RHODES, CECIL JOHN (1853-1902), British colonial and Imperial statesman, was born on the 5th of July 1853, at Bishop Stortford, in Hertfordshire. His father was a clergyman, but he claimed descent from yeoman stock. Cecil John Rhodes was the fifth son in a large family of sons and daughters. The boy was educated at the grammar school of Bishop Stortford, where his father held the living, with the intention of preparing for the Church; but at the age of sixteen his health broke down, and in the latter part of 1870 he joined his eldest brother Her bert, then engaged in farming in Natal. In that year diamonds were discovered in the Kimberley fields. By the end of 1871 Rhodes and his brother were among the successful diggers. The dry air of the interior restored his health, and before he was nine teen he found himself financially independent and physically strong.
Rhodes next spent eight months in a solitary journey through the then little known parts of the country lying to the north of the Orange and Vaal rivers. He went through Bechuanaland to Mafeking, thence to Pretoria, Murchison, Middelburg and back through the Transvaal to Kimberley, passing in an ox-wagon at a rate of some 15 to 20 miles a day, through vast spaces of rolling veld. He saw one of the healthiest countries in the world barely occupied. He knew the agricultural possibilities of Natal and its mineral wealth. The effect of the combined influences on his mind was profound. He was filled with desire that that fine coun try be secured for occupation by the British race, and that no power but Great Britain be allowed to dominate in the administra tion of South Africa. He had found an object to which he pro posed to devote his life. It was nothing less than the governance of the world by the British race. A will exists written in Rhodes's own handwriting, when he was still only twenty-two, in which he states his reasons for accepting the aggrandizement and service of the British empire as his highest ideal of practical achievement. It ends with a single bequest of everything of which he might die possessed for the furtherance of this great purpose. Five-and twenty years later his final will carried out, with some difference of detail, the same intention.
The share which he allotted to himself was the extension of the area of British settlement in Africa. He returned to Oxford, where
he matriculated at Oriel. In 1873 his health again failed, and he was sent back under what was practically a death sentence. Years afterwards, as an older man, he saw the entry of his own case in the diary of the eminent physician whom he consulted with a note "Not six months to live." South Africa again restored him to health. Three years later he was back at Oxford, and from 1876 to 1878 he kept his terms. During this period he spent the Long Vacation each year in South Africa, where his large financial interests were daily increasing in importance. He was a member of the Cape ministry when after a further lapse of years he kept his last term and took his degree. He did not read hard at Oxford and was more than once remonstrated with in the earlier terms for non-attendance at lectures. But he passed his examina tions; and though he was never a student in the university sense of the term, he was to the end of his life a keen devourer of books. He kept always a special liking for certain classic authors.
Aristotle was the guide whom as a lad he followed in seeking the "highest object" on which to exercise the "highest activity of the soul." Marcus Aurelius was his constant companion. There exists at Groote Schuur a copy of the Meditations deeply scored with his marks.
During this Oxford time and to 1881 Rhodes was occupied with the amalgamation of the larger number of the diamond mines of Kimberley with the De Beers Company, an operation which estab lished his position as a practical financier in the business world. To many admirers who shared his views on public questions his connection with the financial world and his practical success were a stumbling block. It was often wished for him that he "had kept himself clear of all that." But this was not the view he took of the matter. His ideals were political and practical. To him the making of money was a necessary preliminary to the realization of his political ideals, and he was proud of his practical ability in this direction. He was a man of simple tastes. His immense for tune was spent in the furtherance of his ideas, and it has been justly said of him that he taught the world a new chapter of the romance of wealth.