George Labram was an American engineer employed as Chief Mechanical Engineer at the

De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...

diamond mines in Kimberley during the

Siege of Kimberley The siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony (present-day South Africa), when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try ...

Early life

Labram was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1859, but attended school at the

Quincy Mine The Quincy Mine is an extensive set of copper mines located near Hancock, Michigan. The mine was owned by the Quincy Mining Company and operated between 1846 and 1945, although some activities continued through the 1970s. The Quincy Mine was know ...

after his parents moved there around 1864.

Career

Labram started his working career at Samuel F. Hodge & Company in Detroit before moving to Chicago where he first worked at the MC Bullock Manufacturing Company and later at Fraser & Chalmers. From Chicago Labram moved to the

Silver King Mine The Silver King Mine is an inactive silver mine located near Superior, Arizona in the United States. The richest silver mine in Arizona, it produced an estimated US$42 million worth of silver ore between 1875 and 1900. The mine is located ...

in Arizona and then became mechanical engineer on a smelter for

Anaconda Copper The Anaconda Copper Mining Company, known as the Amalgamated Copper Company between 1899 to 1915, was an American mining company headquartered in Butte, Montana. It was one of the largest trusts of the early 20th century and one of the largest min ...

. Following that Labram worked at

Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company The Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company (the "Boston and Montana" or "B&M") was a mining, smelting, and refining company which operated primarily in the state of Montana in the United States. It was established in 1887 ...

for a short period before moving to the Butte and Boston Consolidated Mining Company where he worked for about a year as engineer in charge of machinery before moving to Dakota to erect a tin mill. At the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

in 1893 Labram ran a machinery exhibition. In 1893 Labram was employed by the

company in Kimberley to build and manage a crushing mill. In 1898 he was promoted to chief engineer. Under Labram's supervision as manager of the crushing plant, Fred Kirsten devised an automated diamond extraction process. Up to that time all diamonds were manually extracted by sight.

Second Boer War

During 1899 Labram assisted Major General Kekewich in preparing Kimberley's defenses prior to the city's siege; including the construction of a high watch tower, search lights and a telephone system. Labram installed an emergency fresh-water supply system for the town, and designed a bulk refrigeration plant for perishable foodstuffs specifically for the storage of meat from cattle that had to be slaughtered as it could no longer be let to pasture. During the siege Labram also built two

armoured train An armoured train is a railway train protected with armour. Armoured trains usually include railway wagons armed with artillery, machine guns and autocannons. Some also had slits used to fire small arms from the inside of the train, a facili ...

s, manufactured munitions for the existing artillery available in the city, and built the one-off cannon affectionately named

Long Cecil Long Cecil is a cannon built in the workshops of the De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing secto ...

, after the chairman of De Beers,

Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism, Rhodes and his Br ...

. Many of the tools needed for the manufacture of the gun had to also be manufactured in the De Beers workshop.

was rifled with a bore of capable of propelling a shell over . George Labram's Room

Labram was killed on 9 February 1900, less than a week before the siege was lifted, by a Boer shell that hit his room in the Grand Hotel on Market Square. Kekewich gave Labram a full military funeral, that was attended by thousands despite Boer shelling specifically targeting the procession. De Beers provided well for Labram's widow and son after his death, with Mrs Labram receiving $500 per year for the remainder of her life and their 13-year-old son $1000 per year until he came of age. Great Britain also granted Mrs. Labram a once-off sum of £1,000 for the services her husband rendered during the siege. The importance of the role Labram played in the defence of Kimberley is probably best expressed in a letter from

Robert Kekewich Major-General (United Kingdom), Major-General Robert George Kekewich, Order of the Bath, CB (17 June 1854 – 5 November 1914) was a Victorian era British Army officer. Early life Kekewich was the second son of Trehawke Kekewich, of Peamore Hou ...

to Mrs. Labram: The one request from the people of Kimberley that Labram was unable to deliver on was to produce some whiskey.

Legacy

The modern day suburb of Labram in Kimberley is named after George Labram. The

Honoured Dead Memorial The Honoured Dead Memorial is a provincial heritage site in Kimberley in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated at the meeting point of five roads, and commemorates those who died defending the city during the Siege of Kimb ...

, which prominently features ''Long Cecil'' and a memorial plaque to George Labram on its

stylobate In classical Greek architecture, a stylobate ( el, στυλοβάτης) is the top step of the crepidoma, the stepped platform upon which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a level ...

, is situated adjacent to the neighbourhood. The memorial plaque reads

References

External links