The Star of South Africa, also known as the Dudley Diamond, is a white diamond found by a
Griqua shepherd in 1869 on the banks of the
Orange River
The Orange River (from Afrikaans/ Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the n ...
. The original stone, before cutting, weighed .
The finding of this large diamond led to diamond prospectors coming to the area, culminating in the July 1871
rush to the nearby new diamond field at Colesberg Koppje, soon known as New Rush, and later to be known as
Kimberley
Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to:
Places and historical events
Australia
* Kimberley (Western Australia)
** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley
* Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania
* Kimberley, Tasmania a small town
* County of Kimberley, ...
.
The shepherd sold the stone for the hefty price of 500 sheep, 10 oxen and a horse to
Schalk van Niekerk, a neighbouring farmer locally famous for having acquired a 21-and-a-quarter carat diamond in 1866 after it was found by a 15-year-old boy, Erasmus Jacobs, which he had sold for a good price.
Van Niekerk sold the stone on to the Lilienfield Brothers in
Hopetown for £11,200 ( £1,363,334 in 2020 pounds). The Lilienfield Brothers sent it to England where it changed hands twice before finally being bought by
the Countess of Dudley for £25,000.
, the
Earl of Dudley
Earl of Dudley, of Dudley Castle in the County of Stafford (now the West Midlands), is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, both times for members of the Ward family.
History
Dudley was first used for a p ...
, had it mounted with 95 smaller diamonds in a head ornament.
The diamond stayed in the earl's estate until 2 May 1974 when it was sold on auction in Geneva for 1.6 million
Swiss Franc
The Swiss franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It is also legal tender in the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia which is surrounded by Swiss territory. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) issues banknotes and t ...
s, equivalent to around £225,300 (equivalent to £ in ), at the time.
It was last seen
in public at the vault of the
Natural History Museum
A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history scientific collection, collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleon ...
London, 8 July 2005 – 26 February 2006. A reproduction of the uncut and cut diamond is still on show there.
The diamond may have inspired Jules Verne's 1884 novel ''
The Southern Star''.
See also
*
List of diamonds
Diamonds become famous typically for some combination of their size, color and quality. Diamonds occur naturally in many different colors, so the largest diamond of a particular color may not be large in absolute terms, but it may still be consi ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Star Of South Africa (Diamond)
Northern Cape
1869 in South Africa
Diamonds originating in South Africa
Individual diamonds