Jules Porgès
Encyclopedia
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....
s who controlled the diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
and gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
mining industries in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
He was born Yehuda Porges in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and raised in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, where his father was a jeweller. He settled in Paris in the early 1860s and established himself as a diamond trader, through his company Jules Porgès & Cie.
He recognised early the significance of the diamond finds in South Africa, and in 1873 sent two of his younger staff, 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...
and 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:...
to South Africa as his firm's representatives. He arrived in 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...
himself in 1876 and continued their work in consolidating claims, financing deals and marketing stones, so that his firm Compagnie Française de Diamant du Cap de Bonne Espérance gained a significant portion of the Kimberley mine.
He saw the benefit of Cecil 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%...
's attempt to consolidate the disparate mining holdings, and sold the Compagnie Française to De Beers Consolidated Mines
De Beers
De Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...
in 1887. He was also instrumental in the negotiations that led to Rhodes buying the Kimberley Central Mining Company (the stake of Barney 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:...
).
With the discovery of gold in South Africa, at 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 then 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...
he turned his attention to gold mining and acquired stakes in many mining claims in and around 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...
and developed the financial structures that enabled their exploitation. With Beit and Wernher, and other partners including Hermann Eckstein
Hermann Eckstein
Hermann Ludwig Eckstein was a South African mining magnate and banker.-Life history:Born in Hohenheim near Stuttgart, Germany to a Lutheran minister, he received an excellent education...
and Eduard Lippert he was the founder of the mining and financial group known as the "Corner House" whose offices were on a corner at the site of Market Square in Johannesburg and whose name was also a pun on "Eckstein", "cornerstone" in German.
In 1890, he largely retired from South African business, and his interests were taken over by the firm of Wernher, Beit & Co.
He built a large château at Rochefort-en-Yvelines
Rochefort-en-Yvelines
Rochefort-en-Yvelines is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.-References:*...
just outside Paris for his wife and daughter and maintained a Paris townhouse on the Avenue Montaigne, where he housed his important art collection.
He died in Paris in 1921, having outlived many of his protegé Randlords.