On this day, 123 years ago, on March 26, 1902 (February 17, 1902, the founder of the South African colonial empire, died. On March 26, 1902, Lucius, the founder of South Africa's colonial empire, died (cartoon) On March 26, 1902, Cecil John Lucius (1853 - 1902) died in a seaside house near Cape Town. In his short life, he made a lot of wealth, served as prime minister, and named a country after his name. He was an ambitious man who devoted all his time and money to his personal and imperial interests. Born in England, he was frail and sick in his early years. He first went abroad to South Africa in 1870. In 1989, he founded the British South Africa Company, which in its name firmly controlled South Africa's diamond industry, and made a fortune. In the past few years, he had carried out activities as the head of South Africa's De Lors United Mines and Gold Mining Co., Ltd., and had become a wealthy and powerful figure. In 1888, he obtained mineral mining rights in Matabeleland from the native King Lobengula and held a British royal charter. Immediately, with official encouragement, he began to exert pressure on the Transvaal. He became prime minister of the Cape Town colony in 1890 and resigned six years later in connection with the infamous Jameson attack, which was intended to provoke a rebellion against the Boer leader Kruger in the Transvaal. Cecil Reyes founded Rhodesia in 1895, naming the territory south of the Zambezi River controlled by the British South African Company after Reyes, and accepting it into formal membership of the British Empire.