Cape to Cairo Red Line
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The Right Honourable Cecil Rhodes |
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Rhodes, c. 1900
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| 7th Prime Minister of the Cape Colony | |
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In office 17 July 1890 – 12 January 1896 |
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| Monarch | Queen Victoria |
| Governor |
Henry Loch Sir William Gordon Cameron Hercules Robinson |
| Preceded by | John Gordon Sprigg |
| Succeeded by | John Gordon Sprigg |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Cecil John Rhodes 5 July 1853 Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England |
| Died | 26 March 1902 (aged 48) Muizenberg, Cape Colony (now South Africa) |
| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Relations |
Reverend Francis William Rhodes (Father) Louisa Peacock Rhodes (Mother) Francis William Rhodes (Brother) |
| Alma mater | Oriel College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Businessman Politician |
Cecil John Rhodes PC (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa, who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895. South Africa's Rhodes University is also named after him. Rhodes set up the provisions of the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate, and put much effort towards his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory.
The son of a vicar, Rhodes grew up in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, and was a sickly child. He was sent to South Africa by his family when he was 17 years old in the hope that the climate might improve his health. He entered the diamond trade at Kimberley in 1871, when he was 18, and over the next two decades gained near-complete domination of the world diamond market. His De Beers diamond company, formed in 1888, retains its prominence into the 21st century. Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament in 1880, and a decade later became Prime Minister. After overseeing the formation of Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) during the early 1890s, he was forced to resign as Prime Minister in 1896 after the disastrous Jameson Raid, an unauthorised attack on Paul Kruger's South African Republic (or Transvaal). After Rhodes's death in 1902, at the age of 48, he was buried in the Matopos Hills in what is now Zimbabwe. At the time of his death he was already a very controversial figure.
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