My Town Monday - Part 6

I can't believe how quickly the weeks are passing and I am now on My Town Monday part 6.

I thought I would write about one of Bishop's Stortford's famous inhabitants - Cecil Rhodes.



Cecil John Rhodes was born 5 July 1853 at Netteswell House, a three-storey semi-detached Georgian property in South Street Bishops Stortford . His father, Rev Francis William Rhodes moved to Bishop’s Stortford in 1849 to become the Vicar of St Michael’s Church ( opposite the Boars Head pub !).



The young Cecil Rhodes was a sickly boy with fair curly hair, piercing eyes and a squeaky, almost ‘girlish’ voice. He spent most of his formative years wandering around Bishop’s Stortford, usually on his own, or sitting idle in the garden of the family home. The remainder of his time was spent attending the High School built by his father in the High Street.

Cecil studied under his father, who always expected him and his brothers to take part in parish work and attend regularly services at St Michael’s. Cecil also taught in Sunday school helping his mother with Bible classes.

His father wanted him to go into holy orders but Cecil’s preference was to become a barrister, which even his usually supportive mother was opposed to.

The solution to the problem came in the form of a letter from his older brother, Herbert, who had earlier gone to South Africa and successfully established himself as a cotton farmer in the British colony of Natal. He invited Cecil to join him, and on the 21 June 1870, at the age of sixteen, he embarked on a 72-day journey in an old wooden sailing ship called the Eudora.

Cecil quickly adapted to life as a cotton farmer, but Herbert soon grew restless and decided that there was more money working in the diamond mines.

Cecil realised the cotton boom was coming to an end and knew he'd stand a far better chance of making his fortune if he joined his brother in the diamond fields. He set off on the 400 mile trek to join him in October 1871, but when his pony died along the way he walked the remaining distance, covering about fourteen miles a day. He finally arrived there in November.

Cecil established a company with the De Beer family and today De Beer lives on as one of the world’s biggest and well known companies, still controlling about 70% of the diamond market.

Within three years Cecil amassed for himself a considerable fortune and in 1873 returned to Bishop’s Stortford a wealthy young man and visited his father who was now living back at the vicarage with his remaining family.

All seemed well, but the following year Rev Rhodes resigned his position as Vicar of the parish. He insisted it was infirmity and old age that made him resign, but his constant quarrels with churchwardens was common knowledge.

Rev Rhodes died in 1878, and Cecil, who had now finished his studies at Oxford, returned to Bishop’s Stortford for the very last time. But it was not a goodwill visit. His anger at the way the town had treated his father after all he had done for it was so intense, he cut all ties with his birthplace and never referred to Bishop’s Stortford again.

Cecil returned to South Africa.

In 1886, gold was discovered south of Pretoria in an area called Witwatersrand (white water’s ridge), which proved to be the richest deposit of gold the world had ever seen. It became known as ‘the Rand’ and within a few years a city named Johannesburg grew up around the gold field.

At the age of thirty-five he was, arguably, the richest man in the western world, and in 1889 formed the British South Africa Company for which he received a Royal Charter signed by Queen Victoria.

In 1890 Cecil Rhodes reached the peak of his political career by being elected Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and in 1893 he founded Rhodesia.

His ultimate aim at this time was to take control of the two neighbouring Boer republics, and that was to be his downfall. He conspired to overthrow the government of Paul Kruger, and after being implicated in the disastrous Jameson Raid on the neighbouring Transvaal Republic, all support was withdrawn and he resigned as premier in 1896.

In 1897 the British Parliament censured him for breaches of duty, after which he devoted his time to the development of the country that had been named Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in his honour that same year.

The final years of his life were fraught with ill health and marred by native rebellions in the Rhodesian territories. This, along with the deteriorating relationships with the Afrikaners, eventually led to the Boer War in 1899.

Ever since the 1870s, when he’d suffered two heart attacks, Rhodes had had premonitions of an early death. As his heart weakened in 1901 he decided to return to England and booked a boat passage. But his health steadily declined, and on 26 March 1902 he died at Muizenberg, aged 48.

On his deathbed he is said to have uttered his final words, ‘So little done, so much to do’.

Herbert Rhodes spent a short term in prison for gun-running and died in 1879, aged just 34. While pouring out a large bottle of home-brewed gin in his hut, an ember from his pipe ignited the spirit and caught his clothes alight. He threw himself into a nearby river to quench the flames but died shortly after.

As Cecil Rhodes lay in state at his 17th century Cape Town home, Groote Schuur (The Great Granary), more than 30,000 residents filed past his coffin to pay their final respects. His body was then moved to Bulawayo for another laying in state and funeral, and finally he was taken to be buried in the Matopo Hills, Rhodesia – known as ‘View of the World’ and the traditional burial place of African Chiefs. It is said a team of 1,000 Matabele carved a 25km route through rocky terrain for his cortege and that his grave was excavated out of solid granite rock.




His resentment towards the town of his birth left its mark and was possibly the reason why Bishop’s Stortford itself did very little to proclaim its part in the life of this great Englishman in the years following his death.

Before the Rhodes Centre was built in 1963, no public statue or portrait existed here to recall the features of either Cecil Rhodes or his father.

The only memorial to Rev Rhodes is a stained glass window in the tower of St Michael's.

At Netteswell House in South Street, a large plaster tablet was placed high on the wall of the house recording the fact that he was born in the room within.



A county memorial was actually proposed soon after his death and large sums of money were promised to the committee formed to oversee it. However, a difference of opinion soon emerged within the committee resulting in several members resigning and many subscriptions being cancelled.

The remaining fund stood at almost £3,000 and after advice from Lord Kitchener it was decided to use the money to build a Drill Hall. This was erected in 1906 to the south-west of the Market Square and still stands today There is, however, no mention, inside or out, of Cecil Rhodes.

In the 1930s the South African financier and statesman Sir Abe Bailey (1864–1940), together with several other prominent Rhodesians, was responsible for the inauguration of a Rhodes Memorial Foundation Fund: its purpose being to establish a Rhodes Memorial Museum in Bishop’s Stortford.

Some years later it was decided to further build on the side of the Rhodes family home and today we have the Rhodes centre which is used by many members of the community as an Arts complex. My children have dancing lessons here and my son starred in the yearly pantomime.The museum is also still going strong.



One unfortunate but amusing incident that occurred during building work involved the disappearance of a stone Roman coffin, found in 1962 near to Hockerill College. On removal from the site it was slightly damaged and later left in the garden of the Rhodes museum for safekeeping. Unfortunately, workmen mistook it for hardcore and used it to pack the foundations of the new Rhodes Centre !