The Years of Apprenticeship
1870-1915.
Ernest Oppenheimer (then in his 22nd year) arrived in South Africa in
1902. By that time the diamond industry had already had to grapple with
the twin problems of organizing the market and of controlling output:
the De Beers company and the Diamond Syndicate between them dominated
the situation, but the thirty years which had elapsed since the
discovery of diamonds had not been easy ones, and the difficulties
which were to become more intense in the future had already manifested
themselves. This chapter deals both with the factual background of
diamond history and with the family and business connexions of Ernest
Oppenheimer. His career in Kimberley was checked by the early events of
World War I, but by then he had acquired reputation and experience in
the thirteen years which had elapsed since his arrival, and he was on
the threshold of greater events.
♦ I ♦
etween 1866 and 1873
a series of events took place which were destined to revolutionize
South Africa politically, economically and financially. In the fifties
there had been a short-lived 'boom' in Namaqualand copper-mining, and
in the formation of copper-mining companies, and for some decades to
come the then sole surviving copper company, the Cape Copper Company,
was to prove a highly successful enterprise. But the scale of
operations in that barren, savage and remote area was too small greatly
to affect the economic life of South Africa. In the fifties, also, the
existence of gold in the Transvaal was proven by Pieter Jacob Marais
and thereafter the search for gold in that republic was continuous.
But the turning point in South Africa came in 1868. In that year the
news of the discovery of gold in the Tati area and in Mashonaland by
Hartley and Mauch in 1866-7 created great excitement both in South
Africa and in England—and elsewhere. Apart from the formation of
expeditions—so-called 'companies', though they were in fact only
exploring parties—from many parts of South Africa, from the Transvaal,
the Cape Colony, the Orange Free State and Natal, the news stimulated
the
