Cecil Rhodes

British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa (1853-1902)

  • Fame65.2
  • Momentum0.0
  • Wikipedia55.4K
Source-basedFalling
Lived 1853–1902, aged 49United Kingdom
  • Wikipedia
    85 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1853–1902
    Aged 49
Summary
Updated 2026-06-08

He built a diamond empire that still stands, carved his name into a country, and set up Oxford's oldest scholarship — all while seizing land and votes from black Africans in a methodical expansion of British colonial power across southern Africa.

Biography

About

The son of a vicar from Hertfordshire, Rhodes arrived in South Africa at sixteen for his health and entered the diamond fields at Kimberley by eighteen. With Rothschild backing, he spent two decades buying out competitors until he held a near-complete monopoly of the world diamond market, founding De Beers in 1888. He entered the Cape Parliament at 27, became prime minister in 1890, and immediately set about dispossessing black Africans — seizing land through the Glen Grey Act and tripling the wealth requirement for voting to bar them from elections. He oversaw the founding of Rhodesia in the…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes
said
The world is nearly all parcelled out, and what there is left of it is being divided up, conquered and colonised.
Quoted in The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes (1902) by William T. Stead (a compilation of Rhodes' legal will and other
Cecil Rhodes
saidundated
Equal rights for all civilized men south of the Zambesi.
Gordon Le Sueur, Cecil Rhodes the Man and His Work (1913: 2009), pg. 76
Cecil Rhodes
saidundated
I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. ...
cite web |title=The Story of Africa |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1624_story_of_africa/page26.shtml
Cecil Rhodes
saidundated
You are an Englishman, and have subsequently drawn the greatest prize in the lottery of life.
said by Rhodes to Lord Grey.
Cecil Rhodes
saidundated
The native is to be treated as a child and denied franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism, such as works in India, in our relations with the barbarism of South Africa.
Magubane, Bernard M. (1996). The Making of a Racist State: British Imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875–1910. Trenton, New
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Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Falling
65.2
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Historical26.0
Now attention12.5
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
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Country rank
Category rank
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence