Alfred Beit

Alfred Beit (15 February 1853 – 16 July 1906) was an Anglo-German gold and diamond magnate in South Africa, and a major donor and profiteer of infrastructure development on the African continent. He also donated much money to university education and research in several countries, and was the "silent partner" who structured the capital flight from post-Boer War South Africa to Rhodesia, and the Rhodes Scholarship, named after his employee, Cecil Rhodes. Beit's assets were structured around the so-called Corner House Group, which through its holdings in various companies controlled 37 per cent of the gold produced at the Witwatersrand's goldfields in Johannesburg in 1913.<ref name="Rönnbäck 2019">See chapter 12 in Rönnbäck & Broberg (2019) Capital and Colonialism. The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869-1969 (Palgrave Studies in Economic History)</</ref> Life and career Born and brought up in Hamburg, German Confederation, he was the eldest son and second of six children of an affluent Jewish-German citizen of Hamburg. His younger siblings included Otto Beit. Alfred Beit was an unpromising scholar and was apprenticed to Jules Porgès & Cie, the Amsterdam diamond firm where he developed a talent for examining stones. Beit made his first fortune in property speculation in South Africa. Responding to a demand for business premises, he bought a piece of land and built twelve corrugated iron sheds for offices and rented eleven out monthly and kept one for himself. Twelve years later he sold the land for a considerable profit.