Kimberley: South Africa's historic diamond city

Barbara and I had a quick pit-stop in Kimberley in 1969, en route from Cape Town to Johannesburg, but did not have time to visit the museum or the famous 'Big Hole'.  We stopped here again on Monday and Tuesday of this week, after our 10 days in Cape Town for Flotation '19, and this time we did get the chance to explore this historic area, where Cecil Rhodes made his fortune and the De Beers Company was born.

The first diamonds here were found by Erasmus Jacobs on Colesberg Kopje on the farm Vooruitzigt belonging to the De Beers brothers, in 1871. The ensuing scramble for claims led to the place being called New Rush, later renamed Kimberley in 1873. From mid-July 1871 to 1914 up to 50,000 miners dug the hole with picks and shovels, yielding 2,720 kg (13,600,000 carats) of diamonds. The Big Hole is 463 metres wide. It was excavated to a depth of 240 metres, but then partially infilled with debris reducing its depth to about 215 metres. Since then it has accumulated about 40 metres of water, leaving 175 metres of the hole visible.

In 1872, one year after digging started, the population of the camp of diggers grew to around 50,000. As digging progressed, many men met their deaths in mining accidents. The unsanitary conditions, scarcity of water and fresh vegetables as well as the intense heat in the summer, also took their toll (the temperature was in the mid 30s yesterday in late spring).

Kimberley 1872

On 13 March 1888 the leaders of the various mines decided to amalgamate the separate diggings into one big mine and one big company known as De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited, with life governors such as Cecil John Rhodes, Alfred Beit, and Barney Barnato. This huge company further worked on the Big Hole until it reached a depth of 215 metres and perimeter of 1.6 kilometres. By 14 August 1914, when over 22 million tons of earth had been excavated, yielding 3,000 kg (14,504,566 carats) of diamonds, work on the mine ceased after it was considered the largest hand-dug excavation on earth. By 2005, however, it was reported that a researcher had re-examined mine records and found that the hand-dug portions of the Jagersfontein and Bultfontein diamond mines, also in South Africa, may have been deeper and/or larger in excavated volume.

Once above-ground operations became too dangerous and unproductive, the kimberlite pipe of the Kimberley Mine was also mined underground by Cecil Rhodes' De Beers company to a depth of 1,097 metres.

Today, the Big Hole and its surrounds have been converted into a museum and there is a fascinating reconstruction of the ‘Old Town’ at the big hole that gives visitors an idea of what it was like to live there back in the town’s heydays of the late 1800s.

@barrywills