes was acquitted of responsibility for the invasion, known as the Jameson Raid, but he was censured for his role in the plot against the Transvaal government and was forced to resign his premiership the following month. He then devoted himself to the development of Rhodesia. During the South African War (1899-1902) he was prominent in the defence of Kimberley. In his will Rhodes left enough money to provide some 200 annual Rhodes scholarships for Commonwealth, United States, and German students to study at Oxford University.