George Labram (1859-1900) was an American engineer employed as Chief Mechanical Engineer at the

De Beers The De Beers Group is a South African–British corporation that specializes in the diamond industry, including mining, exploitation, retail, inscription, grading, trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. The company is active in open-pi ...

diamond mines in

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia Queensland * Kimberley, Queensland, a coastal locality in the Shire of Douglas South Australia * County of Kimberley, a cadastral unit in South Australia Ta ...

during the

Siege of Kimberley The siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley, Cape Colony (present-day South Africa), when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the South African Republic, Transvaal besieged the diam ...

Early life

Labram was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1859, but attended school at the Quincy Mine after his parents moved there around 1864.

Career

Labram started his working career at Samuel F. Hodge & Company in Detroit before moving to Chicago where he first worked at the MC Bullock Manufacturing Company and later at Fraser & Chalmers. From Chicago Labram moved to the Silver King Mine in Arizona and then became mechanical engineer on a smelter for

Anaconda Copper The Anaconda Company, also known historically as the Anaconda Gold and Silver Mining Company (1881–1891), Anaconda Mining Company (1891–1895), Anaconda Copper Mining Company (1895–1899), Amalgamated Copper Company (1899–1915), and Anacon ...

. Following that Labram worked at Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company for a short period before moving to the

Butte and Boston Consolidated Mining Company In geomorphology, a butte ( ) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from the French word , meaning 'k ...

where he worked for about a year as engineer in charge of machinery before moving to Dakota to erect a tin mill. At the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 5 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The ...

in 1893 Labram ran a machinery exhibition. In 1893 Labram was employed by the

company in

to build and manage a crushing mill. In 1898 he was promoted to chief engineer. Under Labram's supervision as manager of the crushing plant, Fred Kirsten devised an automated diamond extraction process. Up to that time all diamonds were manually extracted by sight.

Second Boer War

During 1899 Labram assisted Major General Kekewich in preparing Kimberley's defenses prior to the city's siege; including the construction of a high watch tower, search lights and a telephone system. Labram installed an emergency fresh-water supply system for the town, and designed a bulk refrigeration plant for perishable foodstuffs specifically for the storage of meat from cattle that had to be slaughtered as it could no longer be let to pasture. During the siege Labram also built two

armoured train An armoured train (Commonwealth English) or armored train (American English) is a railway train protected with heavy metal plating and which often includes railway wagons armed with artillery, machine guns, and autocannons. Some have also h ...

s, manufactured munitions for the existing artillery available in the city, and built the one-off cannon affectionately named

Long Cecil Long Cecil is a cannon built in the workshops of the De Beers mining company in Kimberley, Northern Cape, Kimberley for use by the British Empire, British in the Siege of Kimberley during the Second Boer War. Construction The defenders at Kim ...

, after the chairman of De Beers,

Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...

. Many of the tools needed for the manufacture of the gun had to also be manufactured in the De Beers workshop.

was rifled with a bore of capable of propelling a shell over . Labram was killed on 9 February 1900, less than a week before the siege was lifted, by a Boer shell that hit his room in the Grand Hotel on Market Square. Kekewich gave Labram a full military funeral, that was attended by thousands despite Boer shelling specifically targeting the procession. De Beers provided well for Labram's widow and son after his death, with Mrs Labram receiving $500 per year for the remainder of her life and their 13-year-old son $1000 per year until he came of age. Great Britain also granted Mrs. Labram a once-off sum of £1,000 for the services her husband rendered during the siege. The importance of the role Labram played in the defence of Kimberley is probably best expressed in a letter from

Robert Kekewich Major-General Robert George Kekewich, CB (17 June 1854 – 5 November 1914) was a British Army officer who saw service in four wars. Early life Kekewich was the second son of Trehawke Kekewich, of Peamore House, near Exeter, Devon, and the gr ...

to Mrs. Labram: The one request from the people of Kimberley that Labram was unable to deliver on was to produce some whiskey.

Legacy

The modern day suburb of Labram in Kimberley is named after George Labram. The Honoured Dead Memorial, which prominently features ''Long Cecil'' and a memorial plaque to George Labram on its

stylobate In classical Greek architecture, a stylobate () is the top step of the crepidoma, the stepped platform upon which colonnades of temple columns are placed (it is the floor of the temple). The platform was built on a leveling course that fl ...

, is situated adjacent to the neighbourhood. The memorial plaque reads

References

External links