Читать книгу The History of Mining - Michael Coulson - Страница 69

If Rhodes was the great political figure in late 19th century South Africa, his business rival Barney Barnato was definitely the most colourful of the Randlords. Barney was born Barnett Isaacs in 1852 in the East End of London, one of five children of Isaac Isaacs, a Jewish shopkeeper. His early life was one of grinding poverty and earning money by his wits as a Petticoat Lane trader and also with his brother Harry, a magician, in a minor music hall act in London.

Hearing of the diamond rush in South Africa, Harry went to Kimberley and set himself up as a diamond buyer and also starred as a magician at the Mutual Hall. Barney soon followed Harry to Kimberley in 1873 and set up as a diamond dealer, and also not very successfully worked some claims. His talent as a stage actor led him to augment his income with regular performances at the Theatre Royal in Kimberley, where he was a popular turn.

Eventually Barney and his brother joined forces to trade diamonds at a difficult time for the market and in 1876 they bought a further number of claims. This proved a good deal for Barney – the claims were highly prospective and initially produced a weekly income of £1,800. Barney also decided in 1878 to enter politics and stood for the Kimberley Town Council. He won his election in circumstances that some observers thought dubious, but he proved both a colourful and diligent councillor, particularly when supporting the local market by using the old promotional charm he had learned in the East End as a youth.

In the early 1880s the amalgamation of some of the Kimberley diggings as a result of the increasing depth of the mining led to the formation of the Barnato Company, which became one of the most profitable operators for a time. The difficulties that many of the new larger organisations mining in Kimberley experienced did not seem to trouble Barnato’s operations, which led to speculation that the company was deeply involved in dealing in illegal (stolen) diamonds, a common activity at the time. Indeed the popular Barney’s reputation plunged when he manoeuvred to have one of Kimberley’s leading policemen – who was responsible for cracking down on illegal diamonds – dismissed from the force. Barnato’s operations eventually suffered ground collapse and mining on them ceased for three years.

When mining restarted in the late 1880s Barney was ready to take amalgamation at Kimberley to its logical end. This pitted him against Cecil Rhodes. He and Rhodes went head to head for control of the Central Company and although Barney was far richer than Rhodes he lacked Rhodes’s tactical skills. In the end Rhodes became the largest shareholder in Central, and he and Barnato became uneasy partners. Although Rhodes came out on top Barnato always believed that it was he who had triumphed, a view bolstered by his chirpy confidence. His self-bullishness was further supported by his election to the Cape Assembly in 1888.

The same year Barnato, intrigued by the gold discoveries in the Transvaal, went up to Johannesburg to see if this was an opportunity for him to make another fortune. Although sceptical at first he decided that the gold story was real and he enthusiastically began to buy up substantial leases on the Witwatersrand as well as other businesses, including the waterworks in Johannesburg. His nephew, Solly Joel, managed Barnato’s Transvaal operations as Barney himself began to spend increasing amounts of time in London. His long-term lover, Fanny Bees, whom he had lived with discreetly for 15 years, became pregnant for the first time and so Barney finally married her in London in 1892. A daughter, Primrose, was born in 1893 and they had two other children later. Barney also built a mansion on Park Lane in London within walking distance of Joseph Robinson and Alfred Beit’s mansions, all of them monuments to the wealth that could be made in the colonies.

For a few years Barney was intermittently feted by the establishment in London but was never really accepted due to his East End Jewish beginnings. Whether in South Africa or London he remained the jovial soul of the party, but the clouds were gathering over his business empire. He was overstretched and cracks began to appear. All was made worse by the infamous Jameson Raid which was to have supported an uprising of the uitlanders (foreigners who had gone to SA when the gold rush started) on the gold fields against the Kruger government. It was a disaster and many of the ringleaders were tried and sentenced to death.

Barnato aggressively attacked the Pretoria hierarchy and Kruger himself, demanding clemency and threatening to divest from the Transvaal completely. Whether his intervention was decisive or not, Kruger materially reduced the sentences but Barnato’s days were numbered in any case as investors lost confidence in him. His penchant for seemingly divesting from businesses before they crashed and manipulating his own companies with no regard for the interests of his fellow shareholders has an echo of the more recent activities of assassinated robber baron Brett Kebble. It is eerie that Kebble’s master company, JCI, was a successor company to Barnato’s Johannesburg Consolidated.

In 1897 Barnato, who had become disturbed and erratic, and his family set sale for England from the Cape. During the voyage Barnato fell or jumped overboard and was dead when his body was recovered (a fate suffered more recently by fraudster Robert Maxwell). Although Barney had built and, in part, lost a great fortune from diamonds and gold in South Africa, and earned a place in history, to many in both South Africa and England he was just a spiv from the East End who eventually flew too close to the sun.