James Rochfort Maguire

James Rochfort Maguire CBE (4 October 1855 – 18 April 1925) was a British imperialist and Irish Nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

He was a friend and associate of Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902), and was one of the three men who signed the original concession on which was based the British South Africa Company, of which he was president in 1923–25.

In 1888, Rhodes sent him with Charles Rudd and Francis Thompson to negotiate a concession of land and mineral rights in Matabeleland from Chief Lobengula at Bulawayo.

However, at the following general election in 1895, after the destruction of the second Home Rule Bill by the House of Lords in 1894, Maguire lost the seat to a fresh Anti-Parnellite candidate, by 403 votes.

[2] According to The Times, among dozens of friends and associates from his imperial career who attended his funeral on 24 April 1925, there was only one representative of the Irish nationalist movement, namely his former Parnellite colleague John O'Connor.