Correspondence of Cecil John Rhodes, 1893-1903

Scope and Content

Letter books, 1897-1902; telegrams, 1893-1903; index, including for collection MSS. Afr. s. 228).

Administrative / Biographical History

Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) was born at Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire andeducated at Bishops Stortford Grammar School, 1861-1869, when his health brokedown. He was sent to Natal in southern Africa in 1870 to help his brother Herbert growcotton, though Herbert was increasingly occupied with diamond prospecting. In his brother's absence, Cecil was left to run the plantation, showing an ability to manage the native Zulu labourers.

The discovery of diamonds in Orange Free State eventually led the brothers to abandontheir cotton plantation and to begin prospecting in Colesberg Kopje, Kimberley.Herbert began to take an interest in pioneering and, in November 1871, he handed over the working of the claim (he died accidentally in 1879 while pioneering in the area west of Lake Nyasa). Rhodes again showed entrepreneurial skills as well as a marked sense of purpose and an ability to react to new situations quickly. His claim therefore prospered despite the conditions of disease, taxation, flooding and lawlessness prevalent at Kimberley, and in the high veld his health actually improved. He also made efforts to understand the wider machinations of the stock market, etc. as his profits increased. In 1874 he formed a partnership with Charles Dunell Rudd and consolidated his holdings in the De Beers Mine, one of the area's largest concerns. After the depressions of 1873 and 1882 he was able to amalgamate several smaller claims, and in 1880 established his concern as the De Beers Mining Company. At the same time, the rival Barnato Mining Company was formed to work the equally large Kimberley mine.

An avid classicist, in October 1873 he returned to England, matriculating atOriel College, Oxford, though a chill which spread to his heart and lungs led tothe postponement of his studies. From 1874 onwards he travelled back and forthbetween Kimberley and Oxford, gaining a B.A. and M.A. in 1881. During this time he also became a lifelong member of the Masonic Order, gained social contacts, and became aware of the beginnings of the ideology which would lead to an international scramble for colonies towards the end of the century.

Rhodes's greatest ambitions were political. After his first serious heart attack in 1877 he made a will inwhich he disposed a fortune not yet amassed to the establishment of a secretsociety dedicated to the extension of British rule worldwide, and the perfectingof a system of emigration from the United Kingdom and the subsequent colonisationof the entire continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Euphrates valley,Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the islands of the Pacific, theMalay Archipelago, the sea-board of China and Japan, as well as the ultimaterecovery of the United States of America and a system of colonial representationin the British Parliament.

In 1880 he was elected as one of two members for Barkly West (near Kimberley) and took his seat in theCape legislature a year later, retaining it for life. As MP he cultivated the influence of key persons, including Sir Hercules Robinson, later High Commissioner for South Africa. He also gained the friendship of General Gordon, who invited him to Khartoum in 1884.

At this time the colonists of the recently recognized Transvaal Republic,under President Paul Kruger, were nurturing their own ambitions for Dutch supremacy in the Cape.In 1880 a British attempt to annexe the Transvaal led to their expulsion the following year after the battle of Majuba Hill. At this time a number of Boer leaders emerged, such as Jan Hofmeyr, a member of the Cape Parliament, while 1879 saw the formation of the Afrikaner Bond, the first major Boer political party.It was Rhodes's immediate ambition to see the establishment of a locally-governedfederation of South Africa under British rule but with Cape Dutch assent, andalso the northern expansion of the colony, which was then bounded to the north bythe Orange River and, beyond it, Bechuanaland. To this end he worked with the Dutch and with individual Boer leaders, and with their support was elected Treasurer of the Cape Colony, March-May 1884. At the same time he engineered the annexation of the territory of the Tswana people (Bechuanaland). When the Dutch invaded the same territories, founding the republics of Stellaland and Goshen, the British government was slow to react, and it was only the German annexation of South-West Africa in 1884 that led British troops to oust the Dutch, offering a protectorate to the Tswana.

By the mid-1880s, Rhodes's commercial ambitions lay in gaining control of the entire diamond mining operations at Kimberley. Utilising the advice of the German-born financier Alfred Beit, he continued to amalgamate smaller companies. Meanwhile, after acquiring the patronage of the Rothschild family and, through them, the support of Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial Secretary in Lord Salisbury's government, he embarked on a lengthy but successful legal struggle against the Barnato Mining Company. The result wasthe formation on 13th March 1888 of the De Beers Consolidated Mines Co., with Rhodes, Barnato and Beit on the board. By 1889 Rhodes controlled the South African diamond mining industry, and 90% of world production. In 1886 gold was discovered at Witwatersrand near Johannesburg, Transvaal. Rhodes and Rudd eventually bought deeds to eight or nine good claims and in 1887 set up another company, Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa.

At the same time, there were rumours of gold north of the Transvaal, in the territories of the Ndebele and Shona peoples (Zimbabwe). The king of the Ndebele, Lobengula was ambivalent towards Europeans. Nevertheless, German emissaries were soon reported in Bulawayo, Lobengula's kraal and, in 1887, Kruger sought his own agreement with the Ndebele ruler. Rhodes was apprised of the developments and persuadedthe High Commissioner to take action. John Moffat was sent as an emissary to Bulawayo, and on 11th February 1888 Lobengula entered into a treaty which bound him to alienate no part of his territory without the High Commissioner's prior sanction. After further talks, Lobengula granted Rhodes mining rights. Rhodes used this latter agreement as the legal basis to found a chartered company, the British South Africa Company, on 29th October 1889. The company was roughly modelled on the old East India Company and its powers included the rights to annexe and administer land, raise its own police force and to establish settlements within its own boundaries. The territory immediately under its control was named Rhodesia.

Through skilful use of his resources, influence and the press, Rhodes gained widespread public support for the British South Africa Company and for his own colonial vision. In May 1890 he was elected Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, cultivating a division between Kruger and the Cape Afrikaners concerning a planned railway from Transvaal to Mozambique. Shortly afterwards, he dispatched as his representative Dr. Jameson to Bulawayo, with orders to build a road through Ndebele land. Armed pioneers were sent in support, forts were built in Shona territory, and the Union Jack finally raised in Fort Salisbury (Harare) on 12th September 1890. However, a disastrous tour of southern Africa by Randolph Churchill, rumours of Jameson's administrative incompetence, and the Company's poor financial position led to a minor crisis for Rhodes in the early 1890s.

In November 1891 Lobengula granted Eduard Lippert, a German businessman farming rights in Ndebele territory. The British government arrested Lippert and his new land was receded to the Company. In 1893 to 1894 war broke out between Britain and the Ndebele. After securing victory, Rhodes extended his influencenorthwards, creating North-West and North-East Rhodesia and a protectorate in Nyasaland. The war receivedwidespread support at home.

Rhodes's other activities during this period included the construction of a railway line from Kimberley northwards to Vryburg in Bechuanaland, the first stretch of his proposed Cape-Cairo railway and accompanying telegraph line. In the Cape he made efforts to develop Afrikaner farms and introduced a system of dues favourable to Dutch farmers. Other domestic acts included the raising of the property franchise to 75 (with the ability to read and write English) and the Glen Grey Act, which divided the Glen Grey area into lots of 8 acres of land to be given to African families while introducing a tax on those who remained landless as a stimulus to work. In June 1895 the legislature formally pronounced the absorption of British Bechuanaland into Cape Colony, while on 2nd February of the same year Rhodes was admitted to the Privy Council.

Still afflicted by heart trouble and unsuccessful in gaining Kruger's co-operation in a system of federal government for the colony, Rhodes secretly sanctioned support for an Uitlander (non-Dutch) uprising in Johannesburg in 1895. The complaints of the Uitlanders, who worked mainly as temporary gold prospectors, included heavy taxation and lack of voting rights. On the 27th December 1895 Dr. Jameson crossed the Transvaal borders with an armed force but was defeated near Krugersdorp. Rhodes acknowledged his compilicity in the initial movement and resigned as Prime Minister on 6th January 1896. A select committee of the Cape Parliament absolved him of any wrong motives though his action itself was condemned, while a select committee of the British House of Commons on 15th July 1897 found him guilty of grave breaches of duty as Prime Minister of the Cape and acting manager of the British South Africa Company.

Thereafter he devoted himself to the improvement of fruit and wine industries in Cape Colony and to the development of Rhodesia. A new settlement was erected at Bulawayo. However, the lack of any sizeable deposits of gold led the influx of colonists to turn to farming. The resulting seizure of African land and cattle, together with the privations of the hut tax, led to an Ndebele revolt. This was harshly suppressed, though Rhodes persuaded the last rebels in the Matopa Hills to end the conflict peaceably, with the promise of land and salaries to various members of the Ndebele aristocracy.

In 1899 the honorary degree of D.C.L. was conferred on Rhodes by Oxford University. In the same period he fostered friendships with Kipling and Kitchener, while discussions with Kaiser Willhelm II over colonial spheres of influence and the planned telegraph line resulted in mutual admiration. Nevertheless, events in Rhodesia and the Transvaal served to diminish his standing and influence. He was a supporter of vigorous action against the Transvaal in the late 1890s at a time of the rising nationalism on both sides which culminated in the South African War of 1899-1902. However, his actions in Kimberley during its siege by the Boers proved unpopular, and by 1902, public opinion at home had turned against the war and against his perceived part in its instigation. At the same time his health deteriorated, and he was the subject of an attempt at fraud by the Russian adventuress, Princess Radziwill. A period of travel through Great Britain and Europe without a cure ended with his death on 26th March 1902 at Muizenberg on the Cape. His will bequeathed the majority of his fortune to public service, including the foundation of 160 scholarships at Oxford, ostensibly for the education of future colonists, and the provision of land near Bulawayo and Salisbury for the establishment of a university.

Access Information

Bodleian reader's ticket required.

Note

Collection level description created by Paul Davidson, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

Other Finding Aids

Listed as no. 725 in Manuscript Collections of Africana in Rhodes House Library Oxford by Louis B. Frewer (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1968). A handlist is also available in the library reading room.

Alternative Form Available

The library holds these papers on microfilm (ref. Micr. 613)

Conditions Governing Use

No reproduction or publication of personal papers without permission. Contact the library in the first instance.

Custodial History

The papers comprising collections MSS. Afr. s. 227 and 228 were previously known as the British South Africa Company Papers because they were housed in the Company's archives before being given to the Rhodes Trustees. They comprise the major part of Rhodes's working papers and also some personal material. Other papers belonging to the Company were sent to Rhodesia, therefore escaping the air-raid which damaged its premises in 1941.

The papers were catalogued after Rhodes's death by one of his secretaries, who inherited an existing filing system from his Principal Secretary. The ensuing catalogue of out-letters and telegrams (MSS. Afr. s. 227) was bound with a catalogue of in-letters, telegrams and related papers (MSS. Afr. s. 228). However, despite the provision of a small index, this handwritten list was complicated by the sometimes arbitrary arrangement, numbering and foliation of the papers themselves and by subsequent efforts to improve the arrangement by transferring certain items from one subject heading to another before binding. Other papers were removed during research into Rhodes by L.L. Milner and located among papers transferred to the library by his widow (MSS. Afr. s. 229/V), while some were removed, possibly for exhibition purposes, and bound in error among MSS. Afr. t. 5.

Accruals

A number of accruals have been made to the Rhodes collections held by the library, mostly from the Rhodes Trustees or through private purchases. These are listed in the library's correspondence files.

Related Material

  • In-letters, telegrams and related papers, 1875-1908 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 228)
  • Books associated with Rhodes, biographical and related material, and papers of Princess Radziwill, 1864-1961 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 229)
  • Miscellaneous papers, 1890-1969 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 8)
  • Chequebooks, 1891-1902 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 10)
  • Obituary album, 1902 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 11)
  • Rhodes Fruit Farms, photograph album (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 12)
  • Reminiscences of Rhodes, 1923-1963 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 69)
  • Letters to his family, 1868-1893 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 115 and 115*)
  • Background material for Basil Williams' book Cecil Rhodes (London, 1929), 1914-1921 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 134)
  • Papers relating to Rhodes in the Livingstone Museum, Zambia (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 641)
  • Wills and related papers, with some additional material including holograph letters, 1871-1901 (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 1)
  • Miscellaneous papers, including holograph letters, 1869-1955 (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 5)
  • Photocopies of correspondence with 4th Earl Grey, 1889-1900 (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 6)
  • Rhodes family certificates, 1658-1951 (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 8)
  • Material received in response to press appeals, 1955 (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 10-11)
  • Miscellaneous papers, mainly holograph letters, 1868-1902 (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 14)
  • Hildersham Hall collection of Rhodes Family correspondence and papers, 1758-1975 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1647)
  • Map of Africa in four sheets, the personal copy of Rhodes, bearing in his autograph projected railways and means of communication, 1896 (ref. MSS. Afr. r. 4)
  • Letter from Reginald Fenton concerning a promised seat on the board of De Beers, 1889; typescript biographical and historical material, 1902, 1911 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 138)
  • Letter from 4th Earl Grey to Lady Grey concerning the Jameson raid, 1896 (photocopy) (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 424)
  • Letter concerning Rhodes and the Jameson raid, 1937 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 19)
  • Photocopies of Rhodesiana from the New Consolidated Gold Fields's archives, including letters from Rhodes, 1893-1899, cheques drawn by Rhodes, 1897-1901, and letters from his brothers and sisters, and from Kipling to Michell, 1898-1925 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 140)
  • Correspondence of Rhodes and others, 1889-1909 (on microfilm) (ref. Micr. Afr. 413)
  • Papers of Carlie E. Wienand, including account of Rhodes's funeral, [1902] (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1314 (3, 4)
  • Correspondence of Sir Graham John Bower, including from Rhodes, [1898-1902] (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1279)
  • Typescript of Yrs., C.J. Rhodes: the letters of an imperialist, edited by Thomas William Baxter, 1974 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1804)
  • Letters to various recipients, 1892-1901 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1826)
  • Manuscript of Concerning C.J. Rhodes and his kinfolk of olden time and some familiar places by Hilda Thornhill, with related photographs, [?1930s] (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1767)
  • Copies of telegrams and letters during the peace negotiations in the Matopos, 1896 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1707)
  • Photographs of the Groote Schuur estate and the Rhodes memorial there, [c1902-1910] (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1909)
  • Photographs of the Groote Schuur estate, including some of the fire of 1896, [c1900] (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1910)
  • Photographs of Rhodes's funeral, with related material, [1902] (ref. MSS. Afr. t. 45)
  • Letter to the Duke of M, suggesting a meeting with Rhodes on the subject of colonial representation, 1881 (ref. MSS. Afr. r. 224)
  • Narrative of various historical incidents connected with Rhodes, with the African transcontinental telegraph, and the Central African highway from Zambezi to Egypt, 1907 (ref. Micr. Afr. 156 (2))
  • Telegrams and letters received by Rhodes, 1876-1901 (ref. Micr. Afr. 156 (3))
  • letter and telegram from rhodes to j.x. merriman, 1884-1885 (ref. micr. afr. 154)>
  • Account by W.D. Flynn, the De Beers farm manager, of his association with Rhodes and of the Siege of Mafeking, with photographs of Rhodes memorabilia, etc., [1951] (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 2301)
  • Set of stamps issued by the British South Africa Company, 1894 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 2306)
  • Rhodes family photographs, 1895-1910 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 2201)
  • Illustration of gathering at the Rhodes memorial, 1933 (ref. MSS. Afr. r. 241)
  • Album of newspaper cuttings and printed material concerning Rhodes, 1896-1902 (ref. MSS. s. 1934)
  • Postcard containing cartoon of Rhodes and General Cronje, 1900 (ref. MSS. Afr. r. 256)
  • Letter to Colonel Frank Rhodes enclosing original copy of verses by Kipling entitled C.J.R., 1902 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 1772)
  • Photocopy calendar of historical manuscripts at the Central African Archives, Cecil John Rhodes section, 1957 (ref. MSS. Afr. r. 10)
  • Typescript articles on Rhodes and Milner, c1902-1905 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 2005)
  • Letters and telegrams of Francis William Rhodes concerning the affairs of the British South Africa Company, etc., 1895 (ref. MSS. Afr. s. 25)

Other related material includes

  • Papers of John X. Merriman, 'Onze Jan' Hofmeyr, and Sir James Rose Innes are held at the National Library of South Africa
  • Records of Dalston Estate, [1789-1957] are held at the Archives, London Borough of Hackney

Geographical Names