Creating the Kimberley Club – 1881

The first steps to creating a new club are said to have originated with a group of discontented members of the Craven Club in the late 1870s. The first practical steps were taken at a meeting on 20 May 1881, when 74 prominent Kimberley citizens enthusiastically adopted a scheme to establish a trust deed to erect a new clubhouse. With each of them pledging to take one debenture share of £100, the Kimberley Club Company was established. Among the founding members were Leander Starr Jameson, Charles Dunnell Rudd, and 23-year-old Cecil John Rhodes.