John Blades Currey - Kimberley Griqualand West

John Blades "JB" Currey (1829–1904) was Colonial Secretary to the Government of

Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...

and an influential businessman and politician of the

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 i ...

. Currey arrived in Southern African in 1850. He tried a range of professions before joining the Cape Civil Service. He later became Colonial Secretary to the colony of

, and named the town of Kimberley (previously "New Rush"). He was largely blamed for the diggers rebellion in Griqualand West in 1875 ("Black Flag Rebellion"), and was consequently dismissed. Currey's eldest son, Henry Latham Currey became Secretary to

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 ...

and later a politician who sat in the

House of Assembly of South Africa The House of Assembly (known in Afrikaans as the ''Volksraad'', or "People's Council") was the lower house of the Parliament of South Africa from 1910 to 1981, the unicameralism, sole parliamentary chamber between 1981 and 1984, and latterly ...

References

* Cape Colony politicians 1829 births 1904 deaths {{NorthernCape-politician-stub