Rhodes, Cecil John
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Cecil John (1853-1902), a south African financier and statesman. He was a native of Hertfordshire, England. He was educated with a view to a university career, but, finding that his health did not permit close application, he went to South Africa in 1870. The excitement attendant on the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley was at its height. He made his way to the diamond fields and became a millionaire before he was twenty. He then returned to England, intending to pursue his education, but the return of his old sickness and his love of adventure drove him back to Africa. He was one of the first Britons to foresee the possibilities of southern Africa,--one of the first to map out a plan of extensive British dominion in that region. He was a central figure in South African politics for two decades. In 1895 he organized a raid into the Transvaal with a view to the annexation of that republic, but President Kruger was too shrewd for him. The consummation of his plans was brought about later, however, by the Boer War. Public opinion of Rhodes' character varies greatly. By many he was considered an unprincipled adventurer, an oppressor of the native population, one who had no respect for the rights of others, whether individuals or nations. By others he is considered a far-seeing statesman. A region embracing 750,000 square miles along the Zambesi has been named Rhodesia in his honor. At his death, Rhodes left a large fortune, the greater part of which he devoted to the establishment of scholarships at Oxford University. He directed that they should be distributed as follows: Rhodesia, 9; Cape Colony, 12; Natal, 3; Australia, 18; New Zealand , 3; Canada, 6; Newfoundland, 3; Bermuda, 3; 2 for each state and territory of the American Union; and Germany, 15. Each scholarship requires residence at Oxford University and carries with it a grant of $1,500 a year. Holders must possess health, youth, and activity both of mind and body. It was a favorite idea of the founder of the Rhodes Scholarships, as they are called, that a body of 150 or so young men, brought together from all parts of the English-speaking world to the old university town of Oxford, would return to their native countries to be a positive force in shaping statesmanship and thought.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 note that "a region embracing 750,000 square miles along the Zambesi has been named Rhodesia in his honor" no longer describes any place on the map: Northern Rhodesia became Zambia in 1964 and Southern Rhodesia, after Ian Smith's 1965 declaration of independence and a long war, became Zimbabwe in 1980. The scholarships have outlasted the country's name and grown far beyond the list given here, opening to women in 1977 and reaching students from China, India and much of Africa; the German awards Rhodes provided for were suspended in both world wars. Where the entry notes that "public opinion of Rhodes' character varies greatly," that argument has become a public one: the Rhodes Must Fall campaign had his statue removed from the University of Cape Town in 2015, while Oriel College, Oxford, decided to keep its own. His unauthorised 1895 raid into the Transvaal is now generally called the Jameson Raid, and the claim that he was "a millionaire before he was twenty" is not accepted — his fortune came with the consolidation of the Kimberley mines into De Beers in 1888, when he was thirty-five.
Written for this edition, 2026.