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Kudos to De Beers

31st October 2014

By: Jade Davenport

Creamer Media Correspondent

  

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Last month, I had the pleasure of being hosted by De Beers while on a visit to South Africa’s historic city of diamonds.

For a historian interested in South Africa’s mining sector, a company such as De Beers, as well as its home town of Kimberley, is pure gold – or glittering diamonds, as the case may be – being the country’s oldest operating mining company and the home of the minerals revolution respectively. Established in 1888, De Beers Consolidated Mines has been at the very centre of South Africa’s mining industry for more than a century. It pioneered and contributed to the development of many aspects of the industry, ranging from financing to labour and technology, and has also endured numerous trials and tribulations along the way. Moreover, most of South Africa’s powerful mining magnates and personalities, beginning with the Colossus himself, Cecil John Rhodes, were at one stage in their careers associated with the diamond miner.

I have visited Kimberley on many occasions over the last couple of years – for personal tourist or historical research purposes. On every trip, I have passed De Beers’ head office, in Stockdale street, and have looked on in curiosity, the mind boggling, at the history that has been made within those walls over more than a century.

Interestingly, the building that occupies the 36 Stockdale street site was originally erected, owned and used by the Kimberley Central Diamond Mining Company, a firm that played a prominent role in the monopolisation of the diamond industry in the late 1880s. There are very few written records pertaining to the original building, this being attributed to the fact that such decisions and orders were, in the early days, given verbally – but it is believed that the construction of the office building, which occupied the corner stand of Stockdale and Market streets, was completed in 1887.

Following the successful amalgamation of the mines and the consolidation of all diamond mining assets under the umbrella of De Beers Consolidated Mines in 1889, the Kimberley Central Company was liquidated and its assets, including the head office building, were transferred to the new monopoly diamond miner. De Beers moved into its new office, which was described by one newspaper of the day as an “. . . unpretending double-storeyed brick structure”, in November 1889. Over the next few decades, De Beers undertook extensive alterations, extending the building along the block to Southey street and adding a balcony, supported by cast-iron columns. Such alterations, which produced the building we see today, were largely completed by the 1920s. The building was declared a national monument in 1984.

Being the company’s guest, I took the liberty of asking for a tour of the Stockdale street head office to see for myself the historic boardroom and, most importantly, the original cheque for £5 338 650 that proudly hangs on the boardroom wall. Arguably the most important financial transaction in South Africa’s mining history, the cheque, which is equivalent to more than R5-bllion in today’s monetary value, symbolises not only De Beers’ monopolisation of the diamond mining industry in the late 1880s but also the extraordinary wealth and power that was facilitated by the extraction of the glittering gems. The cheque was issued as payment for the Kimberley Central Company’s assets, which Rhodes had put into liquidation in 1889 as the final move in the monopolisation of Kimberley’s diamond mining industry.

I must confess that the experience of being in that boardroom was akin to a spiritual moment. The elongated room is dominated by a long boardroom table, a few pieces of antique furniture and a fireplace at either end, while the walls are plastered with photographs of a plethora of company directors. Quite appropriately, above each fireplace hang the photographic portraits of Rhodes and Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the two men who played the most prominent roles in the history of the company. While the cheque was not hanging prominently on the wall, the document being stored in the company’s vault for security purposes – it is a priceless document after all – was brought out for me to view. For a South African mining historian, there is no greater thrill than being enveloped in such a historic room for a few minutes.

The boardroom and all the historical artefacts in it are the embodiment of not only the company’s heritage but also a large part of South Africa’s early mining history. One can only imagine the meetings that took place around that table, which, undoubtedly, influenced not only the trajectory of South Africa’s mining history but also the country’s sociopolitical economy for more than a century.

While one should be careful not to venerate the company nor glamorise its history, or at least aspects thereof, kudos must go to De Beers for its efforts to preserve not only its own history and heritage but also those of Kimberley. Indeed, no other company can match De Beers’ historical preservation efforts in this country. Certainly, the company does not have the most squeaky clean history, particularly if one considers its role in the exploitation of cheap labour and monopoly mining and supply practices, but it has embraced this history nonetheless. Moreover, it is my opinion that De Beers understands a lesson many South Africans, particularly in this new democratic era, seem to miss: one does not have to turn his or her back on the history of this country completely, or, dare I say, erase certain aspects of history to move forward in a positive and transformative manner.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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