80 Facts About Cecil Rhodes

Cecil John Rhodes was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.

An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes is notably quoted as having said "to be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life".

Cecil Rhodes devoted much effort to realising his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory.

Cecil Rhodes set up the provisions of the Cecil Rhodes Scholarship, since its inception open to all races, which is funded by his estate.

The son of a vicar, Cecil Rhodes was born at Netteswell House, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire.

Cecil Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament at the age of 27 in 1881, and in 1890, he became prime minister.

Cecil Rhodes was buried in what is Zimbabwe; his grave has been a controversial site.

Cecil Rhodes was born in 1853 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, the fifth son of the Reverend Francis William Cecil Rhodes and his wife, Louisa Peacock.

Cecil Rhodes's health was weak and there were fears that he might be consumptive, a disease of which several of the family showed symptoms.

Cecil Rhodes's father decided to send him abroad for what were believed the good effects of a sea voyage and a better climate in South Africa.

When he arrived in Africa, Cecil Rhodes lived on money lent by his aunt Sophia.

Cecil Rhodes joined his brother Herbert on his cotton farm in the Umkomazi valley in Natal.

Cecil Rhodes supervised the working of his brother's claim and speculated on his behalf.

In 1892, Cecil Rhodes financed The Pioneer Fruit Growing Company at Nooitgedacht, a venture created by Harry Pickstone, an Englishman who had experience with fruit-growing in California.

In 1896, after consulting with Molteno, Cecil Rhodes began to pay more attention to export fruit farming and bought farms in Groot Drakenstein, Wellington and Stellenbosch.

In 1873, Cecil Rhodes left his farm field in the care of his business partner, Rudd, and sailed for England to study at university.

Cecil Rhodes was admitted to Oriel College, Oxford, but stayed for only one term in 1874.

Cecil Rhodes returned to South Africa and did not return for his second term at Oxford until 1876.

Cecil Rhodes was greatly influenced by John Ruskin's inaugural lecture at Oxford, which reinforced his own attachment to the cause of British imperialism.

Cecil Rhodes was named the chairman of De Beers at the company's founding in 1888.

In 1880, Cecil Rhodes prepared to enter public life at the Cape.

Cecil Rhodes chose the rural and predominately Boer constituency of Barkly West, which would remain loyal to Cecil Rhodes until his death.

When Cecil Rhodes became a member of the Cape Parliament, the chief goal of the assembly was to help decide the future of Basutoland.

In 1890, Cecil Rhodes became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.

Cecil Rhodes introduced various Acts of Parliament to push black people from their lands and make way for industrial development.

Cecil Rhodes's view was that black people needed to be driven off their land to "stimulate them to labour" and to change their habits.

Cecil Rhodes's policies were instrumental in the development of British imperial policies in South Africa, such as the Hut tax.

Cecil Rhodes did not have direct political power over the independent Boer Republic of the Transvaal.

Cecil Rhodes often disagreed with the Transvaal government's policies, which he considered unsupportive of mine-owners' interests.

In 1895, believing he could use his influence to overthrow the Boer government, Cecil Rhodes supported the Jameson Raid, an unsuccessful attempt to create an uprising in the Transvaal that had the tacit approval of Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain.

In 1899, Cecil Rhodes was sued by a man named Burrows for falsely representing the purpose of the raid and thereby convincing him to participate in the raid.

Cecil Rhodes used his wealth and that of his business partner Alfred Beit and other investors to pursue his dream of creating a British Empire in new territories to the north by obtaining mineral concessions from the most powerful indigenous chiefs.

Cecil Rhodes befriended its local representatives, the British Commissioners, and through them organized British protectorates over the mineral concession areas via separate but related treaties.

The imperial factor was a double-edged sword: Cecil Rhodes did not want the bureaucrats of the Colonial Office in London to interfere in the Empire in Africa.

Cecil Rhodes wanted British settlers and local politicians and governors to run it.

Cecil Rhodes prevailed because he would pay the cost of administering the territories to the north of South Africa against his future mining profits.

Cecil Rhodes promoted his business interests as in the strategic interest of Britain: preventing the Portuguese, the Germans or the Boers from moving into south-central Africa.

Cecil Rhodes had already tried and failed to get a mining concession from Lobengula, King of the Ndebele of Matabeleland.

Cecil Rhodes sent John Moffat, son of the missionary Robert Moffat, who was trusted by Lobengula, to persuade the latter to sign a treaty of friendship with Britain, and to look favourably on Rhodes's proposals.

Armed with the Rudd Concession, in 1889 Cecil Rhodes obtained a charter from the British Government for his British South Africa Company to rule, police, and make new treaties and concessions from the Limpopo River to the great lakes of Central Africa.

Cecil Rhodes obtained further concessions and treaties north of the Zambezi, such as those in Barotseland ; and in the Lake Mweru area.

Cecil Rhodes sent Sharpe to get a concession over mineral-rich Katanga, but met his match in ruthlessness: when Sharpe was rebuffed by its ruler Msiri, King Leopold II of Belgium obtained a concession over Msiri's dead body for his Congo Free State.

Cecil Rhodes wanted Bechuanaland Protectorate incorporated in the BSAC charter.

Cecil Rhodes paid much of the cost so that the British Central Africa Commissioner Sir Harry Johnston, and his successor Alfred Sharpe, would assist with security for Cecil Rhodes in the BSAC's north-eastern territories.

Cecil Rhodes had hoped to start a "new Rand" from the ancient gold mines of the Shona.

Cecil Rhodes went to Matabeleland after his resignation as Cape Colony Premier, and appointed himself Colonel in his own column of irregular troops moving from Salisbury to Bulawayo to relieve the siege of whites there.

Cecil Rhodes returned to Mashonaland, further overseeing the suppression of the uprising there into 1897.

Cecil Rhodes remained an MP in the Cape Parliament and a Privy Councillor.

Cecil Rhodes built a house for himself in 1897 in Bulawayo.

Cecil Rhodes decreed in his will that he was to be buried in Matopos Hills.

Cecil Rhodes's burial was attended by Ndebele chiefs, now paid agents of the BSAC administration, who asked that the firing party should not discharge their rifles as this would disturb the spirits.

Cecil Rhodes is buried alongside Leander Starr Jameson and 34 British soldiers killed in the Shangani Patrol.

One of Cecil Rhodes's dreams was for a "red line" on the map from the Cape to Cairo.

Cecil Rhodes had been instrumental in securing southern African states for the Empire.

Cecil Rhodes wanted to expand the British Empire because he believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was destined to greatness.

Cecil Rhodes wanted to develop a Commonwealth in which all of the British-dominated countries in the empire would be represented in the British Parliament.

Cecil Rhodes explicitly stipulated in his will that all races should be eligible for the scholarships.

Cecil Rhodes believed that eventually the United Kingdom, the US, and Germany together would dominate the world and ensure perpetual peace.

For example, historian Raymond C Mensing notes that Rhodes has the reputation as the most flamboyant exemplar of the British imperial spirit, and always believed that British institutions were the best.

Mensing argues that Cecil Rhodes quietly developed a more nuanced concept of imperial federation in Africa, and that his mature views were more balanced and realistic.

On domestic politics within Britain, Cecil Rhodes was a supporter of the Liberal Party.

Cecil Rhodes worked well with the Afrikaners in the Cape Colony; he supported teaching Dutch as well as English in public schools.

Cecil Rhodes advocated greater self-government for the Cape Colony, in line with his preference for the empire to be controlled by local settlers and politicians rather than by London.

Cecil Rhodes never married, pleading, "I have too much work on my hands" and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband.

Cecil Rhodes asked him to marry her, but Rhodes refused.

Cecil Rhodes had to go to trial and testify against her accusation.

Cecil Rhodes wrote a biography of Rhodes called Cecil Rhodes: Man and Empire Maker.

Cecil Rhodes used his position and influence to lobby the British government to relieve the siege of Kimberley, claiming in the press that the situation in the city was desperate.

Cecil Rhodes was sent to Natal aged 16 because it was believed the climate might help problems with his heart.

Cecil Rhodes was finally laid to rest at World's View, a hilltop located approximately 35 kilometres south of Bulawayo, in what was then Rhodesia.

Cecil Rhodes has been the target of much recent criticism, with some historians attacking him as a ruthless imperialist and white supremacist.

In February 2012, Mugabe loyalists and ZANU-PF activists visited the grave site demanding permission from the local chief to exhume Cecil Rhodes's remains and return them to Britain.

In 2004, Cecil Rhodes was voted 56th in the SABC 3 television series Great South Africans.

Cecil Rhodes left a large area of land on the slopes of Table Mountain to the South African nation.

Cecil Rhodes' aims were to promote leadership marked by public spirit and good character, and to "render war impossible" by promoting friendship between the great powers.

Cecil Rhodes Memorial stands on Cecil Rhodes's favourite spot on the slopes of Devil's Peak, Cape Town, with a view looking north and east towards the Cape to Cairo route.

Cecil Rhodes's birthplace was established in 1938 as the Rhodes Memorial Museum, now known as Bishops Stortford Museum.

When he died in 1902, Cecil Rhodes bequeathed most of the estate to the nation, and this forms the Cecil Rhodes Nyanga National Park.

Memorials to Cecil Rhodes have been opposed since at least the 1950s, when some Afrikaner students demanded the removal of a Cecil Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town.

In June 2020, amid the wider context of Black Lives Matter protests, the governing body of Oxford's Oriel College voted to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes located on the college's facade facing Oxford's High Street.