Barney Barnato Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Barney Barnato (4 July 1852-4 July 1897), born Barnett Issacs, was a South African diamond magnate.Born in a slum in Whitechapel, London, he joined his brother Harry in Cape Colony in 1873 during the "diamond rush" which accompanied the discovery of diamonds at Kimberley. His brother had gone out in 1871 and had been working as a comedian and conjurer under the name Harry Barnato. Consequently Issacs changed his name to Barney Barnato.
He formed the Barnato Diamond Mining Company and within ten years he had become a millionaire, primarily by buying worked-out diamond mines area and mining the abandoned blue earth heaps.
He competed with Cecil Rhodes in taking over the diamond mining industry in Cape Colony by aggressive buying out of competitors, although in the end Rhodes succeeded in buying him and his brother out for around four million pounds — a collosal sum in the late 1880s. Barnato subsequently became Kimberley's member of parliament in the Cape Parliament from 1889 until his death.
He committed suicide by jumping into the ocean and drowning from a ship taking him to England in 1897. His body was recovered and buried in Willesden cemetery, near London.
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