The De Beers Group is a South African-British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining. It operates in 35 countries with mining taking place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Canada. It also has an artisanal mining business, Gemfair, which operates in Sierra Leone.
Cecil John Rhodes was an English mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia, which the company named after him in 1895. He also devoted much effort to realising his vision of a Cape to Cairo Railway through British territory. Rhodes set up the Rhodes Scholarship, which is funded by his estate.
Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, was a diamond and gold mining entrepreneur, financier and philanthropist, who controlled De Beers and founded the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa.
Alfred Beit was an Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university education and research in several countries, and was the "silent partner" who structured the capital flight from post-Boer War South Africa to Rhodesia. Beit's assets were structured around the so-called Corner House Group, which through its holdings in various companies controlled 37 per cent of the gold produced at the Witwatersrand's goldfields in Johannesburg in 1913.
Barney Barnato was a British Randlord and diamond magnate who was one of the entrepreneurs who gained control of diamond mining, and later, gold mining in South Africa from the 1870s up to World War I. He was known as a rival of Cecil Rhodes.
John Hays Hammond was an American mining engineer, diplomat, and philanthropist. He amassed a sizable fortune before the age of 40. An early advocate of deep mining, Hammond was given complete charge of Cecil Rhodes' mines in South Africa and made each undertaking a financial success. He was a main force planning and executing the Jameson Raid in 1895. It was a fiasco and Hammond, along with the other leaders of the Johannesburg Reform Committee, was arrested and sentenced to death. The Reform Committee leaders were released after paying large fines, but like many of the leaders, Hammond escaped Africa for good. He returned to the United States, became a close friend of President William Howard Taft, and was appointed a special ambassador. At the same time, he continued to develop mines in Mexico and California and, in 1923, he made another fortune while drilling for oil with the Burnham Exploration Company.
Joel Woolf Barnato was a British financier and racing driver, one of the "Bentley Boys" of the 1920s. He achieved three consecutive wins out of three entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
The Joel family of England was headed by three brothers, Jack, Woolf and Solomon, who made a fortune in diamond and gold mining in South Africa. Their father was Joel Joel (1836–1893) and their mother Catherine "Kate" Joel née Isaacs (1840–1917), a sister of Barnett Isaacs, later known as Barney Barnato.
Randlords were the capitalists who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa from the 1870s up to World War I.
Jules Porgès was a Paris-based financier who played a central role in the rise of the Randlords who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa.
Solomon Barnato Joel was a British-South African business magnate. He moved to Cape Colony in the 1880s where he made his fortune in connection with diamonds, later becoming a financier with interests in mining, brewing and railways.
Charles Dunell Rudd was the main business associate of Cecil Rhodes.
Sir George Albu, 1st Baronet was a mining magnate in the diamond and gold industries of South Africa.
Isaac "Jack" Barnato Joel was a British -South African mining magnate and a champion horse breeder.
Gardner Frederick Williams was an American mining engineer and author, and the first properly trained mining engineer to be appointed in South Africa.
Sir James Sivewright K.C.M.G. was a businessman and politician of the Cape Colony. He was a strong political ally of Cecil Rhodes and, as his cabinet minister, was implicated in the "Logan" corruption scandal that led to the fall of the first Rhodes government.
Barnato Park High School is a co-educational school located in Berea, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was built on the site of the mansion that had been designed for Barney Barnato, the mining millionaire.
Richard William Murray Sr. was a journalist, editor, newspaper proprietor and politician of the Cape Colony.
John Stroyan was a Scottish industrialist and businessman. He was a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) for West Perthshire from 1900 to 1906.
