Rhodes, Cecil John 1853-1902
South African statesman

Cecil Rhodes was born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, where his father was a vicar. He was sent to Natal because of his ill health, and subsequently made a fortune at the Kimberley diamond diggings, where he succeeded in amalgamating the several diamond companies to form the De Beers Consolidated Mines Company in 1888. (In that year he sent �10,000 to Charles Stewart Parnell to forward the cause of Irish Home Rule.) He returned to England, entered Oriel College, Oxford, and although his residence was cut short by ill health, he ultimately took his degree. He entered the Cape House of Assembly as member for Barkly.

In 1884 General Gordon asked him to accompany him to Khartoum as secretary; but Rhodes declined, having just taken office in the Cape ministry. In 1890 he became Prime Minister of Cape Colony; but even before this he had become a ruling spirit in the extension of British territory in securing first Bechuanaland (later Botswana) as a protectorate (1884) and later (1889) the charter for the British South Africa Company, of which he was managing director until 1896, and whose territory was later to be known as Rhodesia. His policy was the ultimate establishment of a federal South African dominion under the British flag.

In 1895 he was made a member of the Privy Council. The following year he was forced to resign the Cape premiership in the aftermath of the Jameson Raid. In the same year he succeeded in quelling the Matabele rebellion by personal negotiations with the chiefs. In 1899 he received the award of Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford. He was a conspicuous figure during the war of 1899-1902, when he organized the defences of Kimberley during the siege.

Rhodes left a remarkable will which, besides making great benefactions to Cape Colony, founded scholarships at Oxford for Americans, Germans and members of the British Empire (later Commonwealth).

Bibliography: Robert I Rotberg, The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (1988); Brian Roberts, Cecil Rhodes: Flawed Colossus (1987); J G Lockhart and C M Woodhouse, Rhodes (1963, also published as Cecil Rhodes: The Colossus of Southern Africa).