Jim B. Taylor
Encyclopedia
James Benjamin Taylor aka Jim B. Taylor (December 1860 Cape Town
– 25 December 1944 Cape Town), was a South African Randlord
and the fifth of 8 children of Isaac Rowland Taylor (6 November 1826 Holborn - 22 August 1888 Kimberley) and Jane Dorothea Hellet (7 May 1827 - 27 November 1876). He was married in Johannesburg
on 10 March 1891 to Mary "Mollie" Gordon (*August 1863 Ballater
, Scotland), daughter of a Pietermaritzburg
physician. They produced a family of 4 children:
Jim Taylor followed the normal route to great wealth - diamonds in Kimberley, gold in Barberton
and Pilgrim's Rest and ending up on the Witwatersrand
in Johannesburg
. His ability to speak Afrikaans
was instrumental in his rise to wealth and power, and he became a confidant of President Paul Kruger
of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek
. He acted as intermediary between the Government and the mining industry, and was privy to many of the political machinations leading to the Jameson Raid
and the Anglo-Boer War.
His first formal education was at Dalton School in Cape Town. Taylor was present when in 1867 Prince Alfred
, son of Queen Victoria, called at the Cape aboard the screw frigate HMS Galatea
(1859-1883) on his voyage around the world. Taylor's father and brother moved to Du Toits Pan, later called Kimberley
in 1870 when news of the diamond find spread, and the following year the family joined them, travelling from Cape Town on a mule wagon, a journey that took a month. Taylor and his brother Bill spent the next few years labouring with their parents while they worked the claim. It was during this period that he first met Rhodes
, who had contracted to pump water from Baxter's Gully close to the Taylor diggings.
The increasing depth of the diggings coupled with the hard blue layers encountered in the kimberlite
pipes, discouraged a lot of miners from continuing. This together with the falling price of diamonds, led to extensive selling of the claims to the larger syndicates. This consolidation gave rise to the growth in power and wealth of Rhodes
, Barnato
and Alfred Beit
.
Jim Taylor's lack of schooling was a cause for concern with his parents, so that in 1873 he was sent to Greytown
in Natal
to further his education. His uncle Peter Hellet, a sibling of Taylor's mother, lived in Greytown and it was felt that he could offer the necessary substitute for parental care. Taylor was accordingly enrolled at the German mission school at Hermannsburg. Holidays were spent with his relatives, the Menne family who owned a swath of land along the Umvoti River. Peter Hellet died in 1874 cutting short Taylor's planned education and forcing his return to Kimberley. The Taylor family ran into financial difficulties, and Jim Taylor found a job as assistant bookkeeper with the firm of E.W. Tarry.
In 1878 Taylor accompanied a trader Finnaughty on a trip to Kuruman
and beyond. On returning to Kimberley he volunteered to join the Kimberley Artillery to subdue two Griqua chiefs whose followers had been murdering and plundering in the country around the Langeberg Mountains near Griquatown
. This they managed with the help of the Kimberley Light Horse and the Kimberley Infantry. In 1879, having acquired a taste for exploration, Taylor joined Gus Fisher, a retired naval officer, on a journey to Spelonken in the Northern Transvaal.
Piet Buyskes, a noted lawyer of the period, invited Taylor along on a trip to hear the grievances of Gasibone, a chief of the Batlapin or Tlhaping tribe and to relay these grievances to the British government. Paul Kruger
on hearing about this, invited Buyskes to hear his own grievances against the Cape government in connection with the annexation of the Transvaal
, which he also wanted communicated to London. They met Kruger near Rustenburg and Taylor was present when they appointed a committee charged with having the independence of the Transvaal restored.
On Taylor's return to Kimberley, he took his first steps in diamond broking by joining Alfred Beit
, a partner of Jules Porgès
. Alfred Beit was at that time the leading diamond merchant in Kimberley and had established a reputation for being scrupulously fair in all his business dealings. However, he fell under the spell of Rhodes
's imperial vision, whereas his partner Julius Wernher
did not.
Taylor's brother Bill went to London in 1880 to establish an agency. Jim Taylor followed a year later, visiting his ancestral country for the first time, and taking the opportunity of doing the Grand Tour
. He returned to Kimberley in 1882 to find that a slumping market had financially crippled him.
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
– 25 December 1944 Cape Town), was a South African Randlord
Randlord
Randlord is a term used to denote the entrepreneurs who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa in its pioneer phase from the 1870s up to World War I....
and the fifth of 8 children of Isaac Rowland Taylor (6 November 1826 Holborn - 22 August 1888 Kimberley) and Jane Dorothea Hellet (7 May 1827 - 27 November 1876). He was married in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
on 10 March 1891 to Mary "Mollie" Gordon (*August 1863 Ballater
Ballater
Ballater is a burgh in Aberdeenshire, Scotland on the River Dee, immediately east of the Cairngorm Mountains. Situated at a height of 123m in elevation, Ballater is a centre for hikers and known for its spring water, once said to cure scrofula.-History:The medieval pattern of development along...
, Scotland), daughter of a Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg is the capital and second largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838, and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its "purist" Zulu name is umGungundlovu, and this is the name used for the district municipality...
physician. They produced a family of 4 children:
- Alfred Gordon Taylor (*1892)
- Frances Daphne Taylor (*1895)
- Iris Dorothea Taylor (*1903 - 5 September 1973) x Lt.-Col. Harold Boyd-Rochfort
- Lance Taylor (*1905)
Jim Taylor followed the normal route to great wealth - diamonds in Kimberley, gold in Barberton
Barberton, Mpumalanga
Barberton is a town in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, which has its origin in the 1880s gold rush in the region. It is situated in the De Kaap Valley and is fringed by the Mkhonjwa Mountains...
and Pilgrim's Rest and ending up on the Witwatersrand
Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700–1800 metres above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The word in Afrikaans means "the ridge of white waters". Geologically it is complex, but the principal formations...
in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
. His ability to speak Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
was instrumental in his rise to wealth and power, and he became a confidant of President Paul Kruger
Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger , better known as Paul Kruger and affectionately known as Uncle Paul was State President of the South African Republic...
of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
. He acted as intermediary between the Government and the mining industry, and was privy to many of the political machinations leading to the Jameson Raid
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid was a botched raid on Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic carried out by a British colonial statesman Leander Starr Jameson and his Rhodesian and Bechuanaland policemen over the New Year weekend of 1895–96...
and the Anglo-Boer War.
His first formal education was at Dalton School in Cape Town. Taylor was present when in 1867 Prince Alfred
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was the third Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and reigned from 1893 to 1900. He was also a member of the British Royal Family, the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha...
, son of Queen Victoria, called at the Cape aboard the screw frigate HMS Galatea
HMS Galatea
HMS Galatea, after the Galatea of mythology, has been the name of eight ships in the British Royal Navy.*HMS Galatea was a 20-gun sixth-rate post-ship launched in 1776 and broken up in 1783....
(1859-1883) on his voyage around the world. Taylor's father and brother moved to Du Toits Pan, later called Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
in 1870 when news of the diamond find spread, and the following year the family joined them, travelling from Cape Town on a mule wagon, a journey that took a month. Taylor and his brother Bill spent the next few years labouring with their parents while they worked the claim. It was during this period that he first met Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes PC, DCL was an English-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today markets 40% of the world's rough diamonds and at one time marketed 90%...
, who had contracted to pump water from Baxter's Gully close to the Taylor diggings.
The increasing depth of the diggings coupled with the hard blue layers encountered in the kimberlite
Kimberlite
Kimberlite is a type of potassic volcanic rock best known for sometimes containing diamonds. It is named after the town of Kimberley in South Africa, where the discovery of an diamond in 1871 spawned a diamond rush, eventually creating the Big Hole....
pipes, discouraged a lot of miners from continuing. This together with the falling price of diamonds, led to extensive selling of the claims to the larger syndicates. This consolidation gave rise to the growth in power and wealth of Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes PC, DCL was an English-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician. He was the founder of the diamond company De Beers, which today markets 40% of the world's rough diamonds and at one time marketed 90%...
, Barnato
Barney Barnato
Barney Barnato , born Barnet Isaacs, was a British Randlord, one of the entrepreneurs who gained control of diamond mining, and later gold mining, in South Africa from the 1870s.-Background:...
and Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit was a German, British South African, Jewish gold and diamond magnate, a supporter of British imperialism in Southern Africa and a major donor towards infrastructure development in central and Southern Africa, and to university education and research in several countries.- Life and...
.
Jim Taylor's lack of schooling was a cause for concern with his parents, so that in 1873 he was sent to Greytown
Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal
Greytown is a town situated on the banks of a tributary of the Umvoti River in a richly fertile timber-producing area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.-History:...
in Natal
Colony of Natal
The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on May 4, 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its...
to further his education. His uncle Peter Hellet, a sibling of Taylor's mother, lived in Greytown and it was felt that he could offer the necessary substitute for parental care. Taylor was accordingly enrolled at the German mission school at Hermannsburg. Holidays were spent with his relatives, the Menne family who owned a swath of land along the Umvoti River. Peter Hellet died in 1874 cutting short Taylor's planned education and forcing his return to Kimberley. The Taylor family ran into financial difficulties, and Jim Taylor found a job as assistant bookkeeper with the firm of E.W. Tarry.
In 1878 Taylor accompanied a trader Finnaughty on a trip to Kuruman
Kuruman
Kuruman is a town with 12,701 inhabitants in Northern Cape province of South Africa, famous for its scenic beauty and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature bringing water from deep underground to the surface in the Kalahari Desert....
and beyond. On returning to Kimberley he volunteered to join the Kimberley Artillery to subdue two Griqua chiefs whose followers had been murdering and plundering in the country around the Langeberg Mountains near Griquatown
Griquatown
Griekwastad is a country town in South Africa. It is sometimes still called Griquatown, a name which is now considered historical. The town is situated in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa about from the city of Kimberley...
. This they managed with the help of the Kimberley Light Horse and the Kimberley Infantry. In 1879, having acquired a taste for exploration, Taylor joined Gus Fisher, a retired naval officer, on a journey to Spelonken in the Northern Transvaal.
Piet Buyskes, a noted lawyer of the period, invited Taylor along on a trip to hear the grievances of Gasibone, a chief of the Batlapin or Tlhaping tribe and to relay these grievances to the British government. Paul Kruger
Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger , better known as Paul Kruger and affectionately known as Uncle Paul was State President of the South African Republic...
on hearing about this, invited Buyskes to hear his own grievances against the Cape government in connection with the annexation of the Transvaal
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
, which he also wanted communicated to London. They met Kruger near Rustenburg and Taylor was present when they appointed a committee charged with having the independence of the Transvaal restored.
On Taylor's return to Kimberley, he took his first steps in diamond broking by joining Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit was a German, British South African, Jewish gold and diamond magnate, a supporter of British imperialism in Southern Africa and a major donor towards infrastructure development in central and Southern Africa, and to university education and research in several countries.- Life and...
, a partner of Jules Porgès
Jules Porgès
Jules Porgès was a Paris-based financier who played a central role in the rise of the Randlords who controlled the diamond and gold mining industries in South Africa....
. Alfred Beit was at that time the leading diamond merchant in Kimberley and had established a reputation for being scrupulously fair in all his business dealings. However, he fell under the spell of Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
's imperial vision, whereas his partner Julius Wernher
Julius Wernher
Sir Julius Charles Wernher, 1st Baronet was a German-born Randlord and art collector who became part of the English establishment.-Life history:...
did not.
Taylor's brother Bill went to London in 1880 to establish an agency. Jim Taylor followed a year later, visiting his ancestral country for the first time, and taking the opportunity of doing the Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
. He returned to Kimberley in 1882 to find that a slumping market had financially crippled him.
Family
- Johan Pieter Hellet (12.10.1790 Regenswalde, Prussia - 4.12.1840 (Retired captain of a British ship) x 11 March 1821 Maria Cornelia Bandel (12.5.1806 - 2.4.1892)
- Johanna Wilhelmina Gertrude Hellet x 1844 Theodore Menne (1813-1905) (born in Germany, settled near Greytown - was owner of the farm CedaraCedara College of AgricultureCedara College of Agriculture is an agricultural college and research station near Howick, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, founded partly by Thomas Robertson Sim. The foundation stone of the "School of Agriculture and Forestry" was laid on 28 April 1905...
, built Menneheim)- Maria Wilhelmina Menne *1845
- Jane Aletta Menne *1847
- Peter Anton Menne *1849
- Theodore Menne *1850
- Wilhelmina Martha (Mina) Menne (1852-1880)
- Johanna Gertrude (Annie) Menne *1854 x James Egner
- Theodore Egner
- Ethel Egner
- Theresa (Trixie) Egner
- Colenso Egner
- Kathleen Egner
- Robert (Jumbo) Egner
- Chieveley Egner
- Irene Egner
- Annie Egner
- Joseph Charles Menne (1855-1931) x Martha Aletta Louisa Mare
- Louisa Martha (Lulu) Menne *1886 x Johan Havemann
- Victor Theodore Menne (1888-1913)
- Juana (Johanna) Menne *1892 x van Rooyen
- Durand Paul Menne *1895 x M Maritz
- Charles Joseph Menne *1897 x E Makkink
- Magdalena Letitia Menne *1903 x Charles Juckes
- Martha Elizabeth Menne *1906 x Jan Vivier
- Anton Ro(w)land Menne *1856 x Ada Browning
- Moran Menne *1857 x Dorothy Pringle
- Alme Menne x Rottcher
- Kinley Menne x Gladys Kelper
- Eula Menne x Taylo
- Blythe Menne x Helen Wood
- Robus Menne x Alexia Oellermann
- Roa Menne x Kenny
- Marianna (Minnie) Menne *1858 x Tom Brown
- Francis Charles (Frank) Menne *1859 x Elizabeth Cookley
- Doreen x H Clarke
- Gertrude Menne x Tony Tanzer
- William Menne x Rosemary
- Letitia Menne x Ian Torrance
- Elizabeth Menne x F Donaldson
- Theodore Menne x Louise van Dooren
- Anna Sophya (Bertie) Menne (1864-1912)
- Hendrika Caroline (Dixie) Menne *1866 x Thomas L Handley
- Dora Handley
- Justin Handley
- Sybil Handley
- Iris Handley
- Daniel Brink Menne *1866 x Elizabeth Baker
- Briton Menne x Mary Handley
- Saxon Menne x Olive (Polly) Owen
- Norman Menne x Stella Gunning
- Olive Menne x Chris Carstens
- William Hellet
- Jane Dorothea Hellet (7.5.1827-27.11.1876 x Isaac Rowland Taylor
- Peter Jurgen Ellis Hellet (28.4.1831-13.5.1874) x (21.12.1863 Greytown) Anna Johanna Botha *27.9.1847 Greytown (sister of Louis BothaLouis BothaLouis Botha was an Afrikaner and first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa—the forerunner of the modern South African state...
)- Louis Hellet *17.8.1865
- Maria Hellet *16.6.1867
- Theodore Hellet *23.11.1869
- Menne Hellet *24.5.1872
- Hendrika Hellet x Isaac Rowland Taylor
- Johanna Wilhelmina Gertrude Hellet x 1844 Theodore Menne (1813-1905) (born in Germany, settled near Greytown - was owner of the farm Cedara