Alfred Beit
Alfred Beit (* February 15, 1853 in Hamburg, † July 16, 1906 at the Manor Tewin Waters near Welwyn in the English county of Hertfordshire ) was a British- South African gold and diamond magnate German descent. He was a patron and one of the richest men of his time. Politically, he was a follower of Cecil Rhodes and his ideas of British imperialism.
Family
Alfred Beit was born in 1853 as the second- oldest child with five other siblings, including Otto Beit, in Hamburg. The Beit were a well known family in Hamburg Sephardic origin. The great-grandfather Marcus Salomon Beit (1734-1810) was the founder of the gold-silver scabbard operation in the I. Elbstraße No. 43 One of his grandson, the chemist Dr. Ferdinand Beit ( 1817-1870 ), an uncle of Alfred Beit, founded 1846 together with Johan Godeffroy the Hamburg " Elbkupferwerk ", forerunner of today's Aurubis AG; In addition, he was involved in the founding of the Baden Aniline & Soda -Fabrik AG and was founded in 1876 in chemistry and ink factory Beit & Co.
Alfred's parents, Siegfried Beit (1818-1881) and Laura née Hahn (1824-1918), were in 1851 converted from Jewish to the Protestant faith. Siegfried was Beit cloth merchant and had, for health reasons, business with little success. Alfred Beit went to the private school Dr. Schleiden. His classmate Werner von Melle reported Beit grew up in relatively humble circumstances. His cousin Ferdinand Beit the Younger was a son of Johanna Beit, the daughter of the Mannheim bankers Seligmann Ladenburg.
Life
Beit made after finishing school in 1870 at the Hamburg import and export company David Lippert & Co. a two -year apprenticeship. There he first came in contact with the diamond trade. From 1 April 1873, he completed his military service as a one-year volunteer at the Infantry Regiment "Hamburg" ( Hanseatic 2 ) No 76 Then he learned additionally one years diamond cutter in a factory with relatives in Amsterdam. 1875 Beit travels on behalf of the company David Lippert & Co in the Cape Colony to the city of New Rush, which should be renamed in 1877 in Kimberley, to work as diamond buyers. Beit was very successful and was already in the following year an independent agent of the company David Lippert & Co. He worked until 1879 for Lippert and Co.
To raise the funds for his own business, to Beit turned to a business friend of his father, Jules Porges (1839-1921), who in 1876 resided in New Rush. Beit moved below to Porges & Cie and was together with Julius Wernher, for the Porges & Cie was staying in South Africa since 1873, 1880 shareholders. As Porges 1889 retired from the business in South Africa, Beit and Wernher founded the firm of Wernher, Beit & Co. as successor.
About Porges & Cie succeeded Beit, not only around Kimberley to acquire as many shares in diamond mines, and thus to gain influence in the beginning of the process of concentration. In this context, the collaboration with his friend later Cecil Rhodes began. As this 1888 De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited founded, brought a Beit its shares in diamond mines, was next to Barney Barnato one of four major shareholders of De Beers and director for life. Rhodes and Beit worked together from now such that Rhodes himself took care of the political side and Beit about the financial side of the business. That Beit Rhodes was very devoted, can also be seen that he was involved in planning and personal finance with £ 200,000 in the failed Jameson Raid; a raid of 29 December 1895 to January 2, 1896, Paul Kruger's South African Republic - today Transvaal.
In addition to the diamond trade and production succeeded Beit from 1886 large parts of the mineral rights to the newly discovered gold deposits in the Witwatersrand area to purchase and also there to accumulate a considerable fortune. 1888, Beit along with Rhodes, the British South Africa Company, the exploitation of the Witwatersrand gold deposits and the land conquest and Indexing devoted himself in Southern Rhodesia.
In 1888, Beit moved his main residence in the City of London and took British citizenship.
1890/1891 he left for his mother Laura in Hamburg- Harvestehude the middle 113 build a prestigious villa in a park-like garden, in which he resided during his stay in Hamburg.
Beit dealt in his later years with the purchase of art. He acquired an extensive collection, which he sought advice on purchases, among others, by Wilhelm von Bode. In his 1895 newly built magnificent estate at Hyde Park, there was also a painting room. Since 1902 health badly bruised, he died in 1906, unmarried and childless.
Patronage
Even during his lifetime Beit has different facilities made foundations. As Beit Wilhelm Bode was connected to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Society, the purchase of the portrait landscape with the shipwreck of Paul of Peter Paul Rubens was allowed before the opening of the corresponding museum in 1899. The Gemäldegalerie (Berlin) in 1904 were the painting of Mr. John Wilkinson of Thomas Gainsborough and at another time bequeathed a painting by Joshua Reynolds. From the heritage Beit the Kaiser- Friedrich- Museum, 1907, the statue of Hercules Antonio del Pollaiuolo was given as a legacy. The Hamburg Kunsthalle were given pictures. So Beit took over the cost of the excited by Alfred Lichtwark and completed in 1906 by Max Liebermann image of the Hamburg professor Convention. The Hamburg Science Foundation, the financial nucleus of the later University of Hamburg, was at all possible by the donation of the first 2 million gold marks of Alfred Beit.
He founded in 1905 a chair of Colonial History at the University of Oxford; this is now called Beit Professor of Commonwealth History. In London, the Royal School of Mines at Imperial College London has been considerable bequeathed. A bust Beit adorns the entrance of the Royal School of Mines. To support the establishment of a university in Johannesburg the will of Beit saw a sum of 200,000 pounds before, but since this has not been implemented quickly enough, the funding was increased, and a similar sum by Wernher for the construction of the University of Cape Town used. The largest portion of its assets flowed into the Beit Trust, which has the task to support infrastructure and training in Southern Africa. Thus, the Alfred Beit Bridge over the Limpopo (river) was built, for example by the Trust in 1929, the only connection from Zimbabwe to South Africa. In addition to this bridge, the city Beitbridge has emerged. The Beit Trust is today promoting active in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.