‘So Much to Do’: Oxford and the Wills of Cecil Rhodes

Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902) safeguarded his imperial vision with a series of wills. Sensing that his life would be relatively short, he left to his trustees the task of carrying out his wishes after his death. He also left a substantial fortune to make it possible. This article uses those wills to follow the development of Rhodes’ ‘big idea’, the creation of a secret society to promote imperial expansion, from its birth in Oxford to the final compromise of the Rhodes Scholarships. The article questions the existence of a much-quoted teenage will, examines the influences on Rhodes at Oxford that led to the famous ‘Confession of Faith’ will and identifies a link between the 1892 will and the Mandela Rhodes scholarships founded in 2003.     

Tom Licence,What the Victorians Threw Away. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2015. 108 pp., 90 illus. £9.99. isbn 9781782979756

Abstract

Beehive coke ovens in Derbyshire were used to provide fuel for local blast furnaces, for the Sheffield crucible steel industry and for railway locomotive fuel. Members of the Industrial Archaeology Section of Derbyshire Archaeological Society have made a careful survey of four ranges of beehive coke ovens at Ramshaw, near Unstone, formerly the site of Ramshaw Colliery.