Cecil Rhodes
British imperialist, diamond magnate, founder of the Rhodes Scholarships (1853-1902)
Also known as: Rhodes, Cecil Rhodes, Cecil John Rhodes, Rhodes's
Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902) was a British-born South African mining magnate, founder of De Beers Consolidated Mines and the British South Africa Company, and Prime Minister of Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He is the founder-figure of Quigley's central narrative: in five successive wills between 1877 and 1899 he bequeathed his fortune to a secret society that would 'devote itself to the preservation and expansion of the British Empire' (AAE 2). The seventh and final will established the The Rhodes Trust and the Rhodes Scholarships; the earlier wills, in Quigley's account, founded what became the The Milner Group.
Life
Rhodes was born in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1853, the son of an Anglican clergyman, and emigrated to South Africa for his health in 1870. By the late 1880s he had consolidated the diamond fields at Kimberley into De Beers and was preparing the chartered-company push north into what would become Rhodesia. As Quigley summarizes, Rhodes 'feverishly exploited the diamond and goldfields of South Africa, rose to be prime minister of the Cape Colony (1890-1896), contributed money to political parties, controlled parliamentary seats both in England and in South Africa, and sought to win a strip of British territory across Africa from the Cape of Good Hope to Egypt and to join these two extremes together with a telegraph line and ultimately with a Cape-to-Cairo Railway' (T&H 143). His political career in the Cape ended with the catastrophic Jameson Raid of 1895-1896; he died at Muizenberg, near Cape Town, on 26 March 1902.
Quigley's framing: the founder of the Group
Quigley treats Rhodes as the originating personality of the network whose history The Anglo-American Establishment reconstructs. The opening paragraph of AAE places three men in a London room on a February afternoon in 1891: 'The leader was Cecil Rhodes, fabulously wealthy empire-builder and the most important person in South Africa. The second was William T. Stead, the most famous, and probably also the most sensational, journalist of the day. The third was Reginald Baliol Brett, later known as Reginald Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher' (AAE 4). At that meeting, on 5 February 1891, the three men 'organized a secret society of which Rhodes had been dreaming for sixteen years' (T&H 144). Rhodes was named leader; Stead, Brett, and Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner formed an executive 'Junta of Three'; an outer 'Association of Helpers' was envisaged (AAE 4). Rhodes was 'the leader' through 1899, when Stead eclipsed himself by opposing the Boer War; after Rhodes's death in 1902 leadership passed to Milner, the residuary trustee.
The wills and the Rhodes Trust
Rhodes drafted seven successive wills. The first, written in 1877 at the age of twenty-three, already names the secret society as its beneficiary. The seventh, executed in 1899, was the one that took effect at his death and established the Rhodes Trust with seven trustees: Lord Milner, Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, Lord Grey, Alfred Beit, L. L. Michell, B. F. Hawksley, and Dr. Starr Jameson (AAE 29). This board was the publicly known board — 'the board to which the world looked to set up the Rhodes Scholarships' — but in Quigley's reconstruction the same circle of personnel was simultaneously executing the older, secret bequest. 'Rhodes in five previous wills left his fortune to form a secret society, which was to devote itself to the preservation and expansion of the British Empire' (AAE 2). The Scholarships, established by the seventh will, became 'the institutional reservoir' from which the The Milner Group subsequently staffed key Anglo-American positions throughout the twentieth century.
Rhodes and Stead
W. T. Stead, the campaigning editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and later the Review of Reviews, was Rhodes's closest confidant during the formative period of the society (1889-1899). Stead was 'able to get Rhodes to accept, in principle, a solution which might have made Washington the capital of the whole organization or allow parts of the empire to become states of the American Union' (T&H 146). The relationship broke during the Boer War: Stead opposed it, and Rhodes reprimanded him, saying that on this matter Stead 'should leave such questions to the others' because he, Rhodes, was the leader (AAE 30). Stead's eclipse and Rhodes's death three years later transferred operational control of the society wholly to Milner and the Kindergarten.
Legacy
Rhodes's posthumous instruments — the Rhodes Trust, the Rhodes Scholarships, and the chain of secret-society activity Quigley traces through to the The Round Table, the RIIA, and the CFR — became, in Quigley's reading, 'one of the most influential single forces in twentieth-century history' (T&H 146). Rhodes himself appears only briefly in Tragedy and Hope; the substantive analysis is in AAE, where Chapter 3 is titled 'The Secret Society of Cecil Rhodes.' Quigley's general attitude toward Rhodes mirrors his attitude toward the Group as a whole: sympathy with the imperial-federation aim, deep skepticism about the methods, and surprise at how slight the public knowledge of the operation remains.
Cited in
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 2 Quigley
The Rhodes Scholarships, established by the terms of Cecil Rhodes's seventh will, are known to everyone. What is not so widely known is that Rhodes in five previous wills left his fortune to form a secret society, which was to devote itself to the preservation and expansion of the British Empire.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 4 Quigley
The leader was Cecil Rhodes, fabulously wealthy empire-builder and the most important person in South Africa. The second was William T. Stead, the most famous, and probably also the most sensational, journalist of the day. The third was Reginald Baliol Brett, later known as Lord Esher.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 5 Quigley
During this period of almost sixty years, this society has been called by various names. During the first decade or so it was called "the secret society of Cecil Rhodes" or "the dream of Cecil Rhodes."
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 6 Quigley
The second period, from 1891 to 1901, could be called the Rhodes period, although Stead was the chief figure for most of it. The third period, from 1901 to 1922, could be called the New College period and centers about Alfred Milner.
- anglo-american-establishment · p. 30 Quigley
On 5 February 1896, three years after his sixth will, Rhodes ended a long conversation with R. B. Brett (later Lord Esher) by saying, 'Wish we could get our secret society.'
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 143 Quigley
His inaugural lecture was copied out in longhand by one undergraduate, Cecil Rhodes, who kept it with him for thirty years. Rhodes (1853-1902) feverishly exploited the diamond and goldfields of South Africa, rose to be prime minister of the Cape Colony (1890-1896).
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 144 Quigley
to federate the English-speaking peoples and to bring all the habitable portions of the world under their control. For this purpose Rhodes left part of his great fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford in order to spread the English ruling class tradition throughout the English-speaking world.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 146 Quigley
The power and influence of this Rhodes-Milner group in British imperial affairs and in foreign policy since 1889, although not widely recognized, can hardly be exaggerated.
- quigley-lectures · p. 81 Quigley
That's the method adopted by Cecil Rhodes some 50 or 60 years ago, you see. That isn't the American way of doing mining, even though, they are using American capital.