|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| biography |
classifications |
major works |
cross references |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
biography
| name: |
Rhodes, Cecil (John)
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1853–1902)
|
| biography:
| British colonial statesman, and prime minister of Cape Colony, South Africa (1890–6), born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, SE England, UK. Suffering from a lung weakness, he was sent for his health to a brother's cotton farm in South Africa; he subsquently made a fortune at the Kimberley diamond diggings, and amalgamated the several diamond companies to form the De Beers Consolidated Mines Co (1888). Dividing his time between Kimberley and England, he studied at Oxford, and entered the Cape House of Assembly, securing Bechuanaland as a protectorate (1884) and the charter for the British South Africa Company (1889), whose territory was later to be named Rhodesia after him. He became prime minister of Cape Colony, but was forced to resign in 1896 because of complications arising from the Jameson raid. He was a conspicuous figure during the Boer War (1899–1902), when he organized the defences of Kimberley. His will founded scholarships at Oxford for Americans, Germans, and colonials (Rhodes scholars). |
|
|
|
|
