Lionel Phillips
Encyclopedia
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...
n mining magnate and politician.
Early life
Phillips was born in London on 6 August 1855 to a family of lower middle-class merchants, who formed part of a growing group of JewsJews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
set to play a major role in the commerce and politics of nineteenth-century Britain. His early formal education was limited, with a good grounding in French and chemistry. He started working for his father as a bookkeeper at the age of 14, but studied privately to become a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He arrived at the 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...
diamond fields in 1875, having walked most of the way there from Cape Town, and worked for Joseph Benjamin Robinson
Joseph Benjamin Robinson
Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1st Baronet was a South African mining magnate and Randlord. Born in Cradock, Cape Colony, died Wynberg, Cape Town....
as a diamond sorter, fleetingly ran a newspaper, The Independent and later became a mine manager. He made and lost his first fortune in Kimberley with investments in the diamond industry.
Mining and political career
Cecil John RhodesCecil 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%...
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...
befriended him, and in 1889 he became a mining consultant at the Corner House to Hermann Eckstein & Co., in which Beit was the majority shareholder. Phillips was described as "wiry" and having "immense energy and tenacity of purpose" - he had hoped once to be the manager of De Beers, but Beit offered £2,500 a year, expenses paid and 10 per cent of the profits from managing the firm's interests in the Nellmapius Syndicate. Phillips arrived in Johannesburg at a chaotic time, with 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....
on the verge of retiring and the Johannesburg share market in turmoil after a potential disaster had been discovered in the mines.
Within a short while Phillips became a leading player in the mining industry as well as an active supporter of the Uitlander
Uitlander
Uitlander, Afrikaans for "foreigner" , was the name given to expatriate migrant workers during the initial exploitation of the Witwatersrand gold fields in the Transvaal...
movement against the Transvaal Republic government. In 1885 he married Florence Ortlepp
Florence, Lady Phillips
Dorothea Sarah Florence Alexandra, Lady Phillips was a South African art patroness and promoter of indigenous culture...
. He succeeded Eckstein as chairman of the Chamber of Mines in 1892. The Phillips' house, Hohenheim, was built where the Johannesburg General Hospital
Johannesburg General Hospital
'The Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital , nicknamed Joburg Gen is an accredited general hospital in Parktown, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. It has 1088 beds...
presently stands, after Florence had suggested the laying out of the suburb Parktown, in order to escape the dust problem created by the ever-growing mine dumps south of the city. Hohenheim
Parktown mansions
The mansions of Parktown are an important part of the history of the city of Johannesburg. They were the homes of the Randlords, accountants, military personnel and other influential residents of early Johannesburg, dating back as early as the 1890s...
was the first mansion built in Parktown, designed by Frank Emley in 1892, and later became the home of Sir Percy FitzPatrick, author and mining financier. In 1909 the family moved to Villa Arcadia.
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...
, Phillips' measure of involvement in the Reformers
Reform Committee (Transvaal)
The Reform Committee was an organisation of prominent Johannesburg citizens which existed late 1895/early 1896.The Transvaal gold rush had brought in a considerable foreign population, chiefly British although there were substantial minorities from other nations, who the Boer referred to as...
' movement was revealed; the Reform Committee was a 56-member committee representing the grievances of Johannesburgers to the Paul Kruger government.
Phillips had awaited the outcome of the raid in Johannesburg, and was prepared to take part in the expected uprising. On receiving news of the raid's failure, Phillips handed himself over to the authorities on 10 January 1896 and pleaded guilty. He and the other ringleaders, including Colonel Frank Rhodes
Francis William Rhodes
Colonel Francis William Rhodes, CB, DSO , better known as "Frank", is perhaps the best known member of the Rhodes family after his brother Cecil. Trained as a soldier from his youth, he participated in a considerable amount of conflict in different parts of the world...
(brother of Cecil) and John Hays Hammond
John Hays Hammond
John Hays Hammond was a famous mining engineer, diplomat, and philanthropist. Known as the man with the midas touch, he amassed a sizable fortune before the age of 40. An early advocate of deep-level mining, Hammond was given complete charge of Cecil Rhodes' mines in South Africa and made each...
, were initially sentenced to death, but after six months of imprisonment most were reprieved by President Kruger and each fined ₤25 000. Phillips was cautioned to refrain from dabbling in politics on pain of exile, a warning which he ignored by publishing an inflammatory article in the Nineteenth Century, resulting in his being banished from the Transvaal by State Attorney Jan Smuts - Jameson
Leander Starr Jameson
Sir Leander Starr Jameson, 1st Baronet, KCMG, CB, , also known as "Doctor Jim", "The Doctor" or "Lanner", was a British colonial statesman who was best known for his involvement in the Jameson Raid....
and his fellow raiders were sent to London by Kruger, there to be tried by a Crown court, much to the embarrassment of all involved, while Rhodes was forced to resign as chairman of the British South Africa Company
British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company was established by Cecil Rhodes through the amalgamation of the Central Search Association and the Exploring Company Ltd., receiving a royal charter in 1889...
and as Cape Prime Minister. Phillips settled at and almost completely rebuilt Tylney Hall in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, England, importing a sixteenth century ceiling from the Grimation Palace in Florence. He remained there until the end of the Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
, when he was persuaded by Alfred Beit and 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 return to Johannesburg in the interests of the firm.
He was once again elected chairman of the Chamber of Mines and in 1910 was elected to the first Union House of Assembly as a member of the Unionist Party
Unionist Party (South Africa)
The Unionist Party of South Africa was a pre-apartheid South African political party, which contested elections to the Union of South Africa parliament from the 1910 South African general election until its merger into the South African Party just before the 1921 South African general...
. He was regarded as the authority on South African gold mining, and the undisputed leader and spokesman for the mining industry.
In the 1912 New Year’s Honours list, Phillips was created a baronet. On 11 December 1913, he was on his way from Corner House to the Rand Club for lunch, when he was shot at five times by a certain Misnun, a trade unionist and storekeeper who had targeted Phillips because of his repeated refusal to discuss a trading issue. Phillips survived the attack and Misnun was imprisoned for 15 years, committing suicide on his release. This was not the first lucky escape that Phillips had had. Years before during his Kimberley days, he had lost his footing and tumbled about 100 metres down the steep slopes of the diamond diggings - he survived the fall with a few scratches.
In 1914 he moved to London as managing director of the Central Mining Company and advised the British government on the metal industry during the First World War. He returned to South Africa in 1924 and settled on the farm Vergelegen
Vergelegen
Vergelegen is an historic wine estate near Somerset West, in the Western Cape province of South Africa.-Foundation:The estate was settled in 1700 by an early Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel...
near Somerset West. They had two sons and a daughter.
Art and philanthropy
Lionel and Florence Phillips left South Africa a major legacy through their art collections. Florence campaigned for the founding of the Johannesburg Art GalleryJohannesburg Art Gallery
The Johannesburg Art Gallery is an art gallery located in Joubert Park, in the central business district of Johannesburg, South Africa. The building was designed by Edward Lutyens and consists of 15 exhibition halls and sculpture gardens...
and arranged its first collections, including her lace collection, while Lionel donated seven oils and a Rodin sculpture. Besides the gallery, their lasting contribution to Johannesburg was the Rand Regiments Memorial, designed by Herbert Baker
Herbert Baker
Sir Herbert Baker was a British architect.Baker was the dominant force in South African architecture for two decades, 1892–1912....
, at the Johannesburg Zoo
Johannesburg Zoo
The Johannesburg Zoo is a zoo in Johannesburg, South Africa. Established in 1904, it has traditionally been owned and operated by the City of Johannesburg...
. Lionel served on the committee which planned it and paid for the "Angel of Peace" sculpture surmounting it. He revived the Witwatersrand Agricultural Society and served as its president from 1906 to 1924. He died at Vergelegen
Vergelegen
Vergelegen is an historic wine estate near Somerset West, in the Western Cape province of South Africa.-Foundation:The estate was settled in 1700 by an early Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel...
, Somerset West on 2 July 1936. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his grandson, Sir Lionel Francis Phillips, 2nd Baronet.
Family
- Captain Harold Lionel Phillips, MBEMBEMBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
(4 June 1886 - 22 June 1926); married 1913 Hilda Wildman Hills, of Canada.- Captain Sir Lionel Francis Phillips, 2nd Bt. (9 March 1914 - 6 July 1944 Italy) Killed in action in the Second World War; married Camilla Mary Parker (b. 13 February 1916) daughter of Hugh Algernon Parker and Averil Frances Tower, on 2 September 1939.
- Sir Robin Francis Phillips, 3rd Bt. b. 29 Jul 1940
- Captain Sir Lionel Francis Phillips, 2nd Bt. (9 March 1914 - 6 July 1944 Italy) Killed in action in the Second World War; married Camilla Mary Parker (b. 13 February 1916) daughter of Hugh Algernon Parker and Averil Frances Tower, on 2 September 1939.
- Captain Francis Rudolph Phillips, MCMilitary CrossThe Military Cross is the third-level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces; and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
(11 April 1883 - 24 June 1942); married Eileen Cecily ManderMander familyThe Mander family has held for over 200 years a prominent position in the Midland counties of England, both in the family business and public life....
, OBE. - Edith Phillips, married firstly 1912 Lt-Col. John Stuart Wortley; married secondly 1919 Sir William Nicholson, MP.