Leander Jameson

Leander Jameson

Sir Leander Starr Jameson, 1st Baronet KCMG CB PC (born February 9, 1853 in Edinburgh , Scotland , † November 26, 1917 in London ) was a British politician and the first chairman of the South African Unionist Party. He is best known for the Jameson Raid he led , but also for his strong, long-standing association with Cecil Rhodes .

Early years

He studied medicine in London and after successfully passing his exams in 1870 began to work as a trainer at the teaching hospital University College Hospital , but because of health problems he ended his academic career.

In South Africa

Jameson participated in a successful practice in Kimberley in the Cape Colony from 1878 . There he came into contact and business with Cecil Rhodes, founder of De Beers and later Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Through this connection he became head of the administration of Rhodesia (1891). There he healed King Lobengula and was accepted by him as the only white man in the InDuna , the nobility of the Matabele , which made his negotiations much easier for Cecil Rhodes. From there he organized the so-called Jameson Raid in 1895 to subjugate the South African Republic , also known as the Transvaal , to direct British colonial rule, which failed miserably. In 1896 he took part in the suppression of the Matabel revolt.

Capture - Petit Parisien 1896

Jameson was sentenced to 15 months in prison under the Foreign Enlistment Act in England in July 1896 for participating in England , but only served about 5 months in Holloway Prison . In South Africa he was immediately rehabilitated, in 1900 a member of the Cape Colony Parliament, and Prime Minister from 1904 to 1908 and even as Baronet in 1911 , of Down Street, in the Parish of St. George, Hanover Square, in the City of Westminster , in the hereditary Nobility raised. In 1895, Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem If— inspired by Jameson's behavior during the raid . With Rhodes' death in 1902 he became leader of the Progressive Party and in 1910 the leader of the Unionist Party and thus of the official opposition.

In 1912 he retired from politics and lived in London, where he died in 1917. Leander Starr Jameson was the great-nephew of the Scottish natural historian and geologist Robert Jameson . Since he left no male offspring, his title of nobility expired on his death.

Web links

• Inspired by Jameson poem Kipling If the full text (English)
• Newspaper article about Leander Jameson in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Die kleine Enzyklopädie , Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich, 1950, Volume 1, page 756
2. ↑ The Colossus with the Fistula Voice , tagesanzeiger.ch of January 13, 2016
3. ↑ The London Gazette : No. 28509, p. 4832 , June 30, 1911