History of Diamonds
Cape Town - South Africa

Diamond necklace manufactured in Cape Town

Way back in 1867 an event which was described as an accident happened and would change the course of history in South Africa. The accident was the discovery of the first diamond on South African soil.

Jacob's a Dutch farmer who lived on the northern outskirts of the Cape Colony had a friend named van Niekerk visit him one day. While with the family, van Niekerk noticed that one of Jacob's children was playing with a stone that was brighter and heavier than other stones. Thinking that the stone might be valuable he offered to buy it from Jacob's son the 15-year-old Erasmus Jacobs, but Jacob's wife would not sell the insignificant stone, instead she gave it to van Niekerk as a gift. Van Niekerk passed it onto a man named O Reilly who thought that the stone might be a diamond.

To get confirmation he took the stone to Cape Town but no one could say for sure if it was one or not. O'Reilly was not one to give up easily so he left Cape Town for Colesberg in the northern Cape Province where he showed the stone to a number of people non of whom were prepared to call the stone a diamond. Eventually after being the laughing stock of his acquaintances he decided to send the stone to a Dr. Atherstone, of Grahamstown, who was known to be a geologist and a man of science. After examining the stone he declared it to be a diamond weighing 21 carats.

The Governor of the Cape at that time, Sir P. Wodehouse, offered to purchase the diamond and it was sold to him for £ 500. Van Niekerk hearing that the stone he had got from Jacobs was a diamond immediately set about finding more.

Then in 1869 he heard that a black man had a large diamond so he went looking for him and when he found him purchased the stone, giving the man all his sheep and horses in payment. Once van Niekerk had the diamond he visited local diamond merchants and traded the 83 carat stone for £11,200.. This diamond became known as the “Star of Africa.”

The discovery of diamonds in the Cape Colony slowly filtered out to the rest of the world but it was not until 1870 that anybody actually believed that a new diamond field had been discovered. Up till this time the main diamond producing countries were India and Brazil.

The first diamonds discovered in South Africa were found along the banks of the Orange River. Shortly afterwards people started finding diamonds away from the rivers firstly at the Du Toit's Pan and then at Bultfontein.

In September 1872, the territory of Griqualand West became a British Colony, and when diamonds were discovered at the Colesberg Koppie the “New Rush” began. Soon there was an influx of people to the area and the Kimberley mine was started. Prospectors received a 31-foot-square claim where they could dig for diamonds. Soon the area being mined was twelve acres in extent with diamond claims covering nine acres.

Diamond jewellery manufactured in Cape Town