BEIT, ALFRED (1853-1906), British South African finan cier, was the son of a well-to-do merchant of Hamburg, Germany, and in 1875 was sent out to Kimberley, South Africa. In con junction with Mr. (afterwards Sir) Julius Wernher (b. 1850) he rapidly acquired a leading position on the diamond fields, and became closely allied with the ideals of Cecil Rhodes (q.v.). In 1889 Rhodes and Beit effected the amalgamation of various interests in the De Beers Consolidated Mines, Limited. By his exceptional gifts Beit amassed enormous wealth, and he utilized it lavishly in pursuit of Rhodes's South African policy. He was one of the original directors of the British South Africa corn pany, and was included with Rhodes in the censure passed by the House of Commons Commission of Inquiry on the Jameson Raid (1896). He was one of Rhodes's trustees. He endowed the professorship of colonial history at Oxford (19o5), gave to establish a university in his native city of Hamburg and £200,000 for a university in Johannesburg. He died, unmar ried, on July 16, 1906.