Background
The early history of Kimberley is also the tale of the discovery of diamonds, a definitive turning point in the history of the country. The first significant find was in 1866 on a farm called De Kalk, owned by Daniel Jacobs, near modern-day Hopetown. Jacobs’ children gave a stone to their neighbour, Schalk van Niekerk. He in turn gave it to a trader, John O’Reilly, and asked him to find out the value of the stone. The stone ended up in Grahamstown in the hands of Dr Guyborn Atherstone, who found it to be a diamond of 21.25 carats, worth R1000 and later named Eureka. In 1869 Schalk van Niekerk bartered for a larger stone from a Griqua shepherd; news soon spread of this stone and public interest began to grow. It came to be known as The Star of Africa and, in 1974 was sold in Geneva for over half a million US dollars.
In 1869 the search for diamonds was divided between two areas: the wet diggings along the Vaal River and the dry diggings on two farms 40 km south. The Vaal River diggings attracted most prospectors, as the summer heat and drought made conditions very tough on farms at Bultfontein and Dorstfontein. In December 1870 the future of the region was determined when the children of Adriaan van Wyk found diamonds near their farm, Dorstfontein. The area was immediately overrun by diamond-diggers and their equipment, including a party from Colesberg led by Fletwood Rawstone, known as the Red Caps. One night a servant appeared at his master’s tent with a handful of diamonds. He had found them on the slopes of a hill on the nearby farm of Vooruitzicht, owned by the brothers Diederick and Nicolaas Johannes de Beer. The hill was named Colesberg Kopje and, within just a few months, 50,000 diggers had turned the hill into a hole. Living conditions were very tough and supplies expensive. In 1873 the name ‘New Rush’ was changed to Kimberley in honour of the Earl of Kimberley, British Secretary of State for the Colonies. A twin town grew up around the Bultfontein and Du Toit’s pan mines, called Beaconsfield, after Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield. In 1912 the two towns amalgamated to become a city.
As the mines delved deeper, it became clear that individual claims would have to merge; there was simply no way of keeping them separate. At one point, there were 1600 separate claims at the Kimberley mine (now known as the Big Hole). In addition to the problems of mining logistics, the price of diamonds started falling because of over production. It was at this point that Cecil John Rhodes and his partner, Charles Dunell Rudd, entered the scene. Together they began buying up claims in the De Beers mine and, in 1880, they founded the De Beers Mining Company. As Rhodes and Rudd expanded their operation, they came up against a man with similar ideas, Barney Barnato. The ensuing infamous power struggle was only resolved when Rhodes gave Barnato a colossal pay-off for his Kimberley Central Mining Company. The Big Hole stopped producing diamonds in 1914 but three mines remain productive today: Dutoitspan, Bultfontein and Wesselton.
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