GOLD PAVED THE WAY
A. P. Cartwright +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Palgrave Macmillan
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-81681-1 ISBN 978-1-349-81679-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-81679-8 Macmillan and Co. Ltd. 1967 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-333-07326-1 MACMILLAN AND COMPANY LIMITED Little Essex Street London WCz also Bombay Ca1cutta Madras Me/boume THB MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA limited 70 Bond Street Toronto z MACMILLAN SOUTH AFRICA (PUBLISHERS) PTY LIMITED P.O. Box z3134 Joubert Parle,Johannesburg ST MARTIN'S PRESS INC 175 Fifth Avenue New Yorle NY 10010 By the same author THE VALLEY OF GOLD SOUTH AFRICA'S HALL OF FAME THB GOLD MINERS THB DYNAMITE COMPANY THB CORNER HOUSE
List of Illustrations Author' s Note CONTENTS PART ONE page vii 1X THE EARLY HISTORY 1 Mr. Rudd and Mr. Rhodes 2 After Diamonds - Gold 3 The Company 4 Rudd Sets off on a Journey 5 'Our Theory was wrong... ' 6 Shafts and Boreholes 7 A 'Swell' Engineer 8 A Profit of ~2,161,778 9 War Shuts Down the Mines 10 Lord Harris in the Chair 11 Profits Fall 12 Sub Nigel' s Riches 13 The Lost Reef 14 'The Egg of Columbus' 15 The Triumph 3 15 26 36 48 57 71 83 91 102 115 128 141 152 166 PART TWO WORLD-WIDE ENTERPRISE 16 A 'Gamble' in Foreign Parts 17 Red-letter Day 18 Goldenjubilee 19 Move to the Country 20 The First New Mine 21 Aftermath ofwar 22 The Master Plan 23 The Big Bid v 175 191 202 212 226 23 8 25 1 260
VI 24 The New Look 25 Advance, Australia! 26 Copper.. Tin... Coal 27 Looking to the Future Glossary Index Gold Paved The Way 273 282 293 3 4 315 319
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Cecil John Rhodes The young diamond diggers The Kimberley coach Lobengula, paramount chief of the Matabele Frontispiece facing page 38 39 39 The front page of the original prospectus issued by The Gold Fields of South Africa Ltd. in 1887 Charles Dune11 Rudd The first office of The Gold Fields of South Africa A diagram which illustrates the change in mining methods on the Witwatersrand Scenes outside Gold Fields' office on the day that Dr. Jameson surrendered in 1895 The arrest ofjohn Hays Hammond The scene in court during the trial of the Reform Committee in 1895 The Robinson Deep Mine in 1896 Dr. RudolfKrahmann 45 54 55 86 87 87 102 103 'Piling it on' II7 Dr. L. Reinecke 134 Dr. Krahmann with his magnetometer 135 Guy CarletonJones 150 Dr. Krahmann photographing in 1932 the area where the West Driefontein Mine stands today 151 A diagram showing how the magnetometer was used to detect the magnetic shales that lie below gold-hearing formations 152 FORMER CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: Thomas Rudd, 1887-1896 166 H. E. M. Davies, 1896-1899 166 Lord Harris, 1899-1929 167 Lord Brabourne, i929-1933 182 J. A. Agnew, 1933-1939 183 vii
V111 Gold Paved The Way H. C. Porter, 1939-1944 198 R. luxnan, 1944-1960 199 The West Driefontein Mine today 214 The new KloofMine 215 Harold Macmillan inspecting bullion worth ;(1,000,000 230 The Gold Fields' building in Johannesburg 231 The Harvey S. Mudd taking on the first cargo of iron ore for Japan from the Mount Goldsworthy Mine 246 The Renison Tin Mine 247 Dredging mineral sands for the recovery of rutile, zircon and monazite at Diamond Head 247 The open-cast workings at Queenstown, Tasmania 262 The late Howard I. Y oung with his two sons 263 Gold Fields House, Sydney Cove, Sydney 278 J. B. Massy-Greene 279 A meeting of the managing directors and senior executives of Consolidated Gold Fields in London 294 Sir George Harvie-Watt, Bart., T.D., D.L., Q.C. 295 LIST OF MAPS The twelve gold-mines administered by Gold Fields in 1965 facing page 145
Author's Note THI s, you will fmd if you delve into it, is the history of a company founded in London in 1887 by Cecil Rhodes, the Empire-builder, and his partner Charles Rudd. The fact that its early chapters read like a Rider Haggard novel is no fault of mine. Rhodes actually did buy gold-mining claims' off the peg' and Rudd did, in fact, interrupt his administration of the company' s affairs to make a journey into Matabeleland and there persuade Chief Lobengula to sign a concession. And when he was lost in the desert and about to die of thirst he did stuff this precious document into an ant-bear hole and with it a bag of sovereigns. These are but two of the many adventures in which the partners, and later the company itself, were involved. But the greatest adventure of all came long after the founders were dead and within the memory of men who are living today. In 1932 the company, beaten almost to its knees by the Depression, discovered a new goldfield in South Africa. This discovery, the result ofbrilliant intuitive reasoning and courageous prospecting, changed its fortunes and its destiny. Today it is a world-wide organization with a hundred subsidiaries and one hundred thousand men and women under its umbrella. Simply to say that this book was written with the co-operation of Consolidated Gold Fields Limited is to understate what actually happened. Men in South Mrica, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand dropped whatever they were doing and patiently explained. Often the explanation took days. Thus, in a very real sense, this is their book, for they contributed all the facts on which it ix
x Gold Paved The Way is founded. I hope they will fee1 it does justice to what they have achieved. Such opinions as are expressed are my own, not the company's, and I know that there is a measure of dis agreement about these. However, if I have no great respect for Rhodes as an authority on gold-mines or as a manager of companies my comments are hardly like1y to cause him to turn in his majestic grave in the Matopos. In fact, I be1ieve that ifhe were alive today and could read this account of the greatest mining discovery of the century and realize how very elose he was to it in 1887, he would mere1y smile ironically: he made a fortune out of his gold-mines anyway.