♦ VI ♦
It
is one of the permanent issues of the art of biography in general, as
of business history in particular, to attempt to determine the extent
to which the man creates the opportunities or the opportunities create
the man. Without the necessary personal qualities, physical, moral and
intellectual, opportunities, when they present themselves, will not be
grasped; but without the concatenation of circumstances which
constitute external opportunity, the personal qualities cannot be
deployed to the full extent. The issue is one that cannot possibly be
summed up in quantitative terms: it is only possible to describe the
interaction of personality and environment in a specific economic and
social setting.
Providence
had decreed that Ernest Oppenheimer should be born of a family with
connexions with the diamond industry and also with the nascent gold
industry of the Rand. He was destined to work closely with two of the
three brothers of his who themselves carved out successful careers in
the world of diamonds: he himself received in his early years in London
and in Kimberley an invaluable training in the techniques of diamond
sorting and valuation. But without the personal qualities he possessed,
these family connexions and this training might have led merely to a
perfectly honourable, successful and lucrative business career: in
fact, they were only to be the background for a much more architectonic
and creative achievement. From an early age, his ambition was to become
a dominating figure in the world of gold and diamonds: for that reason
he desired to create a finance house under his own control. The turning
point in his hfe was the formation of the Anglo American Corporation of
South Africa in 1917, when he was 37 years of age: it also proved to be
a turning point in the history of South African mining.
Nature
had endowed him with a very unusual combination of qualities.
Physically, he was of less than average height, though even in his
later days he conveyed the sense of possessing great reserves of
strength and energy. But this was not the characteristic which most
impressed those who met him. He had, in fact, a most disarming and
appealing charm of manner, a charm which was not in the least
calculated, but reflected an essential simplicity and goodness of
heart, which won affection and devotion from those with whom he came in
contact, whatever their status in society or the race to which they
