it was a secret group—or at least its inner circles did. From Milner and Rhodes they got
this idea of a secret group of able and determined men, but they never found a name for
it, contenting themselves with calling it "the Group," or "the Band," or even "Us." (9) Chapter 3—The Secret Society of Cecil Rhodes (1)
When Milner went to South Africa in 1897, Rhodes and he were already old
acquaintances of many years' standing. We have already indicated that they were
contemporaries at Oxford, but, more than that, they were members of a secret society
which had been founded in 1891. Moreover, Milner was, if not in 1897, at least by 1901,
Rhodes's chosen successor in the leadership of that society.
The secret society of Cecil Rhodes is mentioned in the first five of his seven wills. In
the fifth it was supplemented by the idea of an educational institution with scholarships,
whose alumni would be bound together by common ideals—Rhodes's ideals. In the sixth
and seventh wills the secret society was not mentioned, and the scholarships monopolized
the estate. But Rhodes still had the same ideals and still believed that they could be
carried out best by a secret society of men devoted to a common cause. The scholarships
were merely a facade to conceal the secret society, or, more accurately, they were to be
one of the instruments by which the members of the secret society could carry out his
purpose. This purpose, as expressed in the first will (1877), was:
“The extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of
emigration from the United Kingdom and of colonization by British subjects of all
lands wherein the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour, and
enterprise, . . . the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral
part of a British Empire, the consolidation of the whole Empire, the inauguration of
a system of Colonial Representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to
weld together the disjointed members of the Empire, and finally the foundation of so
great a power as to hereafter render wars impossible and promote the best interests
of humanity.”
To achieve this purpose, Rhodes, in this first will, written while he was still an
undergraduate of Oxford at the age of twenty-four, left all his wealth to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies (Lord Carnarvon) and to the Attorney General of Griqualand West
(Sidney Shippard), to be used to create a secret society patterned on the Jesuits. The
reference to the Jesuits as the model for his secret society is found in a "Confession of
Faith" which Rhodes had written two years earlier (1875) and which he enclosed in his
will. Thirteen years later, in a letter to the trustee of his third will, Rhodes told how to
form the secret society, saying, "In considering questions suggested take Constitution of
the Jesuits if obtainable and insert 'English Empire' for 'Roman Catholic Religion.'"
In his "Confession of Faith" Rhodes outlined the types of persons who might be useful
members of this secret society. As listed by the American Secretary to the Rhodes Trust,
this list exactly describes the group formed by Milner in South Africa:
“Men of ability and enthusiasm who find no suitable way to serve their country under
the current political system; able youth recruited from the schools and universities; men
of wealth with no aim in life; younger sons with high thoughts and great aspirations but
without opportunity; rich men whose careers are blighted by some great disappointment.
All must be men of ability and character.... Rhodes envisages a group of the ablest and
the best, bound together by common unselfish ideals of service to what seems to him the
greatest cause in the world. There is no mention of material rewards. This is to be a kind
of religious brotherhood like the Jesuits, ‘a church for the extension of the British
Empire.’"
In each of his seven wills, Rhodes entrusted his bequest to a group of men to carry out
his purpose. In the first will, as we have seen, the trustees were Lord Carnarvon and
Sidney Shippard. In the second will (1882), the sole trustee was his friend N. E.
Pickering. In the third will (1888), Pickering having died, the sole trustee was Lord
Rothschild. In the fourth will (1891), W. T. Stead was added, while in the fifth (1892),
Rhodes's solicitor, B. F. Hawksley, was added to the previous two. In the sixth (1893)
and seventh (1899) wills, the personnel of the trustees shifted considerably, ending up, at
Rhodes's death in 1902, with a board of seven trustees: Lord Milner, Lord Rosebery,
Lord Grey, Alfred Beit, L. L. Michell, B. F. Hawksley, and Dr. Starr Jameson. This is the
board to which the world looked to set up the Rhodes Scholarships.
Dr. Frank Aydelotte, the best-known American authority on Rhodes's wills, claims
that Rhodes made no reference to the secret society in his last two wills because he had
abandoned the idea. The first chapter of his recent book, The American Rhodes
Scholarships, states and reiterates that between 1891 and 1893 Rhodes underwent a great
change in his point of view and matured in his judgment to the point that in his sixth will
"he abandons forever his youthful idea of a secret society." This is completely untrue, and
there is no evidence to support such a statement.(2) On the contrary, all the evidence,
both direct and circumstantial, indicates that Rhodes wanted the secret society from 1875
to his death in 1902. By Dr. Aydelotte's own admission, Rhodes wanted the society from
1877 to 1893, a period of sixteen years. Accepted practice in the use of historical
evidence requires us to believe that Rhodes persisted in this idea for the remaining nine
years of his life, unless there exists evidence to the contrary. There is no such evidence.
On the other hand, there is direct evidence that he did not change his ideas. Two
examples of this evidence can be mentioned here. On 5 February 1896, three years after
his sixth will, Rhodes ended a long conversation with R. B. Brett (later Lord Esher) by
saying, "Wish we could get our secret society." And in April 1900, a year after he wrote
his seventh and last will, Rhodes was reprimanding Stead for his opposition to the Boer
War, on the grounds that in this case he should have been willing to accept the judgment
of the men on the spot who had made the war. Rhodes said to Stead, "That is the curse
which will be fatal to our ideas—insubordination. Do not you think it is very disobedient
of you? How can our Society be worked if each one sets himself up as the sole judge of
what ought to be done? Just look at the position here. We three are in South Africa, all of
us your boys . . . I myself, Milner, and Garrett, all of whom learned their politics from
you. We are on the spot, and we are unanimous in declaring this war to be necessary. You
have never been in South Africa, and yet, instead of deferring to the judgment of your
own boys, you fling yourself into a violent opposition to the war."(3)
Dr. Aydelotte's assumption that the scholarships were an alternative to the secret
society is quite untenable, for all the evidence indicates that the scholarships were but one
of several instruments through which the society would work. In 1894 Stead discussed
with Rhodes how the secret society would work and wrote about it after Rhodes's death
as follows: "We also discussed together various projects for propaganda, the formation of