1958-04-26 — Page 5

From Rags To Riches

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1958.

by JOHN COTTRELL How I got patricia

World's sun-

The Richest

a

Man

tanned

"... it is cetimated that the population of the United States (in 1880 will be 180 million and increasing at the approximate rate of 11,000 persone every day OT Over 4,000,000 6 pear... and therefore

-..

Patricia Lewis Lewis

(nearly)

AGAIN INTERVIEWING THE

by

THE young man had every reason to feel despondent. At that time, all tiso stories to There he was, a pounileas and obscure geologist in come out of Africa were hand-

led by the powerful Diamond THEY amaze. They the African bush country. For two years he had made Corporation, but Williamson re- dazzle. They sell...... fruitless search for diamonds. Now he fas living on fuscil to let them handle the

gentlemen with borrowed money and was desperately sick with malaria, marketing side of his business. these

The Corporation is said to have a statistic to counter Only one thing kept, th

offered up to £20,000,000 In a working under the blazing sun foot of a taobab-o curious tree bid to buy him out. Eventually every query, a speech to that day in March 1940-an which labks as if it had been Williamson and Sir Ed stifle any argument, and unshakable faith in his own planted

upside-down, for the penheimer, head of the diamond- Judgment. He was sure a great panches se small and the rouls selling syndicate, reached agree-a million-billion dollars shured to be fully enjoyed. Toriune ny somewhere beneath his feet, and ho meant to find it.

Fuitis was the most precious possession of Dr John Thobur Williamson, and that day it was to change Him-literally, in a Bosh-into the richest man in the world,

The Bush came from, a.dia- mond. It was the first to be found in territory which, in a few months, was to be yielding each day enough to keep a man in comfort for five years.

Williamson, a brilliant geolo- gist, believed people were look- ing for diamonds in the wrong places. He threw up a safe job, worth £1,000 a year and a pension, to prove 11.

enormous.

7

Williamson was digging in a desultory fashion when the native bay who was with him gave a shout. Ile had seen some thing gleaming.

His first diamond

ment.

to dissolve all your Until he died in January, doubts. 1938, Williamson was the sole

And they frighten. director of Williamson Diamonds

id His concession covered I am frightened-having over 3,000 Deres and, where a just spent an evening in

3,500 Africans,

His company's

"I have been-Âwice." "Do you believe fi marrlåge?” "om curiously enough,

"How do you mean?" "I love beauty-and beautiful things. But beauty must be

mantle."

Gardenias

a

man's

rich enthusiasm

THE MAN

brillance of this revolutionary scheme.

-Pago: 541

"Plain, ordinary / water." "Is there

money in plain, ordinary water???!,

"Moret We propose to builds an essential commodity, port it never, zoos out of style and

a two-acre helicopter

adjacent to every important the demand is always there. shrine there is. It'll be like a That's the sart of business to be bus service."

This was not supposed to be

funny.

In-an essential business."

"Is-tourism' essential?".

well let's say Europe is essential to American tourists."

Puckering his near-side brow again, L. Edgár D. knocked back his soda water with romuntia abandon.

Mr Detwiler looked as if he were remembering how fr- responsibly unresponsivo the bulk of Brilons had been when He announced, la the spring of I thought it time to make a 1957. * Plati to build, an sterling Bas-long before the £8,000,000 World Contro for dollar sunshine really tanned Protestant religions at Canter-me.

!

bury,

few years before he worked Mayfair with L Edgar, THE grey eyes softened to single-handed, he employed Detwiler, the New York flat, and the mouth relaxed

a fraction. Anancler-because however

What L. Edgar D. looks like question

"There's a hotel in Mexico this Mr workers are you I was Willlunson's first diu- well paid, enjoy good living ac-Statistics of 1958, and most with a view of snow-capped mond-and It come from a commodation and have their other years you care to early the swimming-pool below travellers will have great pros- mountains and every morning staritial volume of American "pipe" which is eight times own hospital. The camp also

filled with perity because tourist money is tiian any other in the has a police force-to thwart mention, he jumps you with your window

gertenias, and you wake to the spent over a wide area and on ony attempts at diamond smug-n 64,000-dollar answer:

scent of gardenias and ghing.

the many different. sight of sun-blushed snow."

richer world.

WAR

Williamson's reaction typleal, "I knew diamonds must be there." he said. "The geology was just right."

E. Edgar D., as they might say, With his dark good looks and "back home," is a Man with a his diamonds, it is not surpris- Mission. Ho belleves avid ing that Williamson received as Amorlean tourism can solve many as 500 letters in one day Europe's dollar problem. And Williamson never bothered to from women proposing marri- he means the Little People- Africa was the world's richest start on the main pipe.

Henge. source of diamonds.

They lay unearthed

But the Doctor of Philoso- "the bicycle trade as opposed to the diamonds from phy In "pipes" of volcanie material. the surface roll with the help spurned most

shy and introspective, to the Cadillac class." One of these pipes was the of bulldozers,

of the luxuries Good, living. source of the famous Kimberley

money could buy.

• 'Born' in Quebec, zaine.

Canada, in the company of the world's most February 1907, John Thoburn beautiful women, did not seem Williamson, belleving there wiliamson was studious lol. to interest hlm. were bigger and better sources is father. u lumberman, was of Blamander further north, set the son of an 'Irish Immigrant. clf for Tanganyika,

His study it was perhaps the Irish

of Innd formations In the stubbornness in him which help- vicinity of the Valley of ed John to keep going in Africo Shinyanga convinced him that when most people would have there existed in the area, a vein admitted defeat. of diamonds worth millions.

British government surveyors

John's father skimped and anvel to give his son the sort

Avoided people

"That's very romantic. What else do you like to do?"

"I like to put down the top my black-and-white Cadil-

Jue convertible--Il'a' three feet longer than a Rolls-and just drive drive and drive for days,”

"But we're not all that com- mercial in Europe."

Sunshine

MR DETWILER puckered up 11 his near-side forehead- this has more lines and rob viously stems from the Dutch skle of his family.

tourist

-

"Britain always misses the bout "I'm afraid," ho said sadly.

on the vital, new Ideas.".

"But, Mr Detwiler, have your financial Interests always bech bulit around tourism?”

L. Edgar D. stuffed his gloves into the breast-pocket of hla top-coat. "I léirned," he said, with measured emphasis, "the hard way. Through iny terrible, burning ambition I found it's a whole lot easier to do the big thing than it is to do the smali thing.

"The rich," he says, "pre get ting poorer and the poor are

"Do you stop?" getting richer. Every American wants to come back to the land

"Oh, sure! Every time I see

"For a long time I earned of his fathers and, when you something of Interest I stop-

100,000 dollars (nearly £30,000) realiso there are more than

the "Miss Lewis, in Europe. "You particularly

a week and became a national 38,000,000 people of Portuguese,

can dollag is like sunshine to you figure in high finance. Then, in Italian, French, and Spanish have something here they

never duplicate in America. people. We-that is the Ameri- the 1928 alump, I loat 20,000,000 descent in the United States...

Project dollars (ralfier more than

recluse.

His vast fortune made him a three times as many people of And I mean your culture, your can-European Travel

history and tradition, your old Inc-con take all your old £7,000,000). He avoided, meeting Irish descent as there are in houses, castles, cathedrals, and slately homes that are a drog "But I bounced back. I will

Ireland

Scan-

The .. and more

en the market and turn them never admit I'm beaten. people whenever he could,

ancient shrines. refused to talk to reporters,

dinavians."

next time I was in the water "These are Europe's biggest into motels."

business." In a commercial asset. You see, the The statistics Although he could have re.

"Heavy water?"

He

came

He paused, allowing my slow

who had been over the,territory of education he himself had thred a fantastically rich man, downpour until Mr Detwiler country that can obtain a - British brain 10 register the full

with a fine tooth comb, laughed at him. The area was, they re- porled, "valuriess from Julnerological point of view."

Confident he was right

never had. The boy repaki him. Williamson spent every moment by working hard at the Mc- he could in his office in Mwadui, #Donald High School, and win-

ning place at McGill Univer- Tnganyika, guarded by h zity, where he took the degrees The only signs of his immense notherly, middle-aged secretary. of Master of Selence and Bachelor of Arts,

wealth were an expensive radio, tuned all day to any station in the world that was broadcasting classical music, and his private

iteraft.

had no one original lett whole of the great Forty-Eight but the North American Indian;

an

drowbridge when you are with Now you have to pull up the an L. Edgar D. You must shut your eare-to-the-talk-of Trans- Geology, whe young William-

Atlantic linere carrying 8,000 son's whole life. ite lectured on

passengers a trip ("that's the world, nod

estimated milion a year') in a lo Newfoundland,

shorter Ume-("about Despite the vigilance of ht at small outlay (a mere...") the government hodesia und East Africa to

the formation of the police force, he regularly lost a... and close your eyes to the "experts" and bought the study

militon pounds-worth of dia cold, compelling gaze. mineral and diamond concessions earth

monds a year to thisves. to nearly 2,000 acres.

Williamson, confdent he want it over right and they were wrong, travelled Ignored

Africn captured Williamson's From his savings, he had Imagination. The vast, untamed There, Frough-left-over-to-keep-himsalt countryside sulted him.

for a year and to pay for native he was free to go lils own way labour to help in his search, A without being cramped by the year should be long enough to endless social found. prave him right, he told himself.

But

In

the year passerl, Europe, Hitler Invaded Poland world and started the second war. In Africa. Williamson was Bitll looking in vain for the tell- talo glitter of diamonds..

Another degree

No one can accurately com- ute his wealth, since I waB But the irgely unexploited-

diamonds from his output of -concession line-been put between

£1,000,000 and £10,000,000

year,

What did the man who was Sud to be the richest man in the Working in the famous de world do with his wealth?

Williamson spent Ever mines,

Attack

You

THEN, maybe, you can get on

the same wavelength, also can attack.

Take a look at the dark suit (safe), the boldly patterned e (brave), the lack or jewellery (tasteful), the grey hair (dis- tinguished), the gestures

the expression (modest), and (immodest).

his spare time' bent over his Apart from donating £50,000 books while his fellow-workers to a college in Uganda for All he had at the end of his tramped off to the nearest town African higher education-a sum year's work were malaria, a in search of pleasure, Not con- which must have been like petty gave Eleyele, a tent, and a sleeping- tent with his academic successes, cash to him-Williamson

Then you on ank yourself it. bag and, of course, the diamond he studied to become a Doctor away two of his finest diamonds,

this tycoon of tourism, this mon 'coffeessions to 2,000 acres, of Philosophy, and added that

One worth between £400,000] who mado Miami ++ holiday. which did not look like yielding degree to the two he had al».

Prd 500,000 was presented to makers' Mecca really exists out- uny diamonda.

ready won.

the Queen on the occasion of her side of banks and boardrooma- marriage in 1947. The other-computations, and calculations. set in the form of a £15,000 breech with 250 smaller stones was given, in 1957, to Princes Morgurel.

Then a Hindu lawyer, Mr Working in other nunes, he I. G. Chopra, come on the scene. was saving every spare cent with Ile lent Williamson enough to one idea in mind. He wanted continue work for another year. enough anoncy to be able to Later he became Willanson's prove that he was right and ail legal adviser, flew all over the the other geologists were wrong world will him, and was one of about the diamond-bearing rocks his closest friends, owning a 10 of Afric per cent intérest in Willamson's mine.

་

That day in March 1940 accm- el like all the others. William Lon's party had camped at the

But the man who could have anything money can buy tucked that most precious gift of all- Having found his diamonda, good health. He died at the Williamson left them where they age of 50 of threat cancer and were for several years while he was buried hear the boabab tree his first resolved a dispute with the where he found

diamoral. Diamond Corporation,

"Cigarette Mr Detwiler?"

"Thank you, but I don't smoke,"

"Can I freshen up your drink?"

Thank you, but it's only soda water."

"Are you married, Mr. Det. wiler?"

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