although he was not a member of the Roman catholic church, was buried at Kensal Green Roman catholic cemetery.
He was twice married: (1) on 13 Dec. 1859, at Brighton, to Harriet (1837-1877), third daughter of Joseph Simpson, British vice-consul at Cronstadt; by her he had five sons; (2) on 17 March 1880, at Rome, to Licinia, daughter of Giuseppe Pinelli of Rome, and had issue three sons and a daughter.
A portrait painted by H. Hudson and a bust by Mr. Alfred Gilbert are in the widow's possession. Lord Rendel owns a replica of the bust.
[Men of the Time, 1899; Minutes of Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. cli. 421; Trans. Inst. Naval Arch. xlv. 332; Engineering, 17 Oct. 1902; information from Lord Rendel.]
RHODES, CECIL JOHN (1853–1902), imperialist and benefactor, born at Bishop Stortford in Hertfordshire on 5 July 1853, was fifth son of Francis William Rhodes (1806-1878), vicar of that parish, by his second wiie, Louisa, daughter of Anthony Taylor Peacock, of South Kyme, Lincolnshire (d. 1 Nov. 1873). The family consisted of nine sons, four of whom joined the army, and of two daughters, both unmarried. There survive the three youngest sons, Major Elmhirst (b. 1858), formerly of the Berkshire regiment and director of army signalling in South Africa during the Boer war (1899-1901), Arthur Montagu (b. 1859), and Bernard (b. 1861), captain R.A., and the elder daughter Louisa (b. 1847). The eldest son, Herbert, was killed in Central Africa in 1879. The third and sixth sons, Basil and Frederick, died. in infancy. The second son. Colonel Francis William, is noticed below. The fourth son, Ernest Frederick (b. 1852), captain R.E., died on 4 April 1907. The younger daughter, Edith Caroline (b. 1848), died on 8 Jan. 1905.
The father came of yeoman stock traceable to Staffordshire in the seventeenth century and thence to Cheshire. The father's great-great-grandfather, William Rhodes (d. 1768), described as a prosperous grazier, came south about 1720, purchased near London an estate, ’The Brill Farm,' which included the region now occupied by Mecklenburgh and Brunswick Squares and the Foundling Hospital, and was buried in March 1768 in Old St, Pancras churchyard, where a monument of granite now stands bearing the inscription 'Erected to replace two decayed family tombs by C. J. R. , 1890.' William Rhodes's only son, Thomas, churchwarden of St. Pancras in 1756 and 1757, married twice, and died in 1787, leaving a son, Samuel (1736-1794), of Hoxton, the possessor of brick and tile works marked 'Rhodes' Farm' in Carey's map of London (1819), in Islington parish, and the purchaser of the Dalston estate now held by the Rhodes trustees, Samuel's third son, William (1774-1843), married Anne Woolridge, whose mother was Danish, and settled at Leyton Grange in Essex, and his second son was Cecil Rhodes's father. The latter, born in 1806, graduated B,A, from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1830 (M,A, 1833) and was perpetual curate of Brentwood in Essex from 1834 until 1849, when he became vicar of Bishop Stortford; he died at Fairlight, Sussex, on 28 Feb, 1878, Cecil, 'a slender, delicate-looking, but not delicate, boy, of a shy nature,' was sent to Bishop Stortford grammar school in 1861. He won a silver medal for reading aloud, and he showed efficiency in charge of a class in his father's Sunday school. In 1869, at sixteen, his health broke down, and since, to his father's disappointment, he had no vocation for the church, he was sent out to his eldest brother, Herbert, then settled in Natal, grooving cotton. He landed at Durban on 1 Oct. 1870. 'Very quiet and a great reader' he appeared to friends with whom he stayed in Natal on his way to his brother's rough quarters at Umkomaas. Forty-five acres of bush had been cleared and planted with cotton before Cecil's arrival; a few months later a hundred acres were planted, and the brothers won a prize at an important agricultural show. Herbert Rhodes was often away, and Cecil mainly ran the plantation, discovering a sympathy with native labourers and a turn for managing them which never failed him. He found congenial company in the son of the local resident magistrate, a retired soldier. In their spare time the youths tried to 'keep up their classics'; both cherished a dream that they should one day return to England and enter at Oxford 'without outside assistance,'
By this time the discovery of diamonds in the Orange Free State had resulted in the rush for Colesberg Kopje (now the Kimberley mine), Du Toit's Pan (later the De Beers mine), and other points in what is now the Kimberley division. The Rhodes brothers were drawn with the rest, Herbert starting for the diamond fields in Jan, 1871, while Cecil stayed behind to dispose of the stock and wind up their joint affairs. In Oct. 1871 he started for Colesberg Kopje in a Scotch cart drawn by a team of oxen, carrying a pick two spades, several volumes of the classics, and a Greek lexicon.
