1933 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Wood engraving for the cover of a biography about Cecil Rhodes in series published by Gerald Duckworth entitled 'Great Lives'.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Materials and techniques | Wood engraving |
| Brief description | Wood engraving by Eric Ravilious for the cover of 'Cecil Rhodes' by J.G. Lockhart. Britain, 1933. |
| Physical description | Wood engraving for the cover of a biography about Cecil Rhodes in series published by Gerald Duckworth entitled 'Great Lives'. |
| Dimensions |
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| Bibliographic reference | Cecil Rhodes was born in Hertfordshire, 1853, but due to ill health he was sent aged 16 to the warmer climate of South Africa. Within just two years he became involved in diamond mining and funded by the Rothschild’s bank, he succeeded in building up a monopoly over the entire operation, leading to the founding of the De Beers company in 1888, who continue to operate a billion dollar mining business from their London headquarters across the south of the African continent and Australia.
With his newfound wealth and ensuing power, Rhodes entered politics in the 1880s becoming Prime Minister of what was then termed the Cape Colony in 1890. His racist extremism underpinned further laws driving African people from their land, stripping their rights to own land, and disenfranchising their vote. Further dehumanising ‘pass laws’ followed, requiring African people to carry a badge and restricting them to fixed areas. British Acts of Parliament cemented these laws as a precursor to apartheid, giving Rhodes and other colonial despots greater autonomy. Land grabs and wars waged against Bantu peoples, Ndebele and Shona among others, created the state of ‘Rhodesia’ in 1895. Although the borders changed repeatedly, the territory largely fell into the present-day countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Dying in 1902, he had created a will for the foundation of ‘a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands’. In the end, he left various endowments notably the Rhodes Scholarship for approximately 100 international post-graduate students to study at Oxford University each year. It is the oldest and one of the most illustrious programmes of its kind. Linked in his will to four whites-only schools in South Africa, it was also designed to strengthen diplomatic ties between Britain and the United States of America specifically. Surprisingly, he stipulated that "No student shall be qualified or disqualified for election to a Scholarship on account of his race or religious opinions", although it has been interpreted that he did not envisage the prize ever being awarded to people of colour. However, the first Black Rhodes Scholar, Alain Locke, was admitted in 1907 and went on to play a central role in the Harlem Renaissance. Other early recipients noted by the Rhodes Trust include Jamaican National Hero and Premier Norman Manley (1914) and Jamaican-British sociologist and cultural theorist, Stuart Hall (1951).
In 1970, 85 Rhodes Scholars signed a petition denouncing the large allocation of scholarships exclusively to South African Whites as a “stark evil” and “intolerable example of the most extreme form of racial prejudice.” From this time onwards, a greater number were awarded to Black South Africans and African Americans, with women also permitted to apply for the first time in contravention of Rhodes’ original rules.
In 2015, The Rhodes Must Fall movement began at the University of Cape Town, calling for the decolonisation of South African universities and removal of statues honouring Rhodes on their campus. Their campaign was a success and the 1934 monument by Marion Walgate was removed on 9th April 2015. The protest movement gathered pace around the world with calls to remove a statue of Rhodes on the façade of Oriel College, Oxford, on whom he had bestowed £100,000 in his will. On the 17 June 2020, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter (Black Liberation Movement) demonstrations, Oriel College voted to remove the statue. The Rhodes Trust, Oxford, also issued a renewed commitment to better address the ‘continuing history of pernicious systemic racism’ in which Rhodes played such a significant role as one of the most prominent agents of British imperialism and settler colonialism. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.595-1972 |
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| Record created | June 30, 2009 |
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