The Diamond That Sparked the Great Diamond Rush
Introduction
The discovery of the Star of South Africa in 1869 transformed curiosity into obsession. Only two years earlier, the Eureka Diamond had proved that diamonds existed in southern Africa. While remarkable, it was a relatively modest stone and many still believed it was little more than an isolated discovery.
Then an extraordinary rough diamond weighing 83.5 carats was found beside the Orange River. News spread rapidly around the world. Newspapers reported the discovery, investors took notice and thousands of fortune seekers began travelling to southern Africa.
Within two years, prospectors would discover the rich diamond deposits around present-day Kimberley, giving birth to one of the greatest diamond rushes in history.
A Remarkable Discovery
The Star of South Africa was discovered in 1869 on the banks of the Orange River near Hopetown (120km southwest of present-day Kimberley).
Historical accounts differ on exactly who found it. Some identify the discoverer as a young Griqua shepherd, while others refer to a Griqua man named Swartbooi. Whatever the true story, the rough crystal immediately attracted attention because of its exceptional size.
The uncut diamond weighed 83.5 carats, almost four times the size of the Eureka Diamond, which had been found in a similar location two years earlier.
Schalk van Niekerk Takes Another Gamble
One man immediately recognised its potential. Schalk van Niekerk had already played an important role in the discovery of the Eureka Diamond. Having learned to recognise the characteristics of rough diamonds, he believed this new stone could be worth a fortune.
He exchanged almost everything he owned for it:
- 500 sheep
- 10 oxen
- 1 horse
It was an extraordinary gamble.
A few days later, he sold the stone in Hopetown to the Lilienfeld Brothers for £11,200, making it one of the most valuable gemstones ever found in southern Africa at that time. The Lilienfeld Brothers later gave the diamond the name by which it is still known today: The Star of South Africa.
From Rough Crystal to Famous Gem
The diamond was sent to Europe, where it was expertly cut and polished into a magnificent 47.69-carat pear-shaped brilliant.
Eventually, it was purchased by William Ward, Earl of Dudley, who presented it to his wife, the Countess of Dudley, as part of an elaborate diamond head ornament containing ninety-five smaller diamonds. For many years, it became known simply as the Dudley Diamond.
Today, the Star of South Africa remains in a private collection, although it has occasionally been displayed in museums and international exhibitions.
The Discovery That Changed a Nation
The true importance of the Star of South Africa lies not in its beauty but in its impact. The Eureka Diamond had proved diamonds existed. The Star of South Africa proved there were fortunes waiting to be found.
News of such an enormous diamond convinced prospectors from across southern Africa, Britain, Europe and beyond to search for more. The Orange River diggings became crowded with hopeful miners, and exploration spread rapidly northwards.
Within only two years:
🔷 diamonds were discovered at Klip Drift (today Barkly West);
🔷 rich deposits were found at Bultfontein and Du Toit's Pan (today Beaconsfield);
🔷 the De Beers Mine and Kimberley Mine were discovered;
🔷 the mining settlements that later became Beaconsfield and Kimberley rapidly expanded;
🔷 Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato arrived on the diamond fields;
🔷 De Beers Consolidated Mines was eventually established.
Few individual gemstones have had such a profound influence on the history of an entire country.
The Discovery That Changed a Nation
Although the Eureka Diamond created considerable excitement, the real diamond rush began two years later with the discovery of the much larger Star of South Africa.
Together, these discoveries convinced thousands of fortune seekers that southern Africa held immense diamond wealth. Within only a few years:
- diamonds were discovered at Klip Drift (today Barkly West);
- rich deposits were found at Bultfontein and Du Toit's Pan (today Beaconsfield);
- the De Beers Mine and Kimberley Mine were discovered (today in the centre of Kimberley);
- the mining settlements that later became Beaconsfield and Kimberley rapidly expanded (today amalgamated to form the city of Kimberley);
- Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato arrived on the diamond fields;
- De Beers Consolidated Mines was established.
Few individual gemstones have had such a profound influence on the history of an entire country.
Returning Home
On 16 April 1946, the Eureka Diamond was sold at Christie's in London as part of a jewellery piece.
More than twenty years later, in 1967, exactly one hundred years after its discovery, De Beers purchased the diamond and donated it to the people of South Africa.
Today, visitors can see the Eureka Diamond on display at the Kimberley Mine Museum, where it has become one of the museum's most treasured exhibits.
For many visitors, standing before this small diamond is a reminder that great historical events often begin with the simplest of discoveries.
Visiting the Eureka Diamond
The Eureka Diamond is on permanent display at the Kimberley Mine Museum, one of the city's premier attractions. Visitors can view the diamond while exploring the fascinating history of Kimberley's diamond industry, the Big Hole and the remarkable discoveries that transformed South Africa.
Legacy
The Eureka Diamond transformed far more than the fortunes of a single family. Its discovery led to the development of South Africa's diamond industry, the rapid growth of Kimberley, the creation of De Beers, and the Mineral Revolution that reshaped the country's economy and society.
For better and for worse, the story of modern South Africa cannot be told without the Eureka Diamond, found on the banks of the Orange River in Hopetown.
Reflection
Nearly fifty years after the Eureka Diamond was discovered, Kimberley-born writer and political leader Solomon (Sol) Plaatje reflected on the human cost of South Africa's mining industry:
Two hundred thousand subterranean heroes who, by day and by night, for a mere pittance lay down their lives to the familiar ‘fall of rock’ and who, at deep levels, ranging from 1 000 to 3 000 feet in the bowels of the earth, sacrifice their lungs to the rock dust which develops miners' phthisis and pneumonia.
Eureka Diamond
Did you know?
Did you know?
The Eureka Diamond originally weighed 21.25 carats but today weighs only 10.73 carats after being cut into a cushion-shaped brilliant.
The Diamond Rush
Later that year, in December 1870, children found diamonds while playing next to Du Toit's Pan on their father's farm, Dortsfontein (Dry Fountain). A whole army of diggers stampeded to the place, and the site is now the second colossal hole in the ground of Dutoitspan Mine. Dutoitspan Mine, named such because the farm Dorstfontein originally belonged to Abraham Paulus du Toit, who had built a small house next door to the Pan, a basin shaped like a saucepan that holds water. Du Toit sold the farm to a Mr Geyer for £525 on 12 May 1865, and he, in turn, sold it to Adriaan J. van Wyk for £870 on 6 January 1869.
In May 1871, a new discovery was made on the farm Vooruitzicht (Outlook) that was owned by the brothers Diederick and Nicolaas de Beer (the title deeds to the farm were granted to the De Beers brothers in 1860). This was to become the third colossal hole in the ground of De Beers Mine.
In July 1871, a servant working for a party of diggers from Colesberg who were digging at the Du Toit's Pan, found three diamonds on a small kopje (hillock) known locally as Colesberg Kopje, just a few hundred meters from the earlier find on the farm Vooruitzicht. Colesberg Kopje soon became an indentation and then a crater as a new rush of diggers descended on what was also known as the De Beers Mine (the earlier diggings on the same farm became known for a while as Old De Beers).
The mining camps around the first three mines were named after their respective mines. With the latest discovery, the camp became known as New Rush, for apparent reasons. Over the ensuing months, the digger camp of New Rush swallowed up the earlier camp of Old De Beers.
With the renaming of New Rush as Kimberley in 1873, the fourth colossal hole in the ground was known as Kimberley Mine. Today, it is known simply as The Big Hole.
One digger remembered the dry diggings of 1871 in the following manner, “The four great mines [New Rush, Dutoitspan, Bultfontein and Old De Beers] were roughly circular in shape, and claim holders erected their dwellings as close to the mines as possible, and traders, storekeepers and publicans put up their buildings in any vacant spot... thus each mining camp was composed of a central group of workings surrounded by a ring of shacks, shanties, huts and shelters constructed of any material that would keep off the rain or the scorching heat of the sun.”
The satellite township (now named after the BaTlhaping chief, Kgosi Galeshewe) was established in 1871. British Colonial Commissioners arrived in New Rush on 17 November 1871 to exercise authority over the territory on behalf of the Cape Governor. Digger objections and minor riots led to Governor Barkly's visit to New Rush in September 1872, when he proposed instead that Griqualand West be proclaimed a Crown Colony. Richard Southey would arrive as Lieutenant-Governor of the intended Crown Colony in January 1873.
Months passed, however, without any sign of the proclamation or of the promised new constitution and provision for representative government. The delay was in London, where the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Kimberley (John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley), insisted that before electoral divisions could be defined, the places had to receive "decent and intelligible names. His Lordship declined to be in any way connected with such a vulgarism as New Rush, and as for the Dutch name, Vooruitzicht… he could neither spell nor pronounce it."
The matter was referred to Southey, who then passed it on to his Colonial Secretary, J.B. Currey. A correspondent at the time wrote, "When it came to renaming New Rush, Currey proved himself a worthy diplomat. He made quite sure that Lord Kimberley would be able both to spell and pronounce the name of the main electoral division by, as he says, calling it 'after His Lordship'."
New Rush became Kimberley by Proclamation on 5 July 1873. Digger sentiment was expressed in an editorial in the Diamond Field newspaper, which stated, "We went to sleep in New Rush and woke up in Kimberley, and so our dream was gone." Kimberley became a municipality in 1877.
The digger camp of Du Toit’s Pan also swallowed up the earlier camp of Bultfontein. It was subsequently renamed Beaconsfield after the former British Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield (Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield). By 1882, a tramway connected Kimberley to Beaconsfield, and the streets were illuminated by the first electric lights in Southern Africa.
In 1888, an incredible amalgamation occurred between Rhodes' De Beers Mine and Barney Barnato's Kimberley Central Mining Company. The Wesselton Mine, located near the Bultfontein and Dutoitspan Mines, commenced operations in 1890. It was the fifth and last of the colossal Kimberley mines. Also in 1890, Rhodes rose from being the digger's representative for Barkly West in the Cape Legislature to Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.
A lesser-known fact is that the Seventh-day Adventist religious group was founded by Ellen G. White in 1863 in a small, corrugated-iron church located on the corner of Blackstone Avenue and Dyer Place in present-day Battle Creek, Michigan. It was amply financed to the sum of £451,438, paid in 1891 by the De Beers company in exchange for the Wesselton Mine, a property of the Wessels family.
The two towns of Kimberley and Beaconsfield were eventually amalgamated in 1912 to form the City of Kimberley.
Slideshow from the 1870s
