The Kimberley Club: from colonial gentlemen’s refuge to boutique hotel

MMore than a century ago, the Kimberley Club was the social diamond of the dusty, chaotic mining town of Kimberley in South Africa’s Northern Cape province. The club still welcomes visitors with the atmosphere of the frontier days in the Diamond City, when ruthless fortune-hunters like Cecil John Rhodes ruled the roost. 

Back in the 1870s, the town of Kimberley was, literally, a very large diamond in the rough. Higgledy-piggledy streets, drunken leaning shacks, ramshackle watering holes and the occasional dust storm that turned everything and everybody instantly khaki – that was early Kimberley. 

But apart from penniless ‘kopje wallopers’ (diggers) and the accompanying phalanx of chancers, dancers and card sharks, there was also an elite layer of ambitious rich men. 

Led informally by mogul Cecil John Rhodes, they were the deal makers and empire builders of their time. And when the Kimberley Club was founded in August 1881, they flocked to become members – a quest made all the more socially desperate by its exclusivity.  

Modelled on the gentlemen’s clubs of London, the Kimberley Club could be similarly hard to get into, for anyone judged not ‘of the right class’. Loyalty was intense – members were later described as men who would ‘rather live on bread and butter than drop out of that great institution’. 

Rhodes’ good friend Neville Pickering was particularly pleased with the Kimberley Club: ‘We have our dinners and dances – one finds oneself in evening dress every night. It’s ruination to health and pocket. And then our club is such perfection. Electric bells wherever you like to touch. Velvet pile and Turkey carpets to walk upon and then one loses oneself in a luxurious lounge.’ 

The diamond finds in the Kimberley area and the international business taking place right here on the dusty veld made ‘the club’ very exclusive. A certain Archibald Colquhoun was impressed: ‘The place was stuffed with money – more millionaires to the square foot than any other place in the world.’ 

The Kimberley Club burnt down twice, was rebuilt both times and when the South African War (formerly called the Second Anglo-Boer War) broke out in October 1899, it became the focal point for town relief when Kimberley was besieged by Boer forces shortly thereafter. 

The Kimberley Club Christmas menu for 1899 included turtle soup, mutton cutlets, aspic of foie gras, plum pudding and Stilton cheese. That was the last time anyone in Kimberley ate so well. As the siege continued and rations dried up, luminaries like Rhodes were served horseflesh disguised as ‘grilled prime veal fillet garni a la siege’. 

Two royal visits to the Kimberley Club yielded two potentially embarrassing incidents. In 1933, Prince George (son of King George V) choked on a fishbone during a gala dinner at the club. A local dentist (and club member) carefully removed the bone and there were no hard feelings. 

When Queen Elizabeth visited in 1947, she left a diamond ring next to the wash stand in the cloak room. The bedroom steward found the ring, returned it and was rewarded. 

These days, the Kimberley Club also operates as a four-star boutique hotel, offering 21 rooms decorated with original club furniture and added period pieces. There are three dining areas and a ‘ladies’ lounge’ available to guests. 

And if you are lucky (or unlucky), you may see the ghost of Joe van Praagh that is reputed to haunt the club. Van Praagh was a wealthy bachelor-philanthropist who lived at the club until his death in 1948.