Alfred Beit
Financier, Businessman and Co-founder of Rhodesia.
Alfred Beit was the son of jewish parents, he was one of six children . Otto Beit was his younger brother. Beit was born on the 15th of February 1853, in Hamburg, Germany. He was sent to a private school where he failed to achieve more than mediocre results and this combined with a shortage of money led him to being apprenticed to a firm of diamond dealers in Holland instead of going to university.
At twenty two years of age he joined the firm of Lippert and Partners who sent him to Port Elizabeth, South Africa .He moved to Kimberly shortly afterwards as a diamond buyer . Here Alfred’s financial ability developed until he was recognized as a financial genius. He left the Lippert firm and joined Julius Porges, where he met Julius Wernher with whom he later became a partner and started their own company. The firm found success with Beit amassing a fortune first by buying property, then diamonds and diamond claims finally by buying gold claims on the Rand.
During this time he met Cecil J. Rhodes and the two became colleagues and lifelong friends. Together they decided that the diamond mines should be amalgamated. After many negotiations and struggles this was achieved and De Beers Consilidated Company was formed with Alfred Beit assuming the role of life governor . He approved and aided Rhodes ambitions for the extension of the British empire northwards into what would become Rhodesia.
He became a British subject and helped to found the development of Rhodesia a country he visited in 1891 and 1903. He was compelled by the Colonial Office to resign from the board of the B.S.A Company in June 1896 after the Jameson Raid 1895.
Beit died in 1906 in London, UK. The Alfred Beit Bridge between South Africa and Zimbabwe whose construction he helped finance is named after him.
