Cecil John Rhodes (July 5 1853 - March 26 1902) was an English-born South African businessman and politician. He was the son of an Anglican vicar. He graduated from an English grammar school and at the age of 16 was sent to the British colony of Natal in South Africa due to poor health. There he became involved in diamond mining. He later went back to England to go to Oriel College at Oxford. He was the starter of Rhodesia. He was the starter of the British South Africa Company, which was a corporation that ruled various territories in South Africa that eventually were called Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia. He also was Prime Minister of Cape Colony. He was supported by the Afrikaner Bond in the Cape Colony until he betrayed the Afrikaners by supporting a rebellion against their relatives the Afrikaners of the South African Republic by his associate Leander Starr Jameson in 1895, after which the Bond forced him to resign. He supported the Liberal Party and the Irish Parliamentary Party in domestic politics in the UK. Rhodes was the starter of the Rhodes scholarships, program by the United Kingdom permitting citizens of British colonies, of the United States, and of Germany, all to study at Oxford on a scholarship if they demonstrated certain academic and character qualities. He was a Freemason. In his last years he was the victim of stalking by Princess Catherine Radziwill, a Polish adventuress.