Francis Oats
| Francis Oats | |
|---|---|
Francis Oats
|
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| Born |
29 October 1848 Golant, Cornwall, England |
| Died | 1 September 1918 (aged 69) Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Mine captain |
| Known for | Chairman of De Beers diamond company |
Francis Oats (29 October, 1848 – 1 September, 1918) was a Cornish miner who became chairman of De Beers diamond company. He made extensive investments in the Cornish tin mining industry, which collapsed after he had died. He is known for Porthledden, a mansion he built at the tip of Cornwall.
Francis Oats was born on 29 October, 1848, at South Torfrey Farm, Golant, near Fowey, Cornwall, England, in the parish of St Sampson. His parents were Francis Oats (1794–1871) and Maria Rundle (1810–97). His father was a farmer. His younger sister Maria was born in 1850. The family moved to St Just in Penwith, a mining district, about 1854. Like most young men in the district Oats became a miner when he left school, but every week he would walk to Penzance, seven miles away, to attend evening classes so he could become a mining engineer. At the age of 17, Oats placed second in the mineralogy examination for the British Isles, and obtained a high grade in mining, a subject in which he had not been instructed. He was offered free tuition at the London School of Mines but would have to pay his expenses, and no scholarship was available.
Francis Oats was first appointed Mine Agent in 1871. He was mining captain at Botallack Mine. For a while Oats also gave science classes in the Botallack district. He married Elizabeth Ann Olds on 17 August, 1874, in St Just in Penwith, daughter of a butcher. Two of their children died in infancy. Their surviving children were Francis Freathey (b. 1879), Wilfred (b. 1883), Giles (b. 1885) and Marie Elise (b. 1887).
On 9 December, 1874, Oats was appointed Cape Colony Government Mining Engineer at Kimberley, South Africa, at the age of 26. Oats left for South Africa on a 20-month mission in January 1875. The colony's government had recently passed ordnances in favour of small miners which prevented mine concession owners from imposing excessive rentals on the diggers and shopkeepers, and did not allow an individual or company to hold more than ten claims. The British government had overridden some of these measures. The proprietors continued to accumulate claims and raise rents, causing mounting unrest. Oats, as Provincial Engineer, gave the decisive opinion that "fostering a large number of individual holdings is most adverse to economy of working. Oats made it clear that the restriction on the number of claims would be an obstacle to obtaining foreign capital. He wrote of the 10 claim limit,
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