In today's "Tale From Watnall Hall", we accompany Lady Maud Rolleston, usually to be found comfortably at home at Watnall Hall or out visiting one of her many charities, but who today we find deep underground in Kimberley where she's hot, sweaty and 900' down the main shaft of one of the world's richest diamond mines.
It turns out to be a day full of exciting and unusual activities for her which appeals to her latent sense of adventure...
What's she doing there?
She was, along with husband Colonel Rolleston, doing her bit for the Empire. Times were very different from today and a Victorian, colonial Britain was fighting the South African Boer farmers for control of the incredibly rich diamond mines. The mining town of Kimberley had been under siege by the Boers for several months and has only recently been relieved. The front line has moved further north when Lady Maud and her companion nurse Nan Beaver arrive on the back of a troop train from Cape Town.
Ladies roughing it
The two ladies have not been not afraid to "rough it", travelling north 600 miles from Cape Town through the sweltering, fly-ridden country in guard's vans and on horse carts, quite different from their normal lives back in the gentrified country society of Nottinghamshire. It is dangerous work they are doing. This is a time before antibiotics or vaccination programs and a typhoid fever (or "enteric") epidemic is killing more soldiers than the fighting is. The nursing staff are also starting to die of typhoid in ever increasing numbers. Bad water is the cause and there are rumours of the Boers deliberately contaminating the water supplies.
Lady Maud's convalescent home
The Kimberley "School of Mines", usually run by the diamond-mining company DeBeers to train mining engineers, proves ideal for conversion to a convalescent home and it also comes with an annexed house for them to stay in. Lady Maud has one condition, that the convalescent home is open to both officers and men of the Yeomanry Cavalry which goes against usual military protocol. Typically forthright and convincing with her argument, she gets her wish.
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| Lady Maud Rolleston (centre) and nurse Nan Beaver with soldiers at their convalescent home Kimberley, South Africa June 1900 |
A visit down the diamond mine
In plain view from the home is the headstocks of the DeBeers mine and one day Lady Maud decides to pay it a visit. The pages of her diary take us with her on the mining adventure...
NB - With a warning that today's politically-correct terminology did not exist in Lady Maud's diary nor in colonial Britain in general, the word "kaffir" being used to refer to the locals, indeed part of the country used to be called "Kaffraria".
Political incorrectness is even in the town's name, originally called by the Dutch "Vooruitzigt" he town name got swiftly changed by...
...Secretary of State for the Colonies, John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley [in Norfolk], who insisted that before electoral divisions could be defined, the places had to receive "decent and intelligible names". His Lordship declined to be in any way connected with such a vulgarism as New Rush and as for the Dutch name, Vooruitzigt … he could neither spell nor pronounce it" So the town became Kimberley!
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| DeBeers's mine headstocks with "Conning Tower" on top used for signalling during the Siege of Kimberley |
"About half a mile from the Convalescent Home stands the Conning Tower, a small covered-in gallery built on the top of one of the highest shafts in Kimberley. From thence it was possible to overlook the whole of the town and the country around for miles, and during the siege Colonel Kekewich spent most of his time up there. Mr. Carey, Captain Powell, and I had started to go out for an ordinary drive, but as we passed the Conning Tower something prompted us to wish to go up it. To get there you go through the yard and into the engine-room, out of which opens a narrow staircase about two feet wide, with a slight hand-rail on each side, which goes perfectly straight ahead into the sky apparently. It is, I should think, 200 feet high. I started to go up, but found that my head, which is usually a good one for precipices, was still weak, I suppose from the fever, and I beat a hasty retreat with the horrible feeling that I was almost afraid to go down even the few steps I had gone up. I said I would wait for Captain Powell and Mr. Carey, who went on."
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| 3D view from the Conning Tower Stereoscopic image, to see it in 3D, go bozz-eyed until a third centre image appears. The soldier is using a heliograph signalling mirror |
"I was waiting about down below looking at the engines, when I got into conversation with one of the workmen, who asked me if I would like to look down the mouth of the shaft into the works, and we went down a funny little slanting passage into an underground room which was very hot and stuffy and full of steam. I asked where the steam came from, and the reply was, "Oh! it is always there; it is mostly dynamite and Kaffirs." There was a considerable drip from the ceiling as well. Just then Captain Powell and Mr. Carey appeared, and two or three more people belonging to the works who knew me, and asked me if I would like to go down the diamond mine. We were quite ready to do so, and were told to step into the cage, the floor of which was a large puddle of water with two rails across it. I had to stand on tip-toe on the rails and lean against the wall, and then we went down I believe 900 feet. I turned my skirt up over my shoulders as I had a tidy dress on, not at all designed for going down a mine, and one man put a coat over my shoulders. It was extraordinarily hot as well as damp. Down we went very fast, finally arriving at a vaulted room with passages branching off in several directions, and a group of Kaffirs sitting in various dresses and curious attitudes waiting to go up. It was all well lighted with electric light, but it was very strange and grey and cold looking, but very hot feeling."
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| c.1900 Map of Kimberley shows siege fortifications, the De Beers mine and Lady Maud's convalescent home at the School of Mines |
"We did not go farther, as there is nothing much to see, and I was haunted by a horrible story I had heard, that when the inhabitants of Kimberley accepted Mr. Rhodes's offer to take refuge in the mine from the hundred-pound shells which were then being freely fired at the town, they preferred, after a few hours' sojourn below, the possibility of being killed above to the certainty of being eaten by 'bugs' below."
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| Kimberley's "The Big Hole" was dug between 1871 and 1914 by over 30,000 miners using picks and shovels, this former diamond mine yielded 2,722 kg of diamonds. |
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| Kimberley today "The Big Hole" legacy of the old diamond mines. |
The rich "blue ground"
"The "blue ground" in which the diamonds are found is dug or blasted out and put into trucks which are sent above-ground, where it is spread out in big lumps on a great field. There is one which is thirty acres in extent. There it is left for a year or more to dry, and is the most valuable field in the world, as the thirty acres are said to be worth thirty millions. This great field, which one passes on the way to Kenilworth, is surrounded by a very high fencing of barbed wire. There are sentries round it, and an electric search-light plays on it at night, so that it is impossible for any one to steal even one small lump of earth, and it gives one a curious feeling in driving past to think that such vast sums of money are concealed in this very unpleasant-looking field. We went several times to the De Beers works. The Company was kind enough to give me orders to take my convalescents there, and it always made an interesting and not too tiring expedition for them.
Iron trucks are filled from the field with blocks of "blue ground," as the soil containing the diamonds is called. These are wheeled right into the works, which are surrounded by a high wall with sentries outside. The greatest precautions are taken to ensure that no diamonds are stolen. All the Kaffirs that work inside the works above-ground are convicts, and they are searched daily, and the Kaffirs (not convicts) who work under-ground are engaged for four, six, or twelve months at a very high rate of pay, but are never allowed to leave the compound where they live except to go under-ground to their work, until their time is up. "
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| The depth of "The Big Hole" in Kimberley compared to the Chrysler Building in New York |
The Diamond Mine and how it works
"The works themselves are very interesting. There are rows of great machines which pulsate all the time, and are therefore called pulsators. The object of this is, I believe, to force the diamond to separate itself from the "blue ground." In the beginning the lumps of earth are comparatively large, but they go through an immense number of different pulsators, with water running over them all the time, the dust in each case becoming finer and finer, until at last the diamond disappears, and re-appears mysteriously in another building, on the top of a series of sloping trays, each covered with a kind of grease that adheres to the diamond and prevents it slipping away.
The diamonds are taken off one or other of these trays, and then put into a common tin can, which is carried into the office, where it is upset on to an iron table surrounded by an iron railing, at which two men sit sorting, as it were, the sheep from the goats. That is to say, the diamonds and the crystals or other quasi-precious stones-garnets, for instance - which are also found in the "blue ground"; the larger diamonds are put in one cup, the smaller in another, and that is about all the distinction that is made at first be-tween stones worth a few pounds and others worth thousands.
The whole affair strikes one as an extremely rough process for dealing with anything so precious as a diamond, and yet the officials assured us that a diamond was never lost. The ground is gone over many times, going through many different hands, and as theft is impossible except amongst people who are above suspicion, the loss of a diamond is practically an impossibility. Of course to this is to be added the fact that it is next to an impossibility in the existing state of the law to sell a diamond in the rough, unless one has a pass proving that one has acquired it honestly. The trade of an I.D.B. (Illicit Diamond Buyer), which has been the foundation of the fortunes of so many people of wealth in the present day, is now so risky as to be practically non-existent. We were taken into the office, where the diamonds are kept in great safes, and were shown some lovely ones. Many of them looked like big pieces of sugar-candy, and when perfect they are nearly all octahedrons.
Many of the diamonds were a lovely pale yellow, which I admired very much, but their value is to my mind extraordinarily small compared to that of a white diamond. This is mostly a matter of fashion, although undoubtedly a very perfect brilliant is more brilliant than any yellow diamond could be; but I fancy that if some beautiful women were to start the fashion of a tiara or rivière of these yellow diamonds, she would not only find them exceedingly becoming to herself, but they would instantly become the rage. I think it was Sarah Bernhardt who said that no woman who respected herself ought to wear diamonds; and in a way it is true, because, except to a very young woman, the remarkable brilliancy of these lovely stones undoubtedly detracts from the brightness of the eyes and complexion. I should like to say in parenthesis that I have no interest in yellow diamonds. We were all given a few tiny garnets as a memento of our visit to the mines...
I was invited to bring all my party to the De Beers compound, where the Kaffirs who work for the De Beers Company are practically imprisoned during the period for which the Company engages them. The men are exceedingly well paid and extremely well taken care of. The compound is a large enclosure with small low houses all the way round, which contain their sleeping bunks, stores where they can buy food at low prices, a very comfortable hospital with three large wards, a good surgery and operating room, and a large chapel. In one part of the yard there is a great tank with a verandah all round it where the men can bathe. The manager, Mr. Manley, had got up a little performance for us of his Kaffir Choir, who sang extremely well, the men, like most black people, having very sweet voices. Then some of the men who were Zulus appeared in full war-dress, or rather undress. They executed a wonderful dance with howls and scowls and most extraordinary gestures and attitudes..."
Zulu dancing
"Some of these Zulus were very fine men, and they looked splendid, stalking about in their many-coloured blankets, but it is rather start-ling when, as happened more than once to me, a beautifully draped man takes the opportunity when he is walking towards you of wrapping himself closer in his blanket, because to do this he has to open his arms wide, disclosing a very scantily garbed brown figure within. The Kaffirs all feel the cold very much, and they walk and sit with their hands crossed over their chest, drawing the blankets under their chins, so this arm-and-eye-opening action is necessary to draw their blankets tight, and is very startling, to say the least of it. The groups of the men in the compound were wonderfully picturesque. Some were cooking mealie cakes, some making coffee, others play-ing musical instruments which were very like ghigelleras, only with the addition of small copper bowls beneath the wood. Others were playing football, and all looked cheerful and healthy and happy. "
You can read about Lady Maud's other adventures in South Africa and elsewhere by clicking here...
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Notes and Sources
Lady Maud's diary
De Beers website
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