Rothschild & Co is a multinational private and merchant bank, headquartered in Paris, France. It is the flagship of the Rothschild banking group controlled by the British and French branches of the Rothschild family.
The banking business of the firm covers the areas of investment
banking, restructuring, corporate banking, private equity, asset
management, and private banking. It is also known to serve as the
advisor and lender to governments and major corporations. In addition, the firm has its own investment account in private equity.
Nathan Mayer Rothschild first settled in Manchester, where he established a business in finance and textile trading. He later moved to London, founding N M Rothschild & Sons in 1811 at New Court, which is still the location of Rothschild & Co's London headquarters today. Through this company, Nathan Mayer Rothschild made a fortune with his involvement in the bond market.
According to historian Niall Ferguson
in 1999, "For most of the nineteenth century, N M Rothschild was part
of the biggest bank in the world which dominated the international bond
market. For a contemporary equivalent, one has to imagine a merger
between Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and probably Goldman Sachs too—as well, perhaps, as the International Monetary Fund, given the nineteenth-century Rothschild's role in stabilizing the finances of numerous governments."
During the early part of the 19th century, the Rothschild London
bank took a leading part in managing and financing the subsidies that
the British government transferred to its allies during the Napoleonic Wars. Through the creation of a network of agents, couriers and shippers, the bank was able to provide funds to the armies of the Duke of Wellington in Portugal and Spain. In 1818 the Rothschild bank arranged a £5 million loan to the Prussian government and the issuing of bonds for government loans.
The providing of other innovative and complex financing for government
projects formed a mainstay of the bank's business for the better part of
the century. N M Rothschild & Sons' financial strength in the City
of London became such that by 1825, the bank was able to supply enough
coin to the Bank of England to enable it to avert a liquidity crisis.
Like most firms with global operations in the 19th century,
Rothschild had links to slavery, even though the firm was instrumental
in abolishing it by providing a £15m gilt issue necessary to pass the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.
The money provided by Rothschild was used to pay slave owners
compensation for their slaves and the gilt issue was only fully redeemed
in 2015.
Late 19th century
Logo of N M Rothschild & Sons Ltd, the "Five Arrows", representing the five sons of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and their respective businesses
Nathan Mayer's eldest son, Lionel de Rothschild
(1808–1879) succeeded him as head of the London branch. Under Lionel
the bank financed the British government's 1875 purchase of a
controlling interest in the Suez Canal. Lionel also began to invest in railways as his uncle James had been doing in France. In 1869, Lionel's son, Alfred de Rothschild (1842–1918), became a director of the Bank of England, a post he held for 20 years. Alfred was one of those who represented the British Government at the 1892 International Monetary Conference in Brussels.
The Rothschild bank funded Cecil Rhodes in the development of the British South Africa Company and Leopold de Rothschild (1845–1917) administered Rhodes's estate after his death in 1902 and helped to set up the Rhodes Scholarship scheme at Oxford University. In 1873 de Rothschild Frères (trans. "The Rothschild Brothers") of Paris and N M Rothschild & Sons of London joined with other investors to acquire the Spanish government's money-losing Rio Tinto
copper mines. The new owners restructured the company and turned it
into a profitable business. By 1905, the Rothschild interest in Rio
Tinto amounted to more than 30%. In 1887, the French and English
Rothschild banking houses loaned money to, and invested in, the De Beers diamond mines in South Africa, becoming its largest shareholders.
20th century
The First World War
marked a change of fortune and emphasis for Rothschild. After the War,
the Rothschild banks began a steady transition towards advisory work and
finance raising for commercial concerns, including the London Underground. In 1938, the Austrian Rothschilds’ interests were given to the Nazis, bringing to an end more than a century at the heart of Central European banking. In France and Austria, the family was scattered for the duration of the Second World War. After the war, the British and French banks committed themselves to further developing their new operation in the United States, which was eventually to become Rothschild Inc, and increased focus on mergers and acquisitions, asset management, and merchant-banking.
In the 20th century, Rothschild developed into a pre-eminent
global organisation, which enhanced its ability to secure key advisory
roles in some of the most important, complex and recognizable mergers
and acquisitions. In the 1980s, Rothschild took a leading role in the
international phenomenon of privatization.
The company was involved from the beginning and developed a pioneering
role which spread out to more than thirty countries worldwide. In recent
years, Rothschild advised on nearly a thousand completed mergers and
acquisitions with a cumulative value in excess of US$1 trillion.
Rothschild also advised on some of the largest and most high-profile
corporate restructurings around the world.
The bank decided to enter the securities market buying Smith Brothers, a stock jobber, in December 1983.
The price of gold was fixed for years, twice daily at 10:30 am and 3:00 pm, in a small room at Rothschild's New Court headquarters on St Swithin's Lane. The world's main bullion houses: Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Scotia-Mocatta and Société Générale used the agreed rate as a price
benchmark for gold products and derivatives in the world's markets. The
chairperson, traditionally appointed by the Rothschild bank, sat in the
center, although the bank itself has largely withdrawn from trading.
The five members of the London Bullion Association: Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank, Scotiabank, HSBC and Société Générale,
now conduct their twice-daily meetings over the telephone. The meetings
were a tradition as great as the ringing of the bell at the New York Stock Exchange until 2004.
The Compagnie du chemin de fer de Paris à Orléans was founded in 1838 as a railway company. After several takeovers and a merger with the Chemins de fer du Midi,
it had about 11,000 km (6,800 mi) of track and was one of the major
railway companies in France. In 1938, it was nationalised along with
five other railway undertakings to form the national state railway
company SNCF.
20th century
Logo of Rothschild prior to 2015 rebranding
After the Second World War, the French branch of the Rothschild family took over the remains of Paris Orléans and transformed it into a holding company for its banking activities and corporate investments. These mainly included the Banque Rothschild (bank), the SGIM (property company), the SIACI (insurance), the Francarep (oil company) and the SGDBR (wineries), now Domaines Barons de Rothschild (DBR).
By 1980, the Paris business employed about 2,000 people and had
an annual turnover of 26 billion francs ($5 billion in the currency
rates of 1980).
The Socialist French government of François Mitterrand nationalized the Banque Rothschild and renamed it Compagnie Européenne de Banque in 1981. In 1983, David de Rothschild and Eric de Rothschild recapitalized the family's business just as their ancestors had done in the prior century under the name Paris Orléans, as it was banned from using the family name until 1986, at which time the firm was renamed Rothschild & Cie Banque.
Modern history and recent events
Anglo-French Rothschild merger
In
2003, the English (N M Rothschild & Sons) and French (Rothschild
& Cie Banque) firms announced plans to merge under the leadership of
David R. de Rothschild. Paris Orléans SCA became the flagship holding company of the family business of Rothschild. Although Paris Orléans is listed on the exchange, the family retains control of the firm. After the merger of the banking activities, Paris Orléans SCA became the sole owner Concordia BV, which controls Rothschilds Continuation Holdings AG, which controls the Rothschild Group's banking activities. By 2011, the firm had merged operations and was unified.
Recent history
Current Logo of Rothschild & Co (2015–)
In 2007, Rothschild formed joint venture Jardine Rothschild Asia Capital with Jardine Strategic, specializing in growth capital investments.
In 2010, the firm appointed the first non-family member chief executive officer, Nigel Higgins.
In 2011, the firm rebranded from "N M Rothschild & Sons" to "Rothschild & Co." The goal of this was to show "a new global positioning as the fulcrum of the Financial Market."
In 2015, the parent company Paris Orléans changed its name to Rothschild & Co to match the trade name of the business.
In 2017, Rothschild & Co acquired the family-controlled French private bank Martin Maurel.
This merger united the businesses of two European financial families.
After the acquisition, Rothschild & Co became the leading private
bank in France.
In 2018, Rothschild & Co sold its trust services division
(responsible for the creation and administration of trust structures) to
Richard Martin,
a long-time Rothschild executive for an undisclosed amount. This
restructuring of Rothschild's Wealth Management practice allowed the
firm to focus more on its private banking activities from the recent
purchase and integration of Rothschild Martin Maurel.
In 2019, the firm acquired a stake in Redburn,
a global financial services firm that provides research in various
coverage sectors and brokerage execution services for traditional and
algorithmic sales and trading.
In 2022, Wintrust
announced a deal to acquire the U.S. asset management arm of
Rothschild, which held around $8 billion in assets under management at
the time.
In 2023, the Rothschild family announced its intention to take Rothschild & Co. private by repurchasing the shares listed on stock exchanges. The transaction values the firm at €3.7bn and would end several decades of the firm being publicly listed.
Operations
Rothschild
& Co has three primary businesses: Global Advisory (Investment
Banking Division), Wealth and Asset Management, and Merchant Banking.
Global Advisory (Investment Banking Division)
The banking business is structured as follows:
M&A and Strategic Advisory
Debt Advisory and Restructuring
Equity Advisory and Capital Markets
Rothschild & Co is consistently in the top 10 global investment banks for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory by Thomson Reuters by both number and size of deals. In 2018, as with previous years, the firm ranked 1st globally and 1st in Europe by number of completed M&A transactions.
Wealth and Asset Management
Rothschild & Co's wealth management practice stems on wealth
preservation through generations, just as the Rothschild family has done
for over two centuries. The words of one of Mayer Amschel Rothschild's sons and founder of Rothschild & Co still illustrate the service provided to clients:
"It
takes a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a
great fortune; and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much
wit to keep it" –Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Merchant Banking
Merchant
banking is the investment arm of Rothschild & Co, deploying the
firm's capital alongside private and institutional investors. The
portfolio is in excess of €8 billion.
Vineyards
Historically, the Rothschild family has owned many Bordeaux vineyards since 1868. Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) and Champagne Barons de Rothschild are some of the wineries owned in part by Rothschild & Co.
Corporate culture
Rothschild
& Co has a unique culture in part due to its more than two-century
history and the firm still remaining under family control. The firm's new analyst education program in London, for instance, lasts nearly two months.
Rothschild & Co's headquarters in London have been continuously located at New Court, St. Swithin's Lane, London for over two centuries. After acquiring the lease in 1809, the firm continued to grow. In 1865, a new building designed by Thomas Marsh Nelson in the Italian "palazzo" style was created at the same site.
This building served as the headquarters for Rothschild through both
world wars. In 1962, the firm demolished and rebuilt its New Court
headquarters for a third time at the suggestion of Evelyn Robert de Rothschild. In 2005, the firm decided to create a fourth iteration of the building that opens up views of St Stephen Walbrook church from its lobby, and views of the London skyline from a roof-top "sky pavilion" designed by Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA).
Controversies and legal issues
Jürg Heer scandal
Jürg Heer
worked for Rothschild Bank AG (since October 2018 Rothschild & Co.
Bank AG) in Zurich for more than twenty years, the last nine as its
credit manager. He was dismissed in June 1992. Heer was accused of
taking kickbacks
of more than US$20 million in exchange for making unsecured and
unapproved loans to the German and Canadian real estate magnate Karsten von Wersebe
resulting in a loss of US$155 million to the bank. In 1998, in the
district court of Zurich, Heer confessed that he embezzled about US$33
million from Rothschild Bank AG between 1986 and 1992.
The Rothschild family committed CHF 150 million to supporting its bank
in recovering from one of the then largest financial frauds in
Switzerland.
NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd vs. Rothschild & Co (UK) Ltd
On 27 January 2009 NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd filed under s.69(1)(b) of the UK Companies Act 2006
for a change of name of the respondent company, Rothschild & Co
(UK) Ltd, which had been registered since 31 October 2008. The Company Names Tribunal
found for the applicant and ordered the respondent to change its name
or else have its name changed by the adjudicator, as well as to pay the
applicant's costs.
Von Schönau-Riedweg vs. Rothschild Bank AG & others
On
20 December 2012 Rothschild Bank AG brought suit against its client
Corinna von Schönau-Riedweg in Switzerland, seeking a declaration that
the bank had no liability with respect to the private equity
transactions recommended by Rothschild Bank's former employee Wilfrid
von Plotho.
As a reaction to this suit von Schönau brought suit in the Superior
Court in Boston/USA against Rothschild Bank AG, Rothschild Trust
(Schweiz) AG, Wilfrid von Plotho and others. In December 2014 a separate
and final judgment over US$15 million against von Plotho and his
Panamanian offshore company ARA Management was entered in force; neither
von Plotho nor ARA Management appealed from that judgment.
In June 2019 the Appeals Court of Massachusetts (Boston) decided that
von Schönau's suit against Rothschild Bank should be revived, as she had
made a showing that Wilfrid von Plotho, she claims caused her millions
of dollars to lose, was Rothschild Bank's agent in Switzerland as well
as in the USA.
Non-Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice
According
to the Non-Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice
(Tax Division) of June 2015, Rothschild Bank (now Rothschild & Co.
Bank AG) admitted that it had 66 U.S.-related accounts held by entities
created in Panama, Liechtenstein, British Virgin Islands or other
foreign countries with U.S. beneficial owners. Knowing it was highly
probable that the U.S. clients were engaging in schemes to avoid U.S.
taxes, Rothschild Bank permitted the accounts to trade in U.S.
securities without reporting account earnings, or transmitting any
withholding taxes, to the IRS.
Of the U.S. related accounts with an aggregate maximum balance of
approximately US$836 million had U.S. beneficial owners, representing
approx. 5% of the aggregate maximum balance of Rothschild Bank's total
assets under management during the period in question.
In recognition of its illegal conduct Rothschild Bank agreed to pay
US$11,510,000 as a penalty to the U.S. Department of Justice without
having to admit any guilt in the matter.
Rothschild Bank AG (since October 2018 renamed Rothschild & Co. Bank AG), a subsidiary of Rothschild & Co, broke anti-money-laundering rules in 1MDB case according to Swiss prosecutiors.
In July 2018 the Swiss Financial Market Authority (FINMA) concluded
final 1MDB proceedings, in which Rothschild Bank AG and its subsidiary
Rothschild Trust (Schweiz) AG have been found to be in serious breach of
money laundering rules in the context of 1 MDB. The FINMA appointed an
audit agent to review enhancements already put in place by Rothschild
Bank. FINMA stated, that Rothschild Bank and Rothschild Trust were found
to be in "breach of due diligence, reporting and documentation
requirements […]. Although there were early indications that this client
could be involved in money laundering activities, the institutions
decided nevertheless to enter into the relationship and at a later stage
considerably expand it." The 1MDB fraud saw billions of dollars siphoned off from the sovereign wealth fund into the pockets of corrupt officials.
Dispute between Rothschild & Co and Edmond de Rothschild Group
After Paris Orleans was renamed to Rothschild & Co, the Swiss-based Edmond de Rothschild Group
disputed the use of the family name for branding purposes. Until their
settlement, Rothschild & Co and the Edmond de Rothschild Group were
cross-shareholders in each other's business, further complicating the
matter. In 2018 the two sides of the family resolved the dispute.
Marjorie Taylor Greene "space laser" accusation
In January 2021, US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene
(R-GA) was reported to have made a Facebook post blaming "Rothschild,
Inc" among others for using "space solar generators" to ignite the 2018 Camp Fire, one of California's deadliest and most destructive wildfires.
The son of a vicar, Rhodes was born at Netteswell House, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire.
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 with funding from Rothschild & Co,
began to systematically buy out and consolidate diamond mines. Over the
next two decades he gained a near-complete monopoly of the world
diamond market. His diamond company De Beers, formed in 1888, retains its prominence into the 21st century.
Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament at the age of 27 in 1881,
and in 1890, he became prime minister. During his time as prime
minister, Rhodes used his political power to expropriate land from black
Africans through the Glen Grey Act, while also tripling the wealth requirement for voting under the Franchise and Ballot Act, effectively barring black people from taking part in elections.After overseeing the formation of Rhodesia during the early 1890s, he was forced to resign in 1896 after the disastrous Jameson Raid, an unauthorised attack on Paul Kruger's South African Republic
(or Transvaal). Rhodes's career never recovered; his heart was weak,
and after years of ill health he died in 1902. He was buried in what is
now Zimbabwe; his grave has been a controversial site.
In his last will, he provided for the establishment of the international Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University,
the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. Every year it grants 102
full postgraduate scholarships. It has benefited prime ministers of
Malta, Australia and Canada, United States President Bill Clinton, and many others.
With the strengthening of international movements against racism, such as Rhodes Must Fall and Black Lives Matter, Rhodes' legacy is a matter of debate to this day. Critics cite his confiscation of land from the black indigenous population of the Cape Colony, and false claims that southern African archeological sites such as Great Zimbabwe were built by European civilisations.
Origins
Rhodes was born in 1853 in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England, the fifth son of the Reverend Francis William Rhodes (1807–1878) and his wife, Louisa Peacock. Francis was a Church of Englandclergyman who served as perpetual curate of Brentwood, Essex (1834–1843), and then as vicar of nearby Bishop's Stortford (1849–1876), where he was well known for never having preached a sermon longer than ten minutes.
Francis was the eldest son of William Rhodes (1774–1843), a brick manufacturer from Hackney, Middlesex. The family owned significant estates in London's Hackney and Dalston which Cecil would later inherit.
Rhodes as a boyRhodes' birthplace, now part of Bishop's Stortford Museum; the bedroom in which he was born is marked by a plaque.
Rhodes attended the Bishop's StortfordGrammar School from the age of nine, but, as a sickly, asthmatic adolescent, he was taken out of grammar school in 1869 and, according to Basil Williams, "continued his studies under his father's eye ..."
At age seven, he was recorded in the 1861 census as boarding with his aunt, Sophia Peacock, at a boarding house in Jersey, where the climate was perceived to provide a respite for those with conditions such as asthma. His health was weak and there were fears that he might be consumptive
(have tuberculosis), a disease of which several of the family showed
symptoms. His father decided to send him abroad for what were believed
the good effects of a sea voyage and a better climate in South Africa.
South Africa
Rhodes at the age of sixteen
When he arrived in Africa, Rhodes lived on money lent by his aunt Sophia. After a brief stay with the Surveyor-General of Natal, P.C. Sutherland, in Pietermaritzburg, Rhodes took an interest in agriculture. He joined his brother Herbert on his cotton farm in the Umkomazi valley in Natal. The land was unsuitable for cotton, and the venture failed.
In October 1871, 18-year-old Rhodes and his 26-year-old brother Herbert left the colony for the diamond fields of Kimberley in Northern Cape Province. Financed by N M Rothschild & Sons, Rhodes succeeded over the next 17 years in buying up all the smaller diamond mining operations in the Kimberley area.
His monopoly of the world's diamond supply was sealed in 1890
through a strategic partnership with the London-based Diamond Syndicate.
They agreed to control world supply to maintain high prices. Rhodes supervised the working of his brother's claim and speculated on his behalf. Among his associates in the early days were John X. Merriman and Charles Rudd, who later became his partner in the De Beers Mining Company and the Niger Oil Company.
During the 1880s, Cape vineyards had been devastated by a phylloxera
epidemic. The diseased vineyards were dug up and replanted, and farmers
were looking for alternatives to wine. In 1892, 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. The shipping magnate Percy Molteno
had just undertaken the first successful refrigerated export to Europe.
In 1896, after consulting with Molteno, Rhodes began to pay more
attention to export fruit farming and bought farms in Groot Drakenstein,
Wellington and Stellenbosch. A year later, he bought Rhone and Boschendal and commissioned Sir Herbert Baker to build him a cottage there. The successful operation soon expanded into Rhodes Fruit Farms, and formed a cornerstone of the modern-day Cape fruit industry.
Education
A portrait bust of Rhodes on the first floor of No. 6 King Edward Street marks the place of his residence whilst in Oxford.
In 1873, Rhodes left his farm field in the care of his business
partner, Rudd, and sailed for England to study at university. He was
admitted to Oriel College, Oxford,
but stayed for only one term in 1874. He returned to South Africa and
did not return for his second term at Oxford until 1876. He was greatly
influenced by John Ruskin's inaugural lecture at Oxford, which reinforced his own attachment to the cause of British imperialism.
Among his Oxford associates were James Rochfort Maguire, later a fellow of All Souls College and a director of the British South Africa Company, and Charles Metcalfe.
Due to his university career, Rhodes admired the Oxford tutorial
system. Eventually, he was inspired to develop his scholarship scheme:
"Wherever you turn your eye—except in science—an Oxford man is at the
top of the tree".
While attending Oriel College, Rhodes became a Freemason in the Apollo University Lodge. Although initially he did not approve of the organisation, he continued to be a South African Freemason
until his death in 1902. The shortcomings of the Freemasons, in his
opinion, later caused him to envisage his own secret society with the
goal of bringing the entire world under British rule.
Diamonds and the establishment of De Beers
Preference Share of the De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd., issued 1. March 1902Sketch of Rhodes by Violet Manners
During his years at Oxford, Rhodes continued to prosper in Kimberley. Before his departure for Oxford, he and C.D. Rudd had moved from the Kimberley Mine to invest in the more costly claims of what was known as old De Beers (Vooruitzicht). It was named after Johannes Nicolaas de Beer and his brother, Diederik Arnoldus, who occupied the farm.
After purchasing the land in 1839 from David Danser, a Koranna
chief in the area, David Stephanus Fourie, forebear of Claudine
Fourie-Grosvenor, had allowed the de Beers and various other Afrikaner
families to cultivate the land. The region extended from the Modder River via the Vet River up to the Vaal River.
In 1874 and 1875, the diamond fields were in the grip of
depression, but Rhodes and Rudd were among those who stayed to
consolidate their interests. They believed that diamonds would be
numerous in the hard blue ground
that had been exposed after the softer, yellow layer near the surface
had been worked out. During this time, the technical problem of clearing
out the water that was flooding the mines became serious. Rhodes and
Rudd obtained the contract for pumping water out of the three main
mines. After Rhodes returned from his first term at Oxford, he lived
with Robert Dundas Graham, who later became a mining partner with Rudd
and Rhodes.
On 13 March 1888, Rhodes and Rudd launched De Beers Consolidated Mines
after the amalgamation of a number of individual claims. With £200,000
of capital, the company, of which Rhodes was secretary, owned the
largest interest in the mine (£200,000 in 1880 = £22.5m in 2020 = $28.5m
USD). Rhodes was named the chairman of De Beers at the company's founding in 1888. De Beers was established with funding from N.M. Rothschild & Sons in 1887.
In 1880, Rhodes prepared to enter public life at the Cape. With the earlier incorporation of Griqualand West into the Cape Colony under the Molteno Ministry in 1877, the area had obtained six seats in the Cape House of Assembly. Rhodes chose the rural and predominately Boer constituency of Barkly West, which would remain loyal to Rhodes until his death.
When Rhodes became a member of the Cape Parliament, the chief goal of the assembly was to help decide the future of Basutoland. The ministry of Sir Gordon Sprigg was trying to restore order after the 1880 rebellion known as the Gun War. The Sprigg ministry had precipitated the revolt by applying its policy of disarming all native Africans to those of the Basotho nation, who resisted.
In 1890, Rhodes became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. He
introduced various Acts of Parliament to push black people from their
lands and make way for industrial development. Rhodes's view was that
black people needed to be driven off their land to "stimulate them to
labour" and to change their habits.
"It must be brought home to them", Rhodes said, "that in future
nine-tenths of them will have to spend their lives in manual labour, and
the sooner that is brought home to them the better."
In 1892, Rhodes's Franchise and Ballot Act
raised the property requirements from a relatively low £25 to a
significantly higher £75 which had a disproportionate effect on the
previously growing number of enfranchised black people in the Cape under
the Cape Qualified Franchise that had been in force since 1853. By limiting the amount of land which black Africans were legally allowed to hold in the Glen Grey Act of 1894, Rhodes further disenfranchised the black population. To quote Richard Dowden,
most would now "find it almost impossible to get back on the list
because of the legal limit on the amount of land they could hold". In addition, Rhodes was an early architect of the Natives Land Act, 1913, which would limit the areas of the country where black Africans were allowed to settle to less than 10%.
At the time, Rhodes would argue that "the native is to be treated as a
child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism,
such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South
Africa."
Rhodes also introduced educational reform to the area. His policies were instrumental in the development of British imperial policies in South Africa, such as the Hut tax.
Rhodes did not, however, have direct political power over the independent Boer Republic of the Transvaal.
He 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, 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.
The raid was a catastrophic failure. It forced Cecil Rhodes to resign
as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, sent his oldest brother Col. Frank Rhodes to jail in Transvaal convicted of high treason and nearly sentenced to death, and contributed to the outbreak of the Second Boer War.
In 1899, 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. Burrows was severely wounded and had to have
his leg amputated. His suit for £3,000 in damages was successful.
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 indigenouschiefs.
Rhodes' competitive advantage over other mineral prospecting companies
was his combination of wealth and astute political instincts, also
called the "imperial factor," as he often collaborated with the British
Government. He befriended its local representatives, the British Commissioners, and through them organized British protectorates
over the mineral concession areas via separate but related treaties. In
this way he obtained both legality and security for mining operations.
He could then attract more investors. Imperial expansion and capital
investment went hand in hand.
The imperial factor was a double-edged sword: Rhodes did not want the bureaucrats of the Colonial Office
in London to interfere in the Empire in Africa. He wanted British
settlers and local politicians and governors to run it. This put him on a
collision course with many in Britain, as well as with British missionaries,
who favoured what they saw as the more ethical direct rule from London.
Rhodes prevailed because he would pay the cost of administering the
territories to the north of South Africa against his future mining
profits. The Colonial Office did not have enough funding for this.
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. Rhodes's companies and agents
cemented these advantages by obtaining many mining concessions, as
exemplified by the Rudd and Lochner Concessions.
Treaties, concessions and charters
Rhodes had already tried and failed to get a mining concession from Lobengula, King of the Ndebele of Matabeleland. In 1888 he tried again. He 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. His associate Charles Rudd, together with Francis Thompson
and Rochfort Maguire, assured Lobengula that no more than ten white men
would mine in Matabeleland. This limitation was left out of the
document, known as the Rudd Concession,
which Lobengula signed. Furthermore, it stated that the mining
companies could do anything necessary to their operations. When
Lobengula discovered later the true effects of the concession, he tried
to renounce it, but the British Government ignored him.
During the company's early days, Rhodes and his associates set
themselves up to make millions (hundreds of millions in current pounds)
over the coming years through what has been described as a "suppressio veri ... which must be regarded as one of Rhodes's least creditable actions".
Contrary to what the British government and the public had been allowed
to think, the Rudd Concession was not vested in the British South
Africa Company, but in a short-lived ancillary concern of Rhodes, Rudd
and a few others called the Central Search Association, which was quietly formed in London in 1889. This entity renamed itself the United Concessions Company
in 1890, and soon after sold the Rudd Concession to the Chartered
Company for 1,000,000 shares. When Colonial Office functionaries
discovered this chicanery in 1891, they advised Secretary of State for the ColoniesViscount Knutsford to consider revoking the concession, but no action was taken.
Armed with the Rudd Concession, in 1889 Rhodes obtained a charter from the British Government for his British South Africa Company (BSAC) to rule, police, and make new treaties and concessions from the Limpopo River to the great lakes of Central Africa. He obtained further concessions and treaties north of the Zambezi, such as those in Barotseland (the Lochner Concession with King Lewanika in 1890, which was similar to the Rudd Concession); and in the Lake Mweru area (Alfred Sharpe's 1890 Kazembe concession). Rhodes also 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.
Rhodes also wanted Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana) incorporated in the BSAC charter. But three Tswana kings, including Khama III,
travelled to Britain and won over British public opinion for it to
remain governed by the British Colonial Office in London. Rhodes
commented: "It is humiliating to be utterly beaten by these niggers."
The British Colonial Office also decided to administer British Central Africa (Nyasaland, today's Malawi) owing to the activism of David Livingstone trying to end the East African Arab-Swahili slave trade. 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 Rhodes
in the BSAC's north-eastern territories. Johnston shared Rhodes's
expansionist views, but he and his successors were not as pro-settler as
Rhodes, and disagreed on dealings with Africans.
The BSAC had its own police force, the British South Africa Police, which was used to control Matabeleland and Mashonaland, in present-day Zimbabwe. The company had hoped to start a "new Rand" from the ancient gold mines of the Shona.
Because gold deposits weren't as plentiful as they had hoped, many of
the white settlers who accompanied the BSAC to Mashonaland became
farmers rather than miners. White settlers and their locally-employed
Native Police engaged in widespread indiscriminate rape of Ndebele women
in the early 1890s.
The Ndebele
and the Shona—the two main, but rival, peoples—took advantage of the
absence of most of the BSAP for the Jameson Raid in January 1896; they
separately rebelled against the coming of the European settlers, and the
BSAC defeated them in the Second Matabele War.
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. He remained Managing Director of the BSAC (with power of attorney
to take decisions without reference back to the Board in London) until
June 1896, defying Chamberlain's calls to resign, and he gave
instructions that no mercy be shown in putting down the rebellion,
telling officers that "Your instructions are" he told a major, to "do
the most harm you can to the natives around you." He ordered a police officer to "kill all you can", even those Ndebele who begged for mercy and threw down their arms. Shortly after learning of the assassination of the Ndebele spiritual leader, Mlimo, by the American scout Frederick Russell Burnham,
and after participating in the cavalry charge at one of the last
pitched battles of this phase of the war, Rhodes' associate Johan
Colenbrander arranged for a meeting with the remaining Ndebele chiefs.
Rhodes and a few colleagues walked unarmed into the Ndebele stronghold
in Matobo Hills. In a series of meetings between August and October, he persuaded the Impi to lay down their arms, thus ending the Second Matabele War.
In the aftermath of the war in Matabeleland, but whilst the
uprising in Mashonaland was being suppressed, Rhodes returned to London
to give evidence to the UK House of Commons Select Committee of Enquiry
into the Jameson Raid. As Rhodes had incriminating telegrams
demonstrating the complicity and foreknowledge of the Raid by Joseph
Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, he and his solicitor were able to
blackmail Chamberlain into retaining the BSAC Charter, leaving the
Company in charge of administering the territory north of the Limpopo
even as it became a Crown Colony.
Rhodes returned to Mashonaland, further overseeing the suppression of
the uprising there into 1897. The scandal attached to his name did not
prevent him rejoining the board of the BSAC in 1898. He remained an MP
in the Cape Parliament and a Privy Councillor.
By the end of 1894, the territories over which the BSAC had concessions or treaties, collectively called "Zambesia" after the Zambezi River flowing through the middle, comprised an area of 1,143,000 km2 between the Limpopo River and Lake Tanganyika.
In May 1895, its name was officially changed to "Rhodesia", reflecting
Rhodes's popularity among settlers who had been using the name
informally since 1891. The designation Southern Rhodesia was officially adopted in 1898 for the part south of the Zambezi, which later became Zimbabwe; and the designations North-Western and North-Eastern Rhodesia were used from 1895 for the territory which later became Northern Rhodesia, then Zambia.He built a house for himself in 1897 in Bulawayo.
Rhodes decreed in his will that he was to be buried in Matopos Hills
(now Matobo Hills). After his death in the Cape in 1902, his body was
transported by train to Bulawayo.
His 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. Then, for the first
time, they gave a white man the Matabele royal salute, Bayete. Rhodes is
buried alongside Leander Starr Jameson and 34 British soldiers killed in the Shangani Patrol.
Despite occasional efforts to return his body to the United Kingdom,
his grave remains there still, "part and parcel of the history of
Zimbabwe" and attracts thousands of visitors each year.
"Cape to Cairo Red Line"
Rhodes' personal flag symbolising his "Cape to Cairo" dreamMap showing almost complete British control of the Cape to Cairo route, 1913
One of Rhodes's dreams was for a "red line" on the map from the Cape
to Cairo (on geo-political maps, British dominions were always denoted
in red or pink). Rhodes had been instrumental in securing southern
African states for the Empire. He and others felt the best way to "unify
the possessions, facilitate governance, enable the military to move
quickly to hot spots or conduct war, help settlement, and foster trade"
would be to build the "Cape to Cairo Railway".
This enterprise was not without its problems. France had a
conflicting strategy in the late 1890s to link its colonies from west to
east across the continent and the Portuguese produced the "Pink Map", representing their claims to sovereignty in Africa. Ultimately, Belgium and Germany proved to be the main obstacles to the British objective until the United Kingdom conquered and seized Tanganyika from the Germans as a League of Nations mandate.
Political views
Cecil Rhodes
Rhodes wanted to expand the British Empire because he believed that the Anglo-Saxonrace was destined to greatness.
In what he described as "a draft of some of my ideas" written in 1877
while a student at Oxford, Rhodes said of the English, "I contend that
we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we
inhabit the better it is for the human race. I contend that every acre
added to our territory means the birth of more of the English race who
otherwise would not be brought into existence."
Rhodes wanted to develop a Commonwealth in which all of the British-dominated countries in the empire would be represented in the British Parliament. Rhodes explicitly stipulated in his will that all races should be eligible for the scholarships. It is said that he wanted to develop an American elite of philosopher-kings who would have the United States rejoin the British Empire. As Rhodes also respected and admired the Germans and their Kaiser,
he allowed German students to be included in the Rhodes scholarships.
He believed that eventually the United Kingdom (including Ireland), the
US, and Germany together would dominate the world and ensure perpetual
peace.
Rhodes's views on race have been debated; he supported the rights of indigenous Africans to vote, but critics have labelled him as an "architect of apartheid" and a "white supremacist", particularly since 2015.
According to Magubane, Rhodes was "unhappy that in many Cape
Constituencies, Africans could be decisive if more of them exercised
this right to vote under current law [referring to the Cape Qualified
Franchise]," with Rhodes arguing that "the native is to be treated as a
child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism,
such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South
Africa".
Rhodes advocated the governance of indigenous Africans living in the
Cape Colony "in a state of barbarism and communal tenure" as "a subject
race. I do not go so far as the member for Victoria West, who would not
give the black man a vote. ... If the whites maintain their position as
the supreme race, the day may come when we shall be thankful that we
have the natives with us in their proper position."
However others have disputed these views. 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 Rhodes
quietly developed a more nuanced concept of imperial federation in
Africa, and that his mature views were more balanced and realistic.
According to Mensing, "Rhodes was not a biological or maximal racist. Despite his support for what became the basis for the apartheid system, he is best seen as a cultural or minimal racist". In a 2016 opinion piece for The Times, Oxford University professor Nigel Biggar argued that although Rhodes was a committed imperialist, the charges of racism against him are unfounded. In a 2021 article, Biggar further argued that:
If Rhodes was a racist, he would
not have enjoyed cordial relations with individual Africans, he would
not have regarded them as capable of civilisation, and he would not have
supported their right to vote at all. Nor would he have stipulated in
his final will of July 1899 that the scholarships that would famously
bear his name should be awarded without regard for “race”. And yet he
did all these things.
On domestic politics within Britain, Rhodes was a supporter of the Liberal Party. Rhodes' only major impact was his large-scale support of the Irish nationalist party, led by Charles Stewart Parnell (1846–1891).
Rhodes worked well with the Afrikaners in the Cape Colony; he
supported teaching Dutch as well as English in public schools. While
Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, he helped to remove most of their
legal disabilities. He was a friend of Jan Hofmeyr, leader of the Afrikaner Bond, and it was largely because of Afrikaner support that he became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.
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.
Scholar and Zimbabwean author Peter Godwin,
whilst critical of Rhodes, writes that he needs to be viewed via the
prisms and cultural and social perspective of his epoch, positing that
Rhodes "was no 19th-century Hitler. He wasn't so much a freak as a man
of his time...Rhodes and the white pioneers in southern Africa did
behave despicably by today's standards, but no worse than the white
settlers in North America, South America, and Australia; and in some
senses better, considering that the genocide of natives in Africa was
less complete. For all the former African colonies are now ruled by
indigenous peoples, unlike the Americas and the Antipodes, most of whose
aboriginal natives were all but exterminated."
Godwin goes on to say "Rhodes and his cronies fit in perfectly
with their surroundings and conformed to the morality (or lack of it) of
the day. As is so often the case, history simply followed the
gravitational pull of superior firepower."
Personal relationships
Personal life
Rhodes never married, pleading, "I have too much work on my hands" and saying that he would not be a dutiful husband. Author Robin Brown has claimed in The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes’s Plan for a New World Order that Rhodes was a homosexual
who was in love with his private secretary, Neville Pickering, and that
he established "… a homosexual hegemony—which was already operative in
the Secret Society—[and] went on to influence, if not control, British
politics at the beginning of the twentieth century". Paul Maylam of Rhodes University criticised the book in a review for The Conversation
as "based heavily on surmise and assertion" and lacking "referenced
source material to substantiate its claims", as well as being riddled
with basic factual errors.
Princess Radziwiłł
In the last years of his life, Rhodes was stalked by Polish princess Catherine Radziwiłł, born Rzewuska, who had married into the noble Polish family Radziwiłł.
The princess falsely claimed that she was engaged to Rhodes, and that
they were having an affair. She asked him to marry her, but Rhodes
refused. In reaction, she accused him of loan fraud. He had to go to trial and testify against her accusation. She wrote a biography of Rhodes called Cecil Rhodes: Man and Empire Maker. Her accusations were eventually proven to be false.
French caricature of Rhodes, showing him trapped in Kimberley during the Second Boer War, here peering from a tower clutching papers, with a champagne bottle behind his collar.
During the Second Boer War Rhodes went to Kimberley at the onset of the siege,
in a calculated move to raise the political stakes on the government to
dedicate resources to the defence of the city. The military felt he was
more of a liability than an asset and found him intolerable. The
officer commanding the garrison of Kimberley, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kekewich, experienced serious personal difficulties with Rhodes because of the latter's inability to co-operate.
Despite these differences, Rhodes' company was instrumental in
the defence of the city, providing water and refrigeration facilities,
constructing fortifications, and manufacturing an armoured train, shells and a one-off gun named Long 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. The military wanted to
assemble a large force to take the Boer cities of Bloemfontein and Pretoria, but they were compelled to change their plans and send three separate smaller forces to relieve the sieges of Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith.
Although Rhodes remained a leading figure in the politics of southern
Africa, especially during the Second Boer War, he was dogged by ill
health throughout his relatively short life.
He was sent to Natal aged 16 because it was believed the climate
might help problems with his heart. On returning to England in 1872, his
health again deteriorated with heart and lung problems, to the extent
that his doctor, Sir Morell Mackenzie,
believed he would survive only six months. He returned to Kimberley
where his health improved. From age 40 his heart condition returned with
increasing severity until his death from heart failure in 1902, aged
48, at his seaside cottage in Muizenberg.
The government arranged an epic journey by train from the Cape to
Rhodesia, with the funeral train stopping at every station to allow
mourners to pay their respects. It was reported that at Kimberley,
"practically the entire population marched in procession past the
funeral car". He was finally laid to rest at World's View, a hilltop located approximately 35 kilometres (22 mi) south of Bulawayo, in what was then Rhodesia. Today, his gravesite is part of Matobo National Park, Zimbabwe.
Legacy
Rhodes has been the target of much recent criticism, with some historians attacking him as a ruthless imperialist and white supremacist.
The continued presence of his grave in the Matopos (now Matobo) hills
has not been without controversy in contemporary Zimbabwe. In December
2010, Cain Mathema,
the governor of Bulawayo, branded the grave outside the country's
second city an "insult to the African ancestors" and said he believed
its presence had brought bad luck and poor weather to the region.
In February 2012, Mugabe loyalists and ZANU-PF
activists visited the grave site demanding permission from the local
chief to exhume Rhodes's remains and return them to Britain. Many
considered this a nationalist political stunt in the run up to an
election, and Local Chief Masuku and Godfrey Mahachi, one of the
country's foremost archaeologists, strongly expressed their opposition
to the grave being removed due to its historical significance to
Zimbabwe. Then-president Robert Mugabe also opposed the move.
In 2004, Rhodes was voted 56th in the SABC 3 television series Great South Africans.
A preparatory school in the Midlands town of Gweru in Zimbabwe is named
after him. In the early 2000s during the height of the land reform and
racial tensions, ZANU-PF politicians called for a change in all the
country's school names with colonial ties, however, efforts were mostly
fruitless as most people felt that it was unnecessary and names of
places they live in reflect the diverse identity and cultural heritage
of the country but called for the government to embrace the history of
the country and allow room for new names for new places in the
ever-growing towns and cities.
In his second will, written in 1877 before he had accumulated his wealth, Rhodes wanted to create a secret society that would bring the whole world under British rule. His biographer calls it an "extensive fantasy."
Rhodes envisioned a secret society to extend British rule worldwide,
including China, Japan, all of Africa and South America, and indeed the
United States as well:
To and for the establishment,
promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object
whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world,
the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and
of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of
livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and
especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of
Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific
not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay
Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of
the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire,
the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial
Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the
Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render
wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.
— Cecil Rhodes
Rhodes's final will—when he actually did have money—was much more
realistic and focused on scholarships. He also left a large area of
land on the slopes of Table Mountain to the South African nation. Part of this estate became the upper campus of the University of Cape Town, another part became the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, while much was spared from development and is now an important conservation area.
In his last will, he provided for the establishment of the Rhodes Scholarship.
Over the course of the previous half-century, governments, universities
and individuals in the settler colonies had been establishing
travelling scholarships for this purpose. The Rhodes awards fit the
established pattern. The scholarship enabled male students from territories under British rule or formerly under British rule
and from Germany to study at Rhodes's alma mater, the University of
Oxford. 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.
Rhodes Memorial stands on 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. From 1910 to 1984 Rhodes's house in Cape Town, Groote Schuur, was the official Cape residence of the prime ministers of South Africa and continued as a presidential residence.
His birthplace was established in 1938 as the Rhodes Memorial Museum, now known as Bishops Stortford Museum.
The cottage in Muizenberg where he died is a provincial heritage site
in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The cottage today is
operated as a museum by the Muizenberg Historical Conservation Society,
and is open to the public. A broad display of Rhodes material can be
seen, including the original De Beers board room table around which
diamonds worth billions of dollars were traded.
Rhodes University College, now Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, was established in his name by his trustees and founded by Act of Parliament on 31 May 1904.
The residents of Kimberley, Northern Cape
elected to build a memorial in Rhodes's honour in their city, which was
unveiled in 1907. The 72-ton bronze statue depicts Rhodes on his horse,
looking north with map in hand, and dressed as he was when he met the
Ndebele after their rebellion.
The founder of the original country of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),
Cecil John Rhodes first visited Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands of the
country in 1897. Captivated by the unspoilt and breathtaking beauty of
the area, he immediately purchased a parcel of farms totalling 40,000 ha
and then proceeded to import cattle from Mozambique and develop
extensive plantations of apple and fruit trees. When he died in 1902,
Rhodes bequeathed most of the estate to the nation, and this now forms
the Rhodes Nyanga National Park. Rhodes's original farmhouse has been
meticulously preserved and is now the Rhodes Nyanga Hotel. Housed in the
original stables is a fascinating museum that focuses on Rhodes's life
and his achievements.
Memorials to Rhodes have been opposed since at least the 1950s, when some Afrikaner students demanded the removal of a Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town.
A 2015 movement, known as "Rhodes Must Fall" (or #RhodesMustFall on
social media), began with student protests at the University of Cape
Town that were successful in getting university authorities to remove
the Rhodes statue from the campus.
The protest also had the broader goal of highlighting what the
activists considered the lack of systemic post-apartheid racial
transformation in South African institutions.
Following a series of protests and vandalism
at the University of Cape Town, various allied movements both in South
Africa and other countries have been launched in opposition to Cecil
Rhodes memorials. These include a campaign to change the name of Rhodes University and to remove a statue of Rhodes from Oriel College, Oxford. The campaign was covered in a documentary by Channel 4, which was called The Battle for Britain's Heroes. The documentary was commissioned after Afua Hirsch wrote an article on the topic. Moreover, an article by Amit Chaudhuri, in The Guardian, suggested the criticism was "unsurprising and overdue".
Other academics including Kehinde Andrews, prominent British academic
and author specialising in Black studies, have vocally spoken in favour
of #RhodesMustFall. However, Oriel College opted to keep the Rhodes statue, despite the protests. Oriel College claimed in 2016 they would lose about £100 million worth of gifts if they removed the statue.
Nevertheless, in June 2020, the college voted in favour of setting up
an independent commission of inquiry, amid widespread support for
removing the statue.
A statue of Rhodes was erected in the city of Bulawayo in 1904 in the
city centre. In 1981 after the country's independence the statue was
removed to the centenary park at the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe.
Encyclopædia Britannica,
discussing his legacy, wrote of Rhodes that he "once defined his policy
as 'equal rights for every white man south of the Zambezi' and later,
under liberal pressure, amended 'white' to 'civilized'. But he probably
regarded the possibility of native Africans becoming 'civilized' as so
remote that the two expressions, in his mind, came to the same thing."
As part of his legacy, on his death Rhodes left a significant
amount of money to be used to finance talented young scholars ("race"
was not a criterion) at Oxford. Currently, in Oxford a number of those
South African and Zimbabwean recipients of funds from his legacy are
campaigning for his statue to be removed from display in Oxford. When
asked if there was any double standard or hypocrisy in being funded by
the Rhodes Scholarship fund and benefiting from the opportunity, whilst
at the same time campaigning against the legacy of Rhodes, one of the
South African campaigners, Ntokozo Qwabe,
replied that "this scholarship does not buy our silence...There is no
hypocrisy in being a recipient of a Rhodes scholarship and being
publicly critical of Cecil Rhodes and his legacy... There is no clause
that binds us to find 'the good' in Rhodes’ character, nor to sanitise
the imperialist, colonial agenda he propagated".
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 Rhodes located on the college's façade facing Oxford's High Street.
The actual removal would not take place until at least early spring
2021, when a commission set up by the college delivered its report on
the future of the statue.
In May 2021, the commission reported that, while the majority of
members supported the statue's removal, the costs to do so were
prohibitively high, and the college would therefore not be taking
action.
Popular culture
Mark Twain's
sarcastic summation of Rhodes ("I admire him, I frankly confess it; and
when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake"),
from Chapter LXIX of Following the Equator, still often appears in collections of famous insults.
The will of Cecil Rhodes is the central theme in the science fiction book Great Work of Time by John Crowley,
an alternative history in which the Secret Society stipulated in the
will was indeed established. Its members eventually achieve the secret
of time travel and use it to restrain World War I and prevent World War
II, and to perpetuate the world ascendancy of the British Empire up to
the end of the twentieth century. The book contains a vivid description
of Cecil Rhodes himself, seen through the eyes of a traveller from the
future British Empire.
Rhodes is the unofficial mascot of Uncomfortable Oxford,
an Oxford-based tour guide and history organisation which focuses on
British imperial history. Much of their promotional material, tours and
speeches all focus on Rhodes's statue outside of Oriel College, Oxford, and they were central to organising the 2020 Oxford Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.
Rhodes was played by Ferdinand Marian in the Nazi propaganda film Ohm Krüger (1941), where he—like all other British characters in the film—was presented as an outright villain.
In 1901, Rhodes bought Dalham Hall, Suffolk. In 1902, Colonel Frank Rhodes erected the village hall in the village of Dalham, near Bury St Edmunds, to commemorate the life of his brother, who had died before taking possession of the estate.
Rhodes was a peripheral but influential character in the historical novel The Covenant by James Michener.
His memorial at Devil's Peak also served as a temple in The Adventures of Sinbad episode "The Return of the Ronin".
Cecil Rhodes was the subject of a South African television mini-series, Barney Barnato, made in 1989 and first aired on SABC in early 1990.
In 1996, BBC-TV made an eight-part television drama about Rhodes called Rhodes: The Life and Legend of Cecil Rhodes.
It was produced by David Drury and written by Antony Thomas. It tells
the story of Rhodes' life through a series of flashbacks of
conversations between him and Princess Catherine Radziwiłł and also
between her and people who knew him. It also shows the story of how she
stalked and eventually ruined him. In the serial, Cecil Rhodes is played
by Martin Shaw, the younger Cecil Rhodes is played by his son Joe Shaw, and Princess Radziwiłł is played by Frances Barber. In the serial Rhodes is portrayed as ruthless and greedy. The serial also suggests that he was homosexual. Countering the implication of Rhodes' homosexuality, historian and journalist Paul Johnson
wrote that Rhodes had been falsely smeared by the programme,
commenting: "In nine tendentious hours, Rhodes is to be presented as a
corrupt and greedy money-grabber, a racist and paedophile, whose
disgusting passion was to get his hands on young boys ... the BBC has
spent £10m of our money putting together a farrago of exaggerations and
smears about this great man." Peter Godwin
said of the film that "it feels like a work overwhelmingly informed by
malice, consistently seizing on the very worst interpretation of the man
without really attempting to get under his skin. Rhodes was no
19th-century Hitler. He wasn't so much a freak as a man of his time."
Rhodes features prominently in Wilbur Smith's Ballantyne series of novels, fictional stories based amongst real events in Rhodes' lifetime.
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (b. 1911) believed himself to be the literal reincarnation of Cecil Rhodes.
€ 1,799 million (2020)
€ 78.1 billion (2020)
