Jim B. Taylor

He followed a typical route to great wealth – diamonds in Kimberley, gold in Barberton and Pilgrim's Rest, and ending up on the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

He acted as intermediary between the Government and the mining industry, and was privy to many of the political machinations leading to the Jameson Raid and the Anglo-Boer War.

Taylor's father and brother moved to Du Toits Pan, later called Kimberley in 1870 when news of the diamond find spread, and the following year the family joined them, travelling from Cape Town on a mule wagon, a journey that took a month.

The increasing depth of the diggings coupled with the hard blue layers encountered in the kimberlite pipes, discouraged many miners from continuing.

His uncle Peter Hellet, a sibling of Taylor's mother, lived in Greytown and it was felt that he could offer the necessary substitute for parental care.

In 1879, having acquired a taste for exploration, Taylor joined Gus Fisher, a retired naval officer, on a journey to Spelonken in the Northern Transvaal.