Papers of the Central Mining and Investment Corporation Limited

Correspondence, share registers, reports, etc. relating to the activities of the Central Mining and Investment Corporation Limited in Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Kenya, Ethiopia, British East Africa, French Madagascar, Portuguese Africa (Angola and Mozambique), the Sahara, the Sudan, Bechuanaland, South Africa, Canada, Burma, China, Indo-China , Iran, Turkey, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Barbados, British Guiana, Trinidad, United Kingdom, Australia and Fiji.

Also, papers relating to other companies including the Magadi Sodo Company; the British South Africa Company; Wernher, Beit & Company; Rand Mines; and the Transvaal Consolidated Land & Exploration Company.

The Central Mining and Investment Corporation Limited was formed on the 9 May 1905. It was established by Wernher Beit & Company who, with their Johannesburg associates H. Eckstein & Company, had played a great part in the development of the goldfield discovered on the Witwatersrand, South Africa, in 1886.

The first Chairman of the Corporation was Sir Julius Wernher (Chairman, 1905-1912) and his colleagues included Alfred Beit (Director, 1905-1906) and Sir Friedrich Eckstein (Chairman, 1912-1915).

The Corporation, which was later called Charter Consolidated Limited, owned mining, industrial and commercial enterprises worldwide.

The records are arranged geographically: Africa, Canada, Far East, Middle East, South America, West Indies, United Kingdom, Pacific.

Bodleian reader's ticket required.

Collection level description created by Marion Lowman, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House.

The library holds a card index of all manuscript collections in its reading room and a handlist is also available for this collection.

Listed as no. 333 in Manuscript Collections (excluding Africana) in Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Supplement, compiled by Louis B. Frewer (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1971).

No reproduction or publication of personal papers without permission. Contact the library in the first instance.