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Star Of South Africa (Diamond)
The Star of South Africa, also known as the Dudley Diamond, is a white diamond found by a Griqua shepherd in 1869 on the banks of the Orange River. The original stone, before cutting, weighed . The finding of this large diamond led to diamond prospectors coming to the area, culminating in the July 1871 rush to the nearby new diamond field at Colesberg Koppje, soon known as New Rush, and later to be known as Kimberley. The shepherd sold the stone for the hefty price of 500 sheep, 10 oxen and a horse to Schalk van Niekerk, a neighbouring farmer locally famous for having acquired a 21-and-a-quarter carat diamond in 1866 after it was found by a 15-year-old boy, Erasmus Jacobs, which he had sold for a good price. Van Niekerk sold the stone on to the Lilienfield Brothers in Hopetown for £11,200 ( £1,363,334 in 2020 pounds). The Lilienfield Brothers sent it to England where it changed hands twice before finally being bought by the Countess of Dudley for £25,000. William Ward, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa. The British colony was preceded by an earlier corporate colony that became an Dutch Cape Colony, original Dutch colony of the same name, which was established in 1652 by the Dutch East India Company, Dutch East India Company (VOC). The Cape was under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and under rule of the Napoleonic Batavian Republic, Batavia Republic from 1803 to 1806. The VOC lost the colony to Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain following the 1795 Invasion of the Cape Colony, Battle of Muizenberg, but it was acceded to the Batavian Republic, Batavia Republic following the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. It was re-occupied by the British following the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl Of Dudley
Earl of Dudley, of Dudley Castle in the County of Stafford (now the West Midlands), is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, both times for members of the Ward family. History Dudley was first used for a peerage on 25 March 1341/42, when John Sutton became the first Lord Dudley of Dudley Castle. The male line failed at the 10th Baron, Sir Ferdinando Dudley, and Dudley Castle passed to his daughter, Frances Dudley, Baroness Dudley (1611–1697). She married Sir Humble Ward, the son of a wealthy goldsmith and jeweller to King Charles I (see Baron Dudley for more history of the Sutton family). Frances was given away in marriage by her grandfather Lord Dudley in order for him to be able to redeem the heavily mortgaged estates around Dudley, whose mineral resources were the foundation of the family's great wealth. In 1644, Frances's husband Sir Humble Ward was raised to the Peerage of England in his own right as Baron Ward, of Birmingham in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1869 In South Africa
The following lists events that happened during 1869 in South Africa. Incumbents * Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa: Sir Philip Wodehouse. * Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal: Robert William Keate. * State President of the Orange Free State: Jan Brand. * State President of the South African Republic: Marthinus Wessel Pretorius.Archontology.org: A Guide for Study of Historical Offices, South African Republic (Transvaal): Heads of State: 1857-1877 (Accessed on 14 April 2017) Events ;September * 4 – The first rails of the |
Northern Cape
The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the diamond mining regions in Kimberley and Alexander Bay. The Namaqualand region in the west is famous for its Namaqualand daisies. The southern towns of De Aar and Colesberg found within the Great Karoo are major transport nodes between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. Kuruman can be found in the north-east and is known as a mission station. It is also well known for its artesian spring and Eye of Kuruman. The Orange River flows through the province of Northern Cape, forming the borders with the Free State in the southeast and with Namibia to the northwest. The river is also used to irrigate the many vineyards in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Diamonds
Diamond (gemstone), Diamonds become famous typically for some combination of their size, color and quality. Diamonds occur naturally in many different colors, so the largest diamond of a particular color may not be large in absolute terms, but it may still be considered very desirable. Diamonds may also have high valuations or sale prices, or go on to have a noteworthy ownership history, but this will tend to occur for diamonds that had some outstanding characteristic to begin with. As new diamonds are discovered, the uniqueness of existing ones may diminish and there is no agreed-upon measure of a large or a high-quality diamond, so a strict inclusion criteria for notable diamonds is not attainable. Diamond A diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. At Standard conditions for temperature and pressure, room temperature and pressure, another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Vanished Diamond
''The Vanished Diamond'', also translated as ''The Southern Star'' (french: L'Étoile du sud, lit. ''The Star of the South''), is an 1884 French novel credited to Jules Verne, based on an uncredited manuscript by Paschal Grousset. Setting This novel takes place in South Africa amongst the diamond fields in the district of Griqualand. Most of the land is owned by a fictitious wealthy miner, Mr. John Watkins. A shanty town filled with miners has sprung up, all with the hope to get rich. The main area of diamond mining is the Vandergaart Kopje. Synopsis The protagonist is a French mining engineer, Victor Cyprien (in the original French version: Cyprien Méré). He moves to the Griqualand district to study the formation of diamonds. While he is there he falls in love with wealthy landowner Mr. John Watkins' daughter, Alice. He asks him for her hand in marriage but is denied on his lack of money and stature in the community. He decides that he could amass a fortune by mining with a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History Museum, London
The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Natural History Museum's main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections: botany, entomology, mineralogy, palaeontology and zoology. The museum is a centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Charles Darwin. The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons and ornate architecture—sometimes dubbed a ''cathedral of nature''—both exemplified by the large ''Diplodocus'' cast that domina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss Franc
The Swiss franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues banknotes and the federal mint Swissmint issues coins. In its polyglot environment, it is often simply referred as german: Franken, french: franc, it, franco and rm, franc. It is also designated through signes: ''Fr'' Some fonts render the currency sign character "₣" (unicodebr>U+20A3 as ligatured Fr, following the German language convention for the Swiss Franc. However, most fonts render the character as F with a strikethrough on the lower left, which is the unofficial sign of French Franc. (in German language), ''fr.'' (in French, Italian, Romansh languages), as well as in any other language, or internationally as ''CHF'' which stands for ''.'' This acronym also serves as eponymous ISO 4217 code of the currency, CHF being used by banks and financial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ward, 1st Earl Of Dudley
William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley (27 March 1817 – 7 May 1885), known as The Lord Ward from 1835 to 1860, was a British landowner and benefactor. Background and education Ward was born on 27 March 1817 at Edwardstone, Boxford, Suffolk, England, the son of William Ward, 10th Baron Ward. His mother was Amelia, daughter of William Cooch Pillans. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College, Oxford. He played first-class cricket for Oxford University Cricket Club between 1838 and 1842. Career On 6 December 1835, he inherited the title of Lord Ward, when he became the 11th Baron Ward. His inheritance included Himley Hall and the ruins of Dudley Castle. In 1837 his trustees purchased the Witley Court estate in Worcestershire from Thomas Foley, 4th Baron Foley. Ward never held any political office, but served as Colonel Commander of the Worcestershire Yeomanry in 1854. Between 1859 and 1877 Ward paid for the entire refacing and restoration of Worcest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Griqua People
The Griquas (; af, Griekwa, often confused with ''!Orana'', which is written as ''Korana'' or ''Koranna'') are a subgroup of heterogeneous former Khoe-speaking nations in Southern Africa with a unique origin in the early history of the Cape Colony. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons license. Under apartheid, they were given a special racial classification under the broader category of "Coloured". Similar to the Trekboers (another Afrikaans-speaking group of the time), they originally populated the frontiers of the nascent Cape Colony (founded in 1652). The men of their semi-nomadic society formed commando units of mounted gunmen. Like the Boers, they migrated inland from the Cape, in the 19th century establishing several states in what are now South Africa and Namibia. Griqua was the name given to a mixed-race culture in the Cape Colony of South Africa, around the 17th and 18th Century (Taylor, 2020). They were also known as Hotten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgina Ward, Countess Of Dudley
Georgina Elizabeth Ward, Countess of Dudley (9 August 1846 – 2 February 1929) was a British noblewoman and a noted beauty of the Victorian era. Early life and family Georgina was born in Dunbarney, Perthshire, Scotland – "the third of a series of sisters all famous for their good looks" – to Sir Thomas Moncreiffe of that Ilk, 7th Baronet, and Lady Louisa Hay-Drummond, daughter of Thomas Hay-Drummond, 11th Earl of Kinnoull. Her sister Harriet became Lady Mordaunt; another sister, Louisa, married John Stewart-Murray, 7th Duke of Atholl. Marriage In the summer of 1865, the engagement was announced between the 18-year-old Georgina and the 48-year-old William Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley, a wealthy land and mine owner. The earl had been widowed since November 1851 as his first wife, Selina Constance (''née'' de Burgh), died six months into their marriage. Georgina and the earl married on 21 November 1865 in London, and Dudley was proud to show off his beautiful new wife acro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hopetown, Northern Cape
Hopetown is a town which lies at the edge of the Great Karoo in South Africa's Northern Cape province. It is situated on an arid slope leading down to the Orange River. The first diamond discovered in South Africa, the Eureka Diamond, was found at Hopetown. History Hopetown was founded in 1850 when Sir Harry Smith extended the northern frontier of the Cape Colony to the Orange River. A handful of settlers claimed ground where there was a natural ford over the Orange River, and by 1854 a frontier town had developed. Hopetown was named after William Hope, Auditor-General and Secretary of the Cape Colony Government at the time, and is often mistaken for a town in the Free State, South Africa, called Hoopstad. Hopetown was a quiet farming area until several large diamonds, most notable the Eureka Diamond and the Star of South Africa, were discovered there between 1867 and 1869. The Cape Government Railways were founded in 1872, and the Cape government decided to run the main ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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