In 1887 and 1888, Cecil Rhodes consolidated a number of individual diamond mine claims around Kimberley to form a single company called De Beers Consolidated Mines.
Sol Plaatje was the co-founder of the African National Congress (ANC). As an activist and politician, he spent much of his life fighting for the enfranchisement and liberation of the South African people.
Francis William Reitz served as President of the Orange Free State from 1889 to 1895. Prior to that, he was the state’s first Supreme Court Chief Justice, serving from 1876 to 1889.