Portrait of Charles Rudd

People/magnate, financier

Charles Rudd

Charles Rudd (1844–1916), magnate, financier, from United Kingdom.

The lucky break

On 30 October 1888 he, Rochfort Maguire and Francis Thompson, acting for Cecil Rhodes, got King Lobengula to sign the complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals in his kingdom.1,2,3,4

Legacy

The concession promised 100 pounds a month, 1,000 Martini-Henry rifles with 100,000 rounds, and a steamboat on the Zambezi or 500 pounds instead. A royal charter for the British South Africa Company followed on 29 October 1889.1,2,3,4

Story cards

Where next

People

Partner ofLobengulaHe got a king to sign away every mineral in Matabeleland.1Partner ofCecil RhodesRhodes's business partner and the signer of the Rudd Concession.1

Sources

  1. The Rudd Concession (1888) Wikisource (public domain source text)
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed.: Rhodesia (also Lobengula) Wikisource (public domain source text)
  3. Wikidata item Q1065952
  4. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons

Pictures on this page: Charles Rudd.jpeg, Unknown (according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) (Public domain); Lobengula-image.jpg, The original uploader was Humansdorpie at English Wikipedia. (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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