Cecil John Rhodes – The Founder of De Beers

De Beers is easily recognized around the world as the leader in diamond mining and in the sale of diamonds. But where did the name De Beers come from? And who was responsible for making De Beers what it is today?

De Beers has been around since 1880’s. At that time, diamonds were found on a South African farm near two rivers. The farm was owned by two brothers, named the De Beers. Because of all the pressure from people wanting access to the farm, the De Beers brothers eventually sold it for 6300 pounds which is equivalent to approximately 12,000 dollars. Two mine pits were set up on the farm and one was named after the De Beers brothers. Subsequently, the whole company was named after them, but they didn’t receive any profit after they sold the farm.

The most important player in the early days of De Beers was a man named Cecil John Rhodes. Rhodes became involved in the diamond industry in 1871. Around that time he also became friends with C.D. Rudd, who would become his partner when he founded De Beers. Rhodes was instrumental in acquiring most of the surrounding diamond operations which strengthened De Beers hold on the diamond market. Even though the diamond market wasn’t doing too well, he thought that he would be able to make it successful. And he was right.

Rhodes was a rather strange man. He was obsessed about creating his own secret society. However, he died before he was able to do it. In his will, he left money so that a secret society could be created to help Britain rule the entire world. The money wasn’t exactly used for that purpose however…it was used to establish The Rhodes Scholarship which allows students from Britain ruled countries as well as the US and Germany to study at the University of Oxford, where Rhodes himself had studied.

Rhodes was interested in the military and politics. During the Boer war, he went to try to help the British army. However, he felt the best way to do this was to insist that the army do what he thought they should do. The British army hated him. (Who can blame them?)

Towards the end of his life, Rhodes had a Polish princess infatuated with him. Her name was Catherine Radziwill and she had a habit of telling people that she was engaged to Rhodes or that they were having an affair. Turns out that she had asked Rhodes to marry her and he had turned her down. Broken hearted, she did what scorned women do best..she tried to get revenge. She sued Rhodes for loan fraud. Rhodes had never committed loan fraud, of course, and her accusations were found to be false. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Rhodes died right after the trial ended.

Despite his eccentric nature, Rhodes had almost single-handedly established what would become the largest diamond corporation in the world. He was only 49 when he died, but he died as one of the wealthiest men in the world.