Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T13:26:36.277Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Historiography of Selected Works on Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Richard A. McFarlane
Richard A. McFarlane*
Affiliation:
Orange, California
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The historiography of Cecil John Rhodes may be divided into two broad categories: chauvinistic approval or utter vilification. In the Introduction to Colossus of Southern Africa, Lockhart and Woodhouse wrote: “Those who hated [Rhodes] most were those who knew him least, and those most admired and loved him were those who knew him best.” The earlier works written soon after Rhodes death, and usually by his “intima[te]” friends, constitute the first group. Later works written by historians and journalists largely constitute the second group. Generally speaking, the category into which a particular biography or history is placed has a strong correlation to the time it was written. Chronologically, these two groups divide at about 1945, when the last of Rhodes's intimate companions died and the British Empire was beginning to be dismantled.

The earliest published biography of Cecil Rhodes was Cecil Rhodes: His Political Life and Speeches, 1881-1900 published just two years before his death. The work was published pseudonymously under the moniker “Vindex.” C.M. Woodhouse, in the “Notes on Sources” at the front of his book on Rhodes, identified Vindex as the Reverend F. Vershoyle.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 34 , 2007 , pp. 437 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Lockhart, J.G. and Woodhouse, C.M., Rhodes: the Colossus of Southern Africa, (New York, 1963), 1Google Scholar.

2 Michell, Lewis, The Life of the Right Honourable Cecil John Rhodes, 1853-1902 (2 vols: London, 1910), 1:viiGoogle Scholar.

3 Verschoyle, Vindex F.. Cecil Rhodes: His Political Life and Speeches, 1881-1900 (London, 1900)Google Scholar.

4 Lockhart, /Woodhouse, , Rhodes, viiGoogle Scholar. Robert Rotberg identifies Vindex as the Rev. John Vershoyle. See Rotberg, Robert and Shore, Miles F., The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (New York, 1988), 759Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., 279-80.

6 Hensman, Howard, Cecil Rhodes: a Study of a Career (New York, 1902)Google Scholar; Jourdan, Philip, Cecil Rhodes: His Private Life By His Private Secretary (London, 1909)Google Scholar; Fuller, Thomas E., The Right Honourable Cecil Rhodes: a Monograph and a Remembrance (London, 1910)Google Scholar.

7 Michell, , Life, 1:viiGoogle Scholar.

8 Hensman, , Cecil Rhodes, viiGoogle Scholar. Note that Hensman used the present tense.

9 Jourdan, , Cecil Rhodes, 7Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., 197.

11 Fuller, , Cecil Rhodes, viiGoogle Scholar.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., 1-3.

14 Fuller was born in 1831 and died in 1910, the same year that Monograph and a Remembrance was published.

15 Le Sueur, Gordon, Cecil Rhodes: the Man and His Work (London, 1913)Google Scholar; Stent, Vere, A Personal Record of Some Incidents in the Life of Cecil Rhodes (Cape Town, 1925)Google Scholar; Baker, Herbert, Cecil Rhodes, by His Architect (London, 1934, 2d ed. Freeport, NY, 1938)Google Scholar; McDonald, J.G., Rhodes: a Life (London, 1927)Google Scholar; idem., Rhodes: a Heritage (London, 1943).

16 Baker, , Cecil Rhodes, 8Google Scholar.

17 Ibid./1938, xi.

18 McDonald, , Heritage, 7Google Scholar.

19 Sir James Gordon McDonald died in 1943.

20 Baker, , Cecil Rhodes/1938, 5Google Scholar.

21 Kruger, Paul, Memoirs of Paul Kruger (New York, 1902)Google Scholar.

22 Ibid., 192.

23 Phillips, Lionel, Some Reminiscences (London, n.d.), 141Google Scholar.

24 Ibid.

25 Williams, Basil, Cecil Rhodes (London, 1921)Google Scholar.

26 Lockhart, /Woodhouse, , Cecil Rhodes, ixGoogle Scholar. Michell also had access to Rhodes' papers.

27 Flint, John, Cecil Rhodes (Boston, 1974), 254Google Scholar.

28 Millin, Sarah Gertrude. Rhodes (London, 1952)Google Scholar; Maurois, André, Cecil Rhodes, trans. Wadham, Rohan (London, 1953)Google Scholar; Flint, Cecil Rhodes.

29 Millin, , Rhodes, 30–31Google Scholar.

30 Maurois, , Cecil Rhodes, 142Google Scholar.

31 Flint, , Cecil Rhodes, 228-29, 232–35Google Scholar.

32 Lockhart, /Woodhouse, , Rhodes, 1Google Scholar.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Flint, , Cecil Rhodes, 254Google Scholar.

36 Roberts, Brian, Cecil Rhodes: Flawed Colossus (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., 27.

38 Ibid., 122.

39 Ibid., 203-06.

40 Roberts, Brian, Cecil Rhodes and the Princess (Philadelphia, 1969)Google Scholar.

41 Thomas, Anthony, Rhodes: the Race for Africa (New York, 1996)Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., 347.

43 Ibid., 348-49.

44 Rotberg, /Shore, , Founder (New York, 1988)Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., vii.

46 Ibid., ix.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid., xi.

49 Cloete, Stuart, Against These Three: a Biography of Paul Kruger, Cecil Rhodes, and Lobebgula, Last King of the Matabele (Boston, 1945)Google Scholar.

50 Ibid., 4.

51 Ibid., 5.

52 Ibid., 321, see also ibid., 401-03.

53 As to Kruger, see ibid., 402.

54 McCracken, J.L., The Cape Parliament, 1854-1910 (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar.

55 Ibid., 62-120.

56 Galbraith, John S., Crown and Charter: the Early Years of the British South Africa Company (Berkeley, 1974), ixGoogle Scholar.

57 Hole, Hugh Marshall, The Making of Rhodesia (London, 1926)Google Scholar.

58 Galbraith, Crown and Charter.

59 Ibid., ix.

60 Ibid., x.

61 Blake, Robert, A History of Rhodesia (New York, 1978)Google Scholar.

62 Keppel-Jones, Arthur, Rhodes and Rhodesia: the White Conquest of Zimbabwe, 1884-1902 (Kingston, 1983)Google Scholar.

63 Ibid., ix.

64 Ibid., 637-38.

65 Flint, , Cecil Rhodes, 254Google Scholar.