In the 1890s financial speculation and market manipulation were prominent features of the Southern African gold mining industry. Extravagantly capitalised, starved of working capital, and poorly managed, many mines could not be made to pay. Investors suffered more at the hands of Randlords than they did than they did from those of the Boer Government in Pretoria.
By failing to take any of this into serious consideration, accounts that focus on mining company complaints as the root cause of the Jameson Raid and the outbreak of war in 1899 are missing a key dimension of the past.
Ian Phimister is Senior University Research Professor at the
University of the Free State. He has published widely on patterns of British overseas investment, and on the history of Central Africa, including
An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890-1948 (Longman 1988).
Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Tables
1 Introduction
2 Historiography
3 Boom, 1894–1895
4 Bust, 1896–1899
5 Conclusion
Appendix A. Witwatersrand Gold Production 1888–1893
Appendix B. Witwatersrand Share Prices: 1889 Peak And 1890 Slump
Appendix C. Selected Rand And Rhodesian Share Prices, December 1894 – December 1895
Appendix D. Witwatersrand Yields, Working Costs, And Dividends, 1887–1899
Appendix E. Flotations: Southern African Mining, Land And Exploration Companies, 1895
Mining
Land and Finance Companies
Miscellaneous Companies
Appendix F. Control: Southern African Gold Mining Groups, 1896–1897
Bibliography
Index
Undergraduate and postgraduate students, university libraries, research institutes: Southern African history, financial and economic history.