![]() ![]() Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament at the age of 27 in 1881, and in 1890, he became prime minister. His diamond company De Beers, formed in 1888, retains its prominence into the 21st century. Over the next two decades he gained a near-complete monopoly of the world diamond market. 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. 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. The son of a vicar, Rhodes was born at Netteswell House, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. Rhodes set up the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate. He also devoted much effort to realising his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. He 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. Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. ![]()
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